Twenty-Five Years Later: Remembering 9/11, Serving Our Communities, and Continuing to Ask Questions

By JM Talboo DebunkerBusters.blogspot.com

Twenty-five years after September 11, 2001, America is once again being asked to remember.

And I think we should.

But I also think remembering September 11 should mean more than simply watching the ceremonies, hearing the names read, and repeating the phrase “Never Forget.”

It should mean remembering the people who ran toward danger.

It should mean helping the communities we live in.

It should mean supporting firefighters, police officers, EMS workers and other first responders.

And it should mean continuing to educate ourselves about what happened that day — including the questions that remain controversial.

Remembering Through Service

September 11 is officially recognized not only as Patriot Day, but also as the September 11 National Day of Service and Remembrance.

That distinction matters.

The National Day of Service and Remembrance grew out of an effort involving families who lost loved ones on September 11. In 2009, it was formally established through the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, with AmeriCorps involved in coordinating service opportunities nationwide.

The 2026 25th-anniversary observance encourages Americans to honor the victims and heroes of 9/11 through community service.

I support that completely.

In fact, I've personally volunteered to become a firefighter in my own community.

If remembering 9/11 inspires somebody to become a firefighter, EMT, volunteer, mentor, or otherwise help his neighbors, that's a good thing.

There are also organizations asking people to donate, volunteer and support first responders. That's worthwhile.

One of the most interesting things I've seen this anniversary season is the number of people participating in memorial stair climbs and walks.

In Ohio, for example, participants have been retracing the equivalent of the 110-story climb associated with the World Trade Center towers. These events are meant as symbolic acts of remembrance and solidarity with the firefighters who climbed those towers on September 11.

I think that's a beautiful gesture.

But there is something important to remember about what those firefighters actually did.

They weren't simply walking up stairs.

They were climbing into an active disaster while carrying enormous amounts of equipment, operating in smoke, heat, darkness and confusion, and many were carrying rescue equipment and breathing apparatus.

The symbolic climbs help people appreciate the physical scale of what happened. But the reality was considerably harder.

And that brings me to something I've thought about for years.

What Did the Firefighters Believe They Were Walking Into?

Three hundred forty-three FDNY firefighters died on September 11.

I don't believe those men were knowingly sent into buildings that their commanders had determined were about to catastrophically collapse.

That's my opinion, but I think it's an important question.

If the fire department had known that the towers were imminently going to collapse in the manner they ultimately did, would it really have sent hundreds of firefighters upward into them?

I don't think so.

Firefighters are trained to assess structural danger. Their mission is to save people, not to commit suicide.

The official record actually shows something more complicated than a simple story in which everybody understood the buildings were about to fall. There was enormous confusion about what was happening, what information was available, and what warnings were reaching firefighters.

To me, that raises an additional question about the controlled-demolition hypothesis.

The South Tower, for example, visibly tilted before its descent and then appeared to straighten as the collapse progressed. To demolition advocates, the subsequent descent through the building's footprint and other aspects of the collapse sequence are among the observations they regard as requiring explanation.

I don't consider any single observation proof of controlled demolition.

I consider the collection of observations a reason to keep investigating.

And I think the same principle applies to the firefighters.

If the buildings were understood to be structurally doomed in the way they eventually failed, why did the rescue operation continue on such a massive scale?

That's a question worth asking.

Frank DeMartini and the Confidence in the Towers

Another example that has always struck me is Frank DeMartini.

DeMartini was a construction manager associated with the World Trade Center. Before September 11, he spoke about the towers' structural design using an analogy involving mosquito netting and a pencil: the exterior structural system could be punctured without necessarily compromising the integrity of the entire structure.

On September 11, DeMartini went back into the North Tower to help people.

He did not survive.

Whatever conclusion somebody ultimately reaches about the collapse mechanism, I think there is something profoundly important about remembering the mindset of people like DeMartini.

They believed they could go in and help.

The firefighters believed they could go in and help.

They were acting on the information and structural expectations available to them.

That's why I don't think their sacrifice should be reduced to a footnote in an argument about conspiracy theories.

Their actions are themselves part of the historical evidence we should be examining.

The Firefighter Testimony Wasn't Easy to Get

There is another part of this history that deserves more attention.

The FDNY collected extensive oral histories from firefighters, paramedics and EMTs after the attacks.

