We will never forget the lives that were lost on Sept. 11, 2001

"I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people – and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon." President George W. Bush came to thank the first responders searching the World Trade Center’s remains just days after the attack on September 11, 2001. These words were his spontaneous response when someone yelled that they could not hear him from the crowd.

Amazingly, the students in our schools today never heard those words because they were born after the 9/11 attacks on America. Instead of living through it, all of the students from kindergarten to high school, plus many of the freshmen and sophomores in college who are 19 or younger learned about it from other people. For them, learning about 9/11 is like me learning about the attacks on Pearl Harbor.

Now, more than ever, we must never forget the lives lost. We must never forget the heroic actions of so many who ran into the danger. And it is important to remember who did this to us—and why they did it.

We lost nearly 3,000 innocent lives on September 11, 2001. Hijacked commercial airplanes hit the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Another hit the side of the Pentagon outside of Washington, D.C. And a final plane, believed to be headed towards the White House, the U.S. Capitol, or another major site, crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

We will never forget.