Do you remember where you were?

It was a bright, beautiful sunny morning on Sept. 11, 2001. We lived in Connecticut then, two hours from Manhattan. I was watching the news as I did every morning, getting ready for work, when they announced the news that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers in New York.

At first, I think just about everyone thought it was a horrific accident. But as I watched the screen, the second plane hit the second tower, and the ground seemed to fall away under my feet. This was not an accident.

I drove to work with the radio on. NPR had nothing yet, they had not realized what was happening. Got to work and turned on the small black and white TV in the back room. People who came through at work were mostly dazed, in a bit of disbelief. A few were alarmed, believed the country was under attack and more was coming. And none of us could be sure what might happen next. We were glued to that television the rest of the day, and the images that just kept coming are still every bit as vivid as they were then.

I worried they would call my husband, a police chief in Connecticut, for help. I worried they would call my brother-in-law, a firefighter in Connecticut, for help. I worried that friends in the city had been impacted. I learned a former boss and friend lost a brother in Tower 1. We were told, eventually, that United Flight 93 had crashed in Pennsylvania likely because passengers had realized what was happening and had fought back, keeping the plane from hitting its likely target of the U.S. Capitol building.

The images from the Pentagon showed the stark outline of the plane’s body and wing as it struck the building. Images from New York showed people watching as the towers collapsed, sheer shock and disbelief on their faces. I watched the dust cloud envelope everyone and everything on the street as the buildings gave way.

If I stop for just a moment and think, I am right back in that day, in those moments, and feeling not just the fear but the sadness and the worry. Sept. 11, 2001, is a significant puzzle piece in the picture of our history. And yet.

I heard something heartbreaking this week. Apparently our younger generation does not know what 9/11 is.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think we need to scare our children. But I do think our history is essential, and should not be forgotten.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” said writer and philosopher George Santayana, and he was right. If we do not grasp the lessons our past has taught us, how can we progress?

Sept. 11, 2001, was the worst terrorist attack on American soil, and yet we seem to struggle to talk about it. But let’s compare it to the other attack on America here at home — Pearl Harbor.

On Dec. 7, 1941, planes from the Japanese navy attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor. That attack eventually led to the United States joining World War II and to the defeat of Axis Powers. The attack on Pearl Harbor killed 2,403 Americans and another 1,178 were wounded. And we talk about Pearl Harbor day in our history classes and in general consistently, if not as frequently as we should.

Just shy of 60 years later, four planes piloted by terrorists slammed into the World Trade Centers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington and a field in Pennsylvania that was likely meant to be the nation’s Capitol building in Washington. In those attacks, 2,977 people from all across the world died, and to this day, first responders who spent days upon days at the scene are still dying from effects of the rubble and debris from those attacks. That sparked a war against terrorism, but it is also known that some of the information used to justify the U.S. actions were not accurate. Allegations of weapons of mass destruction were never verified. But the actions and intentions of the 14 terrorists piloting those planes were very clear.

It was not a perfect reaction. Nothing ever is. But we have tried, and continue to try, to fend off attacks on our country, to protect ourselves. But we seem resistant to talk about that day.

Why would we not tell our children about the day people attacked this country for who we are, what we represent, and that it makes it all the more important to maintain and protect who and what we are?

We knew, both in 1941 and in 2001 that we were being attacked by people who wanted to change us, who wanted to take away the freedoms that we fought for, both when we gained our independence from England and when we took up arms against one another to resolve some differences. This is our country, that we have cried over, bled for, died for and are committed to enough that we would do all those things again when challenged.

More importantly, many of the people who died on Sept. 11 were not soldiers. They were people going to work, doing their jobs, living their everyday lives. A plane smashes into their office building and everything changes. Even more incredible, some everyday people on a plane realize their vehicle is about to be used as a weapon and they sacrifice their lives to stop it from happening.

I know there are those on the fringes out there who try to claim 9/11 did not actually happen, but that is nonsense. The families and friends of those who died put that to rest. Others try to say it was a “government job” but that doesn’t make any sense. People in other countries have been trying to change America since the country was born. And they are still trying to. So knowing our history, in full, is essential in making sure we are as prepared as we can be.

History is not always pretty or charming. Sometimes it is dirty, ugly, dangerous, challenging and just plain scary. But we have to talk about it.

And while we’re at it, we should offer a word of thanks to all who ran to those scenes to help, to all those who saw the danger and went anyway. Let us offer a small word of prayer or comfort for those who lost someone that day.

Sept. 11, 2001 changed me. It changed many people I know. We remember it well. And we’ll share our memories, as we should. And so should you.

May we hold on to the words of that day: Never forget.

Elisabeth Strillacci covers crime, courts, Spencer, East Spencer and Kannapolis for the Salisbury Post.