Texas Border Business
There are dates we mark on a calendar, and there are dates a nation holds in its heart.
September 11 is one of them.
This Friday marks 25 years since September 11, 2001. As that solemn anniversary approaches, Texas Border Business launches its annual special series, The Enduring Spirit of September 11, with five days of remembrance.
This year holds particular significance. A quarter-century has passed.
Twenty-five years can transform cities, families, and generations. Children grow into adults. Young adults become parents and grandparents. Memories that once felt immediate gradually become history.
But some things should not be surrendered to the passage of time.
The memory of September 11 belongs to them.
Beginning today and continuing through Friday, September 11, this series will not simply look backward. It will consider what remembrance means 25 years later and why the values demonstrated during one of America’s darkest periods still merit a place in our national consciousness.
We will remember courage.
We will remember service.
We will remember sacrifice.
And above all, we will remember people.
Behind every memorial, photograph, and name lies a human story—a family, a friendship, a workplace, a community, and a life that mattered.
That is why remembering September 11 should never become merely an annual obligation.
Remembrance is an act of respect.
It asks Americans who remember that time to preserve its lessons and those who came afterward to understand why September 11 still holds such an important place in the American experience.
The responsibility becomes greater as the years pass.
Young adults today were born years after September 11. Their understanding of that period comes from parents, grandparents, teachers, memorials, photographs, recordings, and the stories preserved by those who experienced it.
Eventually, firsthand memories become fewer. What remains is what one generation chooses to pass to the next.
That is where the words “Never Forget” acquire their greatest meaning.
They are more than a familiar expression associated with September 11. They represent a commitment—that lives will be remembered, courage honored, sacrifice acknowledged, and history will not disappear simply because those events grow more distant.
Over the next five days, Texas Border Business will commemorate the 25th anniversary from different perspectives, each examining a distinct aspect of September 11’s enduring legacy.
The journey begins not with statistics or a chronology of what happened that morning.
It begins with remembrance.
For 25 years later, before we examine how America changed, we must first remember what America promised:
We will never forget.
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