I remember it like it was yesterday.

I was working in my office. The family/TV room was right around the corner. The phone rang and I picked it up.

“Stop whatever you are doing and turn on the TV.” I walked around the corner and turned it on.

I was horrified by what I saw. One of the Twin Towers was on fire. In those early moments no one knew if it was a bizarre accident, pilot suicide, or terrorist attack.

I sat and watched. Then I saw the second plane hit the South Tower. Then we all knew.

Then the report the Pentagon was on fire. And finally, the heroism at Shanksville. It was a horrible day.

It was the irrevocable loss of American safety and innocence at home. The horrors of terrorism that had plagued Europe for years had at long last come to our shores.

In the weeks that followed it was one of those moments that across all political boundaries almost all Americans were united in grief, shock, and determination. George W. Bush had an 85% approval rating.

21 years later we remember. We think. We grieve. Many of us pray.