The responsibility to remember Sept. 11

September 11, 2001, began as a beautiful, clear blue-sky morning in New York City.

I was working in Midtown Manhattan when the calls started coming in. A broker said a plane had hit the World Trade Center. We turned on the television and watched the second plane hit the South Tower.

Everything stopped.

And then came the sirens.

We watched as the towers began to fall.

When work finally ended, I walked home from Midtown to Alphabet City. Along the way, I passed a man covered in dust.

From my apartment, I had always been able to see the Twin Towers.

They were gone.

That was when it became real for me.

In the days that followed, dust from the destruction settled on my windowsills.

I lost friends.

One was the sister of a friend, and a friend of mine as well. I stood in line at Kinko's to print flyers with her picture and posted them around the city, hoping someone had seen her.

Those photographs were everywhere. Missing husbands and wives. Sons and daughters. Brothers and sisters. Friends and coworkers.

There were vigils in the parks.

And there was the quiet.

New York City never seemed to stop moving or making noise. Now it was eerily still.

The quiet was deafening.

But I also remember what happened next.

We came together.

I remember the iconic image of firefighters raising the American flag above the rubble at Ground Zero.

We were grieving. We were angry. We felt powerless.

But that flag was still there.

A few days later, I watched President George W. Bush at Ground Zero with firefighters and rescue workers. Someone in the crowd yelled that they couldn't hear him.

His response has stayed with me ever since: “I can hear you. I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you.”

I remember watching that and feeling something change.

There was a sense of resolve.

Weeks later, I remember watching Game 3 of the World Series on television.

President Bush walked onto the field at Yankee Stadium wearing an FDNY pullover. The crowd roared. He went to the mound and threw a strike.

Then came the chants of “USA! USA! USA!”

I remember the pride I felt watching it.

It wasn't about politics.

It was about our country.

And for some Americans, that resolve became something much more.

Young men and women raised their hands and volunteered to serve our country.

For more than two decades, Americans served in the wars that followed Sept. 11. Their families sacrificed alongside them. Some came home carrying wounds we could see and others we could not.

Some never came home.

Their sacrifice is part of the Sept. 11 story too.

Twenty-five years later, I find myself thinking about something I didn't think much about back then.

For millions of Americans, Sept. 11 is not a memory.

It is history.

I think about my own father.

He was born in 1938. He was only a child during World War II. He learned much of that history from the generation before him and later passed those stories and lessons on to me.

I wasn't there for Pearl Harbor. I didn't experience World War II. But I learned about it. I read the history. I watched the movies and documentaries. Most importantly, I listened.

That is how a nation remembers.

One generation tells the next.

Now that responsibility is becoming ours.

My children weren't there on Sept. 11. They cannot remember the sirens, the missing-person flyers, the vigils or the silence in New York City.

Unless we tell them.

They can study the history. They can watch the footage. They can visit the memorial.

But those of us who lived through it can give them something those things cannot.

We can tell them what it felt like.

This year makes that responsibility feel even more important to me.

America is celebrating its 250th anniversary. At the same time, we are marking 25 years since Sept. 11.

That has made me think a lot about what it means to be an American.

Two hundred and fifty years ago, the Declaration of Independence laid out the ideals on which this country was built: that we are created equal, with rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

We haven't always lived up to those ideals.

There are hard truths in our history. There are times when America has gotten it wrong. We should teach those chapters too.

But I still believe this is the greatest country in the world.

And part of loving this country is wanting it to be better.

Sept. 11 taught my generation many things. One of them was how much we needed one another.

We didn't all agree then, and we don't all agree now.

That's America.

We are free to debate. We are free to challenge our government. We are free to protest. We are free to vote for people who see the world differently.

But freedom also comes with responsibility.

To our country.

To our communities.

And to one another.

We can disagree without hating one another.

We can recognize America's flaws without giving up on America.

And we can fight for what we believe without forgetting our respect for one another.

I think back to that flag being raised at Ground Zero.

It didn't make our differences disappear.

It reminded us that there was something bigger than those differences.

Here in Somers, Sept. 11 is not simply American history.

It is our history.

George Bishop.

Richard Klares.

Joseph Spor Jr.

Three members of our community who left home that morning and never returned.

Twenty-five years later, we still say their names.

And we have a responsibility to make sure the generations who come after us know their names too.

As a father, I think a lot about the country my children will inherit.

As parents, I think one of our greatest responsibilities is what we leave behind for them.

I don't want my children taught that America is perfect. It isn't.

I want them to know the truth about our history, the good and the bad.

But I also want them to understand what an extraordinary country they have inherited.

I want them to love it.

Love it enough to learn its history.

Love it enough to defend its freedoms.

Love it enough to question it when it falls short.

And love it enough to work to make it better.

So 25 years after Sept. 11, tell the next generation what happened.

Tell them about the people we lost.

Tell them about the first responders who ran toward danger. Tell them about the families, the volunteers and the young Americans who stepped forward to serve.

Tell them about the flags.

Tell them about the vigils.

Tell them about the silence.

And tell them how we came together.

“Never Forget” isn't only a promise to remember what happened on Sept. 11.

It is also a responsibility to pass its lessons on.

One generation tells the next.

Now it is our turn.

Robert Scorrano is the Somers Town Supervisor.