The New York Times requested those records.

The Fire Department resisted releasing them.

The Times ultimately went to court.

In 2005, the New York Court of Appeals ruled on the newspaper's request and ordered substantial disclosure of the oral histories, subject to protections for certain private material. The resulting public archive contained approximately 12,000 pages of firsthand accounts.

These weren't anonymous internet posts.

These were firsthand accounts from people who were actually there.

And once those accounts became available, researchers began examining them in detail.

Graeme MacQueen's paper “118 Witnesses: The Firefighters' Testimony to Explosions in the Twin Towers” examined first-responder accounts describing explosions and related phenomena. MacQueen argued that these accounts warranted serious investigation in considering the possibility that explosive events contributed to the collapses.

That doesn't mean the oral histories prove controlled demolition.

But it does mean that firsthand reports of explosions are part of the historical record.

And if we're telling people to educate themselves about September 11, why shouldn't those accounts be included?

What Happened at the Pentagon?

This is where I part company with some people who identify themselves as 9/11 Truth researchers.

Jimmy Dore recently interviewed Craig McKee in a segment arguing that a plane did not hit the Pentagon.

I don't agree with that conclusion.

In fact, there are researchers within the broader 9/11 Truth movement who have challenged the no-plane interpretation. Adam Taylor, a contributor to my own 9/11 Debunkers project, has written specifically against McKee's Pentagon argument.

That distinction is important to me.

I don't believe that questioning the official account means we have to accept every alternative theory that comes along.

Some alternative theories are better supported than others.

The Pentagon is still worth investigating.

Why was there so little publicly available clear video of the actual impact when the Pentagon is surrounded by surveillance cameras?

That's a legitimate question.

But there are at least two possible explanations for the limited public footage.

One possibility is that the limited footage supports the argument that something other than a Boeing 757 struck the building.

Another possibility is that additional footage existed but was not publicly released.

The existence of limited public footage doesn't, by itself, establish either conclusion.

And that's exactly why I think this subject deserves investigation rather than slogans.

There is also substantial firsthand evidence from people who responded to the Pentagon attack. Patrick Creed and Rick Newman documented the emergency response in their book Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11, drawing on accounts from firefighters and others who were there.

So if we're going to investigate the Pentagon, let's investigate all of the evidence — not just the evidence that supports the theory we walked in believing.

The Mineta Testimony and the Timeline Problem

Then there is Norman Mineta.

Mineta, the Secretary of Transportation on September 11, testified before the 9/11 Commission that he arrived at the Presidential Emergency Operations Center at approximately 9:20 a.m.

He described seeing Vice President Dick Cheney already there.

Mineta then described a young man repeatedly coming into the room and reporting that an aircraft was 50 miles away, then 30 miles away, and eventually 10 miles away.

At one point, according to Mineta's testimony, the young man asked Cheney:

“Do the orders still stand?”

Cheney replied that they did.

When Commissioner Timothy Roemer asked Mineta when this occurred, Mineta said it was approximately five or six minutes after his arrival — putting the exchange around 9:25 or 9:26.

Mineta himself said he inferred that the orders concerned shooting down Flight 77. His testimony does not independently establish what the orders actually were.

But here's where things get interesting.

Mineta's account also raises a timeline problem.

The 9/11 Commission's final report placed Cheney's arrival in the PEOC later than Mineta's account would indicate.

Other accounts have also been cited in support of an earlier Cheney arrival.

So even if somebody completely rejects the stand-down interpretation, there is still a legitimate historical question:

Why are there conflicting accounts about when Cheney entered the PEOC, and what exactly was happening there while Flight 77 was approaching Washington?

And another question follows naturally:

If the orders Mineta heard were shoot-down orders, why wasn't Flight 77 intercepted?

If they weren't shoot-down orders, what were they?

Those are questions.

They aren't conclusions.

But questions are exactly what historical investigation is supposed to produce.

Mineta's testimony is particularly interesting because, whether he intended to or not, it exposed a conflict between his recollection and the timeline presented in the Commission's final account.

That deserves examination.

The Bigger NORAD Question

The Mineta testimony also intersects with the larger question of why the military response to the hijacked aircraft unfolded the way it did.

