September 11: 25th Anniversary — When Ordinary People Stood Tall

Welcome to The Echo Valor Podcast with David Burnell, where we tell stories of courage, service, sacrifice, resilience, and the people who stand when circumstances demand more. I’m David Burnell, and today I want to talk about one of the defining days in American history—not just because of what was done to us, but because ordinary people chose to do one another good when everything around them suddenly changed.

Today is September 11, 2026. Twenty-five years ago today, America changed. Some dates in history become more than dates. They become dividing lines. Everything came before them, and everything came after. September 11, 2001, is one of those days.

For me, September 11 has always been personal in a way that goes beyond politics, war, and all the arguments that followed about what America should or should not have done. By September of 2001, my own military service was already behind me, but the lessons of service were not. Neither were the lessons I had learned about preparedness, responsibility, courage, and what happens to human beings when the world around them suddenly goes bad. I had already learned something September 11 would demonstrate on a scale almost impossible to comprehend: when the worst happens, titles suddenly matter less. Status matters less. Money matters less. Politics matters less. What becomes important is whether somebody is willing to help the person standing next to them.

September 11 reinforced that belief in me so strongly that it helped shape the direction of my life afterward. In the wake of the attacks, I founded the Urban Warfare Center. We trained police officers, federal agents, SWAT teams, military units, and men and women preparing to deploy into dangerous places. We built realistic force-on-force scenarios designed to expose people to pressure before they had to face it for real. The purpose was never to make somebody feel tough. It was preparation, because when something terrible happens, most of us do not magically rise in that instant and become the person we wish we were. We depend heavily upon the habits, character, preparation, judgment, and convictions we carried with us into the moment.

September 11 showed us that, but it also showed us something else. Sometimes ordinary people discover extraordinary courage when another human life depends upon them.

At 8:46 on that Tuesday morning, American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. At 9:03, United Airlines Flight 175 struck the S