“This is a day we try not to remember but have to remember,” said Dan Williams, commander of the American Legion Eric V. Dickson Post 1980, as he began Saturday’s Woodland Park ceremony commemorating the 20th anniversary of Sept. 11. “First responders, this is your day; for anybody here who lost friends and relatives on 9/11, we grieve with you today.”

Williams, a combat veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq, is right. We have to remember.

There’s no way I can block out that sunny September morning 20 years ago when the previously unthinkable happened. No way to unsee the footage of the crashing and doomed towers of the World Trade Center as they fell, and the wreckage of the Pentagon, and a burning field in western Pennsylvania where a group of passengers helped divert a hijacked commercial airliner.

I didn’t intend to write about Sept. 11 for the second week in a row because it’s so painful to remember, but I am writing this on the anniversary, and the attacks of Sept. 11 are top of mind.

I wonder what happened to our collective urge to step in and help, to DO something, after the attacks that claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people, and injured thousands more.

I read something that brought back all the emotions from that day. It was an account of the call to a GTE Airphone operator placed by 32-yearold New Jersey resident Todd Beamer, who was among the passengers of United Flight 93 who died when it crashed in Shanksville, Pa. on Sept. 11, 2001.

Portions of Beamer’s and all other calls made from United Flight 93 are preserved by the National Park Service at nps.gov/flni/learn/historyculture/ phone-calls-from-flight-93.htm.

Here’s an excerpt:

“Passenger Todd Beamer contacted GTE Airfone operators. His connection lasted for the remainder of the flight. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, Beamer’s call provided the following information:

‘the flight had been hijacked, and the captain and first officer were lying on the floor of the first-class cabin and were injured or possibly dead. One of the hijackers had a red belt with a bomb strapped to his waist. Two of the hijackers, who had knives, entered the cockpit and closed the door behind them. At some point the hijackers closed the curtain between first class and coach so that passengers could not see into first class; those in the rear of the plane were not being monitored by the hijackers. The plane was going up and down and had turned or changed direction. He and some other passengers were planning something and he was going to put the phone down.’”

The excerpt continues:

“Beamer asked if he could be connected with his wife, or if that was not possible, if a message could be passed to his wife telling her that he loved her.” The second GTE/Airfone operator said she could hear “screams, prayers, exclamations, and talk of subduing the highjackers...At approximately 9 am CST (10 am EST), Beamer said that the passengers were about to attack the highjackers.”

Beamer is the one who said the now famous phrase “Let’s Roll,” to a group of other passengers on that plane who decided to interfere with the hijackers’ plan to redirect the flight, possibly toward Washington, D.C.

Ordinary people are capable of doing extraordinary things.

Let us not forget the heroes of Sept. 11.