A quarter of a century has passed since the horrific events of September 11th. As the years passed, people’s memories of that gruesome day have also faded. It seems that the potential for another 9/11 is not on Americans’ radar. For many young people, it is not even a memory, since many were born after the harrowing incident. To hope for a new beginning, people must remember and reflect on the past. Two prominent Fox News correspondents, Jon Scott and Eric Shawn, who reported live on the air that day, offer their unique perspectives.
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They both felt how surreal it’s been after twenty-five years since that horrific day. Scott notes, “It’s kind of unbelievable to me that it’s been that long. It seems sometimes like it was a couple of years ago, because the events of that day are so seared into my memory. It was a catastrophic day, and a horrific one, and those kinds of things tend to stick in your mind.”
While Eric Shawn literally had American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to hit the North Tower, fly over his head that morning. “The image and the sound will be forever seared in my memory. Everything, including the smell, that metallic smell, lingered for months. Being down there, we had such hope that survivors would be found.”
Jon Scott recalls thinking how sturdily the Twin Towers had been built. “I remembered that they had been built to withstand the impact of a 707, which was the largest airliner flying in the mid-1990s. When these two larger aircraft hit, I saw the flames, and I thought, well, ‘This is going to be a terrible death toll, and the firefighters will probably have to climb the stairs with lots and lots of hoses, and they’ll eventually put out the flames, and the World Trade Center won’t be habitable for a long time.’ But it never occurred to me that they would fall.”
Jon Scott notes, “Something like 20 or 25% of the nation wasn’t even alive back then. Which surprises me, given what’s happened to the birth rate in this country, but so many people don’t remember it or weren’t alive. We just don’t feel threatened, and tragically I think we’ve forgotten, in large part, the lessons of 9/11. Immediately after it happened, I think Americans were all on the same page, and we were very united as a country in wanting to find whoever did this and get our revenge or at least prevent another one of these from happening. But then, it all came apart within a year or two and political leaders started sniping at each other over one thing or another. I think that the victims in large part are forgotten.”
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Both Eric and Jon are adamant that Americans must recall how terrible that day was. Jon can never forget “the images of watching people who had the choice of burning to death, or inhaling toxins to the point where they wouldn’t be able to breathe. A choice between that or jumping, where so many of them ended up choosing to jump, because it was the less painful way to go. People should remember that kind of terrible choice was foisted on us by our enemies.”
Eric concurs and feels that Americans should remember “how it was an attack on the values of our nation, how it was an attack by radical Islamic terrorists against the Western world. That’s how I see it. And as Americans, I feel that we’re here to resist that and to stand up for the Democratic freedoms that we represent in our country. I think people have forgotten the threat that we faced, and the threat that we still do face.”
Those who wish to learn more about that horrific day can tune in to Fox News, which has a variety of shows honoring the 25th anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks with extensive multiplatform special programming.
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Image: Michael Foran