Memorial Tribute to the Departed

Scenes from New York: A quarter-century ago today, Islamist militants hijacked airliners bound for the West Coast from Boston, Newark, and Dulles and steered them into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, resulting in the deaths of thousands in a single, devastating strike. A fourth jet, aiming at an unspecified destination likely near Washington, D.C., was thwarted when courageous passengers forced it into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, preventing further devastation.

In the years since, thousands more have fallen ill from conditions linked to the hazardous dust that lingered around Ground Zero, including many first responders. Dozens of stories have emerged about the everyday heroes who put others first, risking and giving their lives. Here are a few pieces renowned for their vivid treatment of that day and its enduring consequences:

“Fighting to Live as the Towers Died” from The New York Times.

A comprehensive chronicle of the morning’s events at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, from The Washington Post.

Lower Manhattan then and now, in photos, from The New York Times.

Perhaps a city forgets, from Vital City.

A tribute to Mychal Judge, the FDNY chaplain, from The Irish Times:

Judge embodied a blend of apparent contradictions. He defied a conventional priestly mold. Between 1971 and 1978, he wrestled with alcoholism and sought recovery through the help of Alcoholics Anonymous. He was gay—a detail known to only a close circle of friends. Judge processed his life experiences into a spiritual empathy that enabled him to reach out to the marginalized and the hurt when they needed it most.

He was a peacemaker. In 1986, when Detective Steven McDonald was shot in Central Park by a youth and left disabled, Judge offered prayers with the victim and later helped foster reconciliation between the two. Judge and Detective McDonald grew into lifelong friends, and they, along with others, visited various communities working through reconciliation, including Northern Ireland and Sarajevo.

The story of Rick Rescorla, a 9/11 hero: “There are certain men born into this world who are meant to die to set an example for the rest of the weak wretches surrounding us.”

The horrors of that day also shaped our politics for many years to come: “The political response to 9/11 was nearly instantaneous and unidirectional, always pointing to more power and money for the state, at whatever level deemed necessary,” writes Nick Gillespie:

As Ohio State political scientist John Mueller reminded people in the years following the 9/11 attacks, catastrophic events and social panics routinely give rise to laws and policies that long outlive the specific moments that inspire them. He noted that the Red Scare of the postwar era gave rise to loyalty oaths, incursions on civil liberties, and other policies that persisted for years or even decades after anyone seriously feared communist subversion. After 9/11, he wrote, the issue wasn’t simply about government surveillance, but spending patterns on things like the new Department of Homeland Security that could be locked in. Osama bin Laden had declared in 2004 that his goal was ‘bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy’ by spending large amounts on all manner of activities and services dubiously related to safety. …

If eternal funding for, say, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) seems locked in despite no clear evidence of its efficacy, it’s also true that both politicians and voters remain happy to keep on believing that trading freedom for safety is a good idea. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found that, compared to 2013, more Americans fear domestic terrorism (33 percent) than foreign terrorism (20 percent). When it comes to wars fought in the name of ending or suppressing terrorism, just 21 percent agree Afghanistan and Iraq were worth it, and just 25 percent think that Iran is worth it. Yet two-thirds of respondents agree that ‘airport security disruptions are worth it because they make flying safer’ and prefer government agencies to private providers.

“As the events of the following years unfurled—the toppling of the Taliban, the invasion of Iraq, the internments at Guantánamo Bay, the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, and so on—it became tempting to blame it all on that singular day of pain and horror,” writes Emma Ashford for Reason (in “9/11 Turbocharged America’s Worst Foreign Policy Impulses—but Didn’t Change Its Direction”).

“But as we approach the 25th anniversary of the attacks, it’s important to understand the limits of that story. The events of 9/11 undoubtedly had a major impact on foreign policy. Yet this impact was less a change of direction and more an intensification of already existing trends. The 9/11 attacks would create a permissive political and psychological environment for a particular foreign policy vision, but it did not set America on the path to liberal interventionism and forever war all by itself. For that, we must look back into the 1990s.”

For more on the long political shadow of 9/11, check out the August/September issue of Reason. And may God rest the souls of those who perished.

QUICK HITS

• Rest in peace, Andrew Wimsatt: He was a superfan of Reason and The Fifth Column, as well as Greg Gutfeld and Kat Timpf, and a devoted archivist, clipping people’s media appearances (including mine) and now-defunct programs (Red Eye) to ensure they endure. He was a genuinely kind person, and perhaps what I admired most was how attentively he cared for his mother. The news of his death—stabbing in broad daylight by a seemingly unknown assailant in a Round Rock, Texas park after visiting his mother in a nursing home on Labor Day—cuts deeply. Benedict Ogbodiegwu Jr. has been charged with Wimsatt’s murder. “Jail records show Ogbodiegwu was arrested twice earlier this year,” reports KXAN. “He was arrested in January on a theft charge. In June, he was arrested and charged with failing to identify or providing false identification information.” Many readers are shaken by such a gentle man meeting with such brutality. Please join me in praying for his family and for justice to be served. Here are a few remembrances from around the web to help you understand who he was.
• “On the convention stage Thursday night, as [Vice President J.D.] Vance delivered the keynote, the vice president received attention and praise from the crowd that is typically reserved for Trump,” reports The Washington Post. Audience members shouted ‘JD!’ as he approached the lectern. Midway through his remarks, a ’48’ chant broke out, alluding to the notion that Vance could become the 48th president in 2028. Vance accepted the moment with a smile, and similar warm interruptions continued as he spoke about the nation he hopes to raise his children in. He called for unity within the Republican ranks while criticizing Democrats as the ‘party of hatred.’
• “Consumer prices overall have risen more than 30 percent since the start of 2019,” notes The New York Times in an interactive piece tracing 15 years of price movements. “That’s about two-and-a-half times the increase seen from 2012 to 2019.”
• CPI report:

BREAKING: August CPI inflation comes in at 3.4%, in-line with expectations of 3.4%

Core CPI inflation falls to 2.4%, also in-line with expectations of 2.4%.

Month-over-month CPI inflation rose +0.4%, the biggest increase since May 2026.

Treasury yields are rising on the news.

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) September 11, 2026