Twenty-five years ago today, our world changed forever on a quiet, clear September morning with the bluest of skies.
For those of us who lived through September 11, 2001, the memories remain vivid.
I was working in the US Senate at the time, attending a nearby eye doctor appointment, when I watched the second plane hit the Twin Towers. Instantaneously, we knew the world had changed forever.
With concerns about the Capitol being attacked, I found my way home on Capitol Hill, joined by twenty orphaned Congressional staff members. We watched the news in horror as the towers collapsed, the Pentagon burned and reports of Shanksville came in. It’s painful to recall those images and the fear we felt. But we must never forget.
The attacks took nearly 3,000 lives. They touched families and communities across the US and around the world. They also struck particularly close to home for our industry. The World Trade Center was home to hundreds of people who worked in the financial and futures markets. Many went to work that morning and never returned home.
In the hours and days after the attacks, the CFTC under the leadership of Jim Newsome set up a war room to account for every CFTC employee working in their New York World Trade Center office as well as coordinating recovery efforts for the New York markets and brokers. We saw exchanges and firms set aside their fiercely competitive instincts to work together, including Chicago rivals reaching out to their New York counterparts with offers of unconditional support. Across streets and across borders, colleagues and friends just helped each other in this time of national crisis and need.
And for a moment, this tragedy brought Americans and the world together in a way I have never experienced. I wish the younger generation could feel this power.
For me and many others, my life’s memories are forever divided between the years before 9/11 and those afterward. We lost our naivete about the wickedness that exists in the world. But I also hope that this unthinkable event fortified our determination to protect and defend the values we hold dear as a free society and to remember those who died for it.
We must continue to tell the story of September 11 and what it revealed about courage, service and our responsibility to take care of one another.
So, we pause today, 25 years later. We remember the colleagues and friends our industry lost and the families who were left behind whose names FIA memorialized 25 years ago. We remember the first responders who unflinchingly ran toward danger. And we remember the countless acts of courage and kindness that emerged from the devastation.
For these brave souls, we must never forget.
