Twenty-Five Years After 9/11

By, Trey Dimsdale AHA Foundation President

As you are aware, today marks the 25th anniversary of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. I’m sure that most of us can remember vividly where we were that morning and the feelings that we felt as the events of the day unfolded on live television.

The ripple effects of that morning still shape our lives: intense airport security, metal detectors at public events, and anemically disguised bollards surrounding public events are now firmly a part of the rhythms of our lives.

The last quarter century, unfortunately, has proven the adage that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. While no subsequent terror attack has risen to the same level of complexity, magnitude, or spectacle, hundreds of thousands of lives around the world have been lost to the evil ideology that animated the terrorists who crashed hijacked passenger planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that morning. Islamic terror attacks have claimed lives on every continent since then.

Attacks on tourists in Bali, school children in Russia, concertgoers ​in Paris, and travelers in Brussels served as reminders that these attacks were always possible and the targets were always unpredictable. That is why it is so perplexing to see supporters of the perpetrators of the October 7 attacks in Israel, the most recent Islamist-inspired mass atrocities, working on college campuses and elected to​ local governments.
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Today, AHA Foundation honors those whose lives were lost on September 11, 2001. On behalf of Ayaan and our entire team, I can assure you that we are doing our part to combat the evil ideology that stole them from their families and still plagues us today.