NOTE: We’re going to keep this at the top through September 11. Scroll down for more posts (if you are on the “Home” page).

We must never forget. We dedicate a special page to remembering the terrible events of September 11, 2001.

Here is newly released audio from American Airlines Flight 11 that slammed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower on September 11, 2001. You hear cockpit recordings, and then the voice of one of the Flight Attendants relaying information that someone had been “stabbed” in business class, and no one was answering the phone in the cockpit. The voice of lead hijacker Mohammed Atta is also heard, telling everyone to stay seated and be calm, that the plane would be returning to the airport. Shortly thereafter, he flew it into the World Trade Center North Tower.

Here is newly released raw video from September 11, 2001 showing the smoke plume that rose into the sky near Shanksville, Pennsylvania following the crash of United Flight 93. The raw video was shot by a man who lived nearby and heard the crash. He then shot video of the smoke rising into the air in the distance and talked about what he heard and saw.

The brave passengers of United Flight 93 charged the cockpit of the airplane and prevented the terrorist hijackers from crashing it into its intended target – likely the U.S. Capitol or the White House.

Here is just released raw video footage of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, taken from a New York Police Department Helicopter.

Though it has been close to 10 years since that terrible day, this brings back the memories of it like it was yesterday. It should remind us all that we must never forget, and be constantly vigilant so that it never happens again. The same Islamic Jihadist ideology that led to that attack is still at work in people today – enemies of the United States who are looking for another opportunity to strike.

Via Hot Air

Byron York has written an outstanding article in the Washington Examiner in which he makes the case that September 11 should always be observed as a National Day of Solemn Remembrance – not as just another day of “AmeriCorps” like “Service.” It’s not that there’s anything wrong with community service. But York contends that President Obama’s attempt to redefine September 11 actually serves to diminish and drain away its meaning:

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Obama, a former community organizer, has often expressed support for redefining September 11 as a day of community service. Indeed, in April 2009 he signed into law the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, which, in addition to pouring billions of dollars into AmeriCorps and the Corporation for National and Community Service, officially designated September 11 as a “National Day of Service and Remembrance.”

But if 9/11, which saw radical Islamic terrorists kill 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, and which marked the beginning of America’s war on terrorism — if 9/11 is about community service, what makes it different from other days that are also about community service? When the government urges Americans to observe 9/11 by recycling, or helping paint a homeless shelter, or volunteering at a computer literacy center, then how is 9/11 different from, say, National Youth Service Day? Or the Martin Luther King Day of Service? Or All Corps Service Day? Or Earth Day, for that matter? . . . . . Read More

York is right. September 11 is a solemn day to remember – as painful as that is – what happened to our nation on that awful day. We were attacked on our soil, and nearly 3,000 of our citizens were killed. The great sacrifice made by those who died, and by their families, is worthy of being focused on and remembered in its own right. September 11 speaks for itself, and it does not call for redefinition or mixed messages.

Wouldn’t it have been great if all members of Congress had kept the steel in their spine they displayed on the evening of September 11, 2001?

Here is video of President George W. Bush addressing the nation on the evening of September 11, 2001, at the end of the long and devastating day. Bush reassured the nation that while terrorists could shake the “foundations of our biggest buildings,” but they could not shake the “foundations of America.”