This Year, I Remembered it was 9/11

I’m writing this article on 11 September, 2025, as a follow up to one I wrote around the same time last year. 11 September 2024 was significant to me because on that date last year I did something I never thought could possibly happen: I forgot it was September 11th.

As I wrote at the time, the 9/11 terrorist attacks were the defining event of my professional military career. It was hard not to remember 9/11. Our joint operations center (JOC) in Afghanistan had a picture of “the falling man,” one of many people who plummeted to their deaths that day, prominently displayed at the entryway as a reminder of why we were there. But over time, even the sharpest memories fade. Even “never forget” becomes hazy. Life moves on, and sometimes our recollections move with it.

I left the Special Operations Forces (SOF) community after assignments to three separate SOF units and a total of seven deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. I subsequently taught at West Point, twice, and served an overseas tour in Hawaii. In retirement, I got hired back on at West Point as a civilian. And yet, last year, I forgot it was 9/11.

This year, despite the many distractions of life, despite the assassination of prominent commentator Charlie Kirk, I remembered. I remembered 9/11. I remembered Iraq, and Afghanistan, and the stories of bravery in places I’ve never been. I remembered Irish &Yardbird, and thought of the many who died in uniform overseas, whose names and faces I do not know. I made sure to remember. As I said in my article last year, memory is important:

I think it’s OK–no, it’s important--to not memory-hole trauma, whether it’s personal, national, or world-wide. Forgetting is one of the reasons “never again” keeps happening.

So this September 11, I remembered. I honored the weight of it again. I allowed the sadness, the questions, the anger, the loss—even the hope—to exist alongside each other. Because to remember is to prevent forgetting. Because when we forget, even just a little, we risk repeating, or ignoring, the things that hurt us and shaped us.

24 years later I remembered. And I hope more of us will, too.

---

Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Charles Faint served 27 years in the US Army, including seven combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with various Special Operations Forces units.  He also completed operational assignments in Egypt, the Philippines, and the Republic of Korea. He is the owner of The Havok Journal and the executive director of the Second Mission Foundation.  The views expressed in this article are his own and do not reflect those of the US Government or any other person or entity.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.