The 9/11 Commission documented extraordinary confusion during the morning of September 11. Multiple agencies were trying to determine what was happening, communications were imperfect, and the military response was complicated by incomplete and changing information.

That doesn't automatically establish a “stand-down.”

But it also doesn't make the question disappear.

If an aircraft was approaching Washington and military authorities knew it was a hijacked plane, what instructions were given?

When were those instructions given?

To whom?

When did fighter aircraft receive them?

What authority existed to engage the aircraft?

And why did the system fail to intercept it?

Those questions have been debated for twenty-five years.

They remain legitimate questions.

Why Was There So Much Resistance to Asking?

This is where I think the history of the 9/11 Truth movement itself becomes important.

The movement wasn't simply created by anonymous people sitting on the internet.

Family members of people killed on September 11 were among the earliest people demanding additional answers and investigations. Some ultimately became involved in questions about possible government complicity, foreknowledge and unanswered evidence.

Some researchers went further and embraced controlled-demolition theories.

Others did not.

That's an important distinction.

You can support the families' demand for answers without automatically accepting every conclusion reached by every researcher who later joined the movement.

In fact, that's where I think some contemporary 9/11 discussion has gone wrong.

There are people who genuinely want the truth who are nevertheless promoting theories I consider poorly supported.

The Pentagon “no plane” theory is one example.

I think that can actually hurt the credibility of legitimate 9/11 investigation.

You don't help an investigation by pretending every hypothesis is equally strong.

You help it by following the evidence wherever it leads — even when that means telling people on your own side that they're wrong.

The Questions Are Becoming Mainstream Again

Something else has changed over the past twenty-five years.

Questions that were once routinely dismissed as “conspiracy theory” are still appearing in mainstream journalism and public discussion.

This year's 25th anniversary provides several examples.

CBS's 60 Minutes has revisited the classified 28 pages concerning possible foreign support networks connected to the hijackers. Its current 25th-anniversary coverage discusses the history of those pages and allegations concerning possible Saudi connections.

And on September 13, 2026, President Donald Trump said he would consider releasing additional records requested by 9/11 victims' families concerning possible Saudi connections to the attacks. Reuters reported that the request has bipartisan support among New York lawmakers.

That doesn't prove the claims contained in those records.

But it proves something else:

Twenty-five years later, the government is still being asked to release records and answer questions about September 11.

That's not conspiracy theory.

That's history.

Former Congressman Curt Weldon is another example.

Weldon has continued publicly raising questions about pre-9/11 intelligence and what he believes was withheld from investigators. His recent appearance on The Jimmy Dore Show revisited those claims and his work surrounding Able Danger.

I don't agree with every claim Weldon makes.

But I think it's worth knowing what he says.

And that's the larger point.

Investigating something doesn't require endorsing every investigator.

What I Think “Never Forget” Should Mean

Twenty-five years after September 11, I don't think “Never Forget” should mean merely remembering the images.

It should mean remembering the victims.

Remembering the firefighters.

Remembering the police officers.

Remembering the EMS workers.

Remembering the people who ran into burning buildings while everyone else was trying to escape.

It should mean supporting the people who do that job today.

It should mean volunteering.

It should mean donating.

It should mean educating ourselves.

And yes, it should mean asking difficult questions.

I can support a memorial stair climb and simultaneously ask what those firefighters believed they were walking into.

I can honor Frank DeMartini and still ask questions about the structural behavior of the towers.

I can acknowledge the people who responded to the Pentagon while questioning why so little impact footage was made public.

I can acknowledge that Mineta's interpretation of the “orders” isn't proof of a stand-down while still asking why his testimony creates a timeline conflict.

I can reject the “no plane hit the Pentagon” theory while still demanding that the Pentagon evidence be fully examined.

I can support the families who have spent twenty-five years asking questions without pretending that every theory they've encountered is correct.

That's not a contradiction.

That's what investigation is supposed to look like.

And perhaps the most important lesson of all is this:

Don't worship the official story. Don't worship the alternative story, either.

Look at the evidence.

Read the testimony.

Read the documents.

Listen to the people who were there.

And then keep asking questions.

Because twenty-five years later, there are still questions worth asking.

And remembering doesn't require us to stop investigating.

In fact, perhaps the best way to honor the people who died is to make sure we never stop trying to understand exactly what happened to them.

Medical Disclaimer

Monday, September 14, 2026