Air Force Captain Hanna Born was just shy of her 3rd birthday when American Airlines Flight 77 was flown into the Pentagon by Islamic terrorists on the morning of September 11, 2001. She and her sister, Heather Born, who was just a baby, were in the Pentagon’s day care center. It was located in a separate building on the campus, just across from where the plane hit, killing 184 people.

Despite the fact she was a toddler that day, Hanna Born remembers. As a child, she drew pictures of the plane crashing into the building. At a new day care facility, she panicked during fire drills.

“I have a couple of moments of very, very vivid sensory overload from that day,” she says. “It obviously made an impact on me as a young child.”

One way she recovered from that impact was to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Dana Born, Hanna’s mother, was a senior Air Force officer working at Bolling Air Force Base on 9/11. Before retiring, Dana Born would reach the rank of brigadier general and serve as dean of the faculty at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado, overseeing the instruction of thousands of cadets.

For her part, Hanna Born shows the same knack for instruction her mother clearly did. Hanna Born trains other Air Force pilots to fly helicopters.

Still, over the years, as her memories of 9/11 faded, something continued to bother Hanna Born. “We made a promise to never forget, and it doesn’t seem we’re upholding it right now,” she says. “It’s not spoken about with the same reverence that it used to be.”

That nagging thought led her to take action. On September 11, 2025, she started running toward a goal of reaching 2,977 miles, 1 mile for each innocent person who was killed on 9/11. As she runs each mile, she repeats the name of one victim for whom she is dedicating that segment.

She plans to keep it up over the next two years. She says the project has helped her get to know the family members of those killed “and learn a lot about them.”

“The community that’s being built around this has been one of the most meaningful things to come out of it,” she says.

Just after 10 a.m. on September 11, 2001, United Airlines Flight 93, bound for San Francisco from New Jersey and traveling at 563 miles per hour, crashed into a field near Shanksville, in western Pennsylvania. All 33 passengers, seven crew members and four Islamic hijackers were killed. The heroic passengers and crew died while diverting the plane from the hijackers’ target in Washington.

Terry Shaffer was Shanksville’s fire chief and one of the first responders to what he calls the “horrific scene.”

“My brain can’t forget what my eyes have seen,” he told Firerescue1, an online resource for firefighters. He was trying to think less of the destruction and more of other parts of that day. “I sometimes forget how moved and emotional it was to come home and be with my family that night,” he said. “I need to remember that more.”

Terry’s son, Adam Shaffer, was away at Pennsylvania State University as a freshman. Shaffer remembers his first trip back home after 9/11. He saw roadside memorials that Somerset County residents had created to honor the victims. (The crash site, behind police barriers due to an investigation, was inaccessible to neighbors and visitors who wanted to place flowers.)

Shaffer began coming home from college more often, spending weekends volunteering with the National Park Service at the site where a more permanent Flight 93 memorial was taking shape. Over the next few years, while completing his degree, he was able to move from volunteer to intern for the memorial project. After graduating, he became a park ranger at the memorial, which opened in 2015.

Today, Shaffer is still a member of the National Park Service and holds the title of chief of interpretation and education at the permanent Flight 93 National Memorial. While visitor numbers vary, they often top 300,000 per year. Shaffer and other National Park Service staff and volunteers honor the Flight 93 passengers and crew by making sure their stories are known to younger generations of visitors.

Shaffer says the 40 heroic passengers and crew members were wonderful people whom most of us never had the opportunity to meet. He — and other rangers who guide visitors at the memorial — have met many of the family members of those listed on the Flight 93 manifest. The rangers draw special inspiration from these visitors.

“I think everyone who puts on the uniform does it to honor the Flight 93 passengers and crew … and their loved ones,” he says.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Robert “Bob” Beckwith was enjoying the quiet life of a retiree on Long Island, New York, looking in on one of his grandchildren who had been ill. Beckwith had retired seven years earlier, after more than 30 years of service with the New York City Fire Department (FDNY).

But Beckwith was affected by the attacks that day on the twin towers of the World Trade Center — when commercial airlines, hijacked by terrorists, deliberately crashed into the north tower at 8:46 a.m. and the south tower at 9:03 a.m. After seeing hours of nonstop television coverage, by September 14, the 69-year-old felt compelled to pull on his old uniform and report to ground zero to join the search for survivors.

Dressed for rescue work, the retired firefighter talked his way onto the site, assuring police officers and National Guard members that he was on duty.

During the hours Beckwith spent searching for survivors, he worked with a crew that unearthed a crushed, burnt FDNY fire truck.

Later the same day, anticipating a visit by then-President George W. Bush to ground zero, Beckwith climbed up onto the crushed fire truck to get a better vantage point from which to see the president speak.

Bush detoured from the mics, grabbed a bullhorn and joined Beckwith atop the truck. With news photographers clicking away, Beckwith found himself suddenly standing shoulder to shoulder with the president in a scene that would soon become an iconic photo.

“The nation sends its love and compassion to everybody who is here. Thank you for your hard work. … for making the nation proud,” Bush told the firefighters. 

Beckwith’s image quickly became a part of history, a symbol of American resilience.

Among the television viewers watching the president were members of Beckwith’s union. They saw him too, and knew as a retiree he should not have been there. One called him that evening and expressed concern about his age.

Beckwith’s grandson, Matthew Beckwith, confirms a press report that says the union rep was blunt, saying to his grandfather, “Don’t come back to the site. You’re too old, and we don’t want to have to pick you up.”

But the same official gave Beckwith a suggestion: If his dress uniform still fit, why not put that on and attend some of the funerals of firefighters who had died while trying to rescue others? In the New York attacks, 2,753 innocent people lost their lives. The FDNY suffered 343 fatalities, the largest loss of life of any emergency response in U.S. history.

Beckwith took up the idea and began attending as many funerals as he could, sometimes three a day.

Throughout his retirement years, Beckwith remained a steadfast activist for his fellow firefighters. Through speaking events, he raised significant funds for the New York Firefighters Burn Center Foundation.

Beckwith died a couple years ago, at age 91. A Time magazine cover that features the famous photo of him and a president standing on a fire truck at ground zero is on display at his home, where his wife lives and his adult children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren visit.

His grandson Matthew Beckwith was too young in 2001 to remember the 9/11 attacks, but grew up hearing stories about his grandfather.

In fact, Matthew Beckwith and his schoolmates encountered Bob Beckwith’s photo in school textbooks.

“People asked, ‘What was his rank? Was he a chief?’” Matthew says.

“No, just a regular firefighter,” he would answer with pride. “If I could do half as much as he did in his life, then I’ll consider my life successful.”