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STEPHEN M. CLARK, CURRENTLY THE SUPERINTENDENT OF NATIONAL PARKS OF WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA, WHICH INCLUDES THE FLIGHT 93 NATIONAL MEMORIAL: The airplane was taken over by the terrorists at

9:28 and didn't crash until 10:03. So what happened during that time frame is nothing short of miraculous. The passengers knew they were part of some type of suicide mission, yet they

had the courage to take a vote and then implement a plan to try and retake control of the plane. They simply ran out of time. There were 33 passengers, five flight attendants and two pilots

on board, along with the four terrorists. That airplane was only 18 minutes away from Washington. That particular morning, both houses of Congress were to be in session. You had over 4,500

people working in or near the Capitol building. You had congressmen and -women; you had the incredible symbol of democracy; you had employees; you had visitors. So, there's no doubt

that those 40 people saved countless lives. 10:28 A.M. _The North Tower collapsed._ Jose Jimenez/Primera Hora/Getty Images ROBERT SNYDER, AN AMERICAN STUDIES AND JOURNALISM PROFESSOR AT

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY IN NEW JERSEY: I was walking past South Street Seaport, and I felt a rumble under my feet. Then I looked over my shoulder, and I saw that the second tower had fallen. The

scene was absolutely apocalyptic. SYSTEMS ANALYST LAZAROS: I could see the North Tower coming down, and I said, “Oh, my God, that's our place.” It was unbelievable. There were so many

people that were still on the upper floors and couldn't get out. TERRI TOBIN, A LIEUTENANT IN THE NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT: I had been running away from the South Tower when it

fell. Something hit the back of my head and split my Kevlar helmet in half, and I could feel blood running down my neck. My head had been semi-wrapped by EMS workers, and now there's

shouting that the North Tower is coming down. I have this vision of me running like Carl Lewis. And in reality it was probably more like the slo-mo in _Chariots of Fire._ DAVID LIM, A PORT

AUTHORITY POLICE OFFICER WHO WORKED WITH A YELLOW LAB, SIRIUS, TO CHECK VEHICLES FOR EXPLOSIVES WHEN THEY ENTERED THE TRADE CENTER'S GARAGE, AMONG OTHER TASKS: I was in the first

basement level of the South Tower, and I felt the building shake. My first words to Sirius were, “Oh, my God, something got by us.” Then I said, “Listen, you stay here. I'll come back

and get you once we do the rescue.” And that was the last time I saw him. I was helping guide workers down the stairs of the North Tower, and at around the sixth floor, there was a woman

sitting on the steps. That was Josephine Harris. She just couldn't walk anymore. A firefighter named Billy Butler and I each grabbed one of her arms and put it over our shoulders. All

of a sudden, the building starts collapsing on us. The best description would be a hurricane inside of the stairwell. When it stopped, I started coughing, and my first thought was, _Dead men

don't cough. I must still be alive._ I and a few firefighters I was with started digging upward. We managed to get to the next floor, where I thought I saw a light, which turned out to

be the sun. I believe it was Ladder 43 that came with ropes and ladders. The happiest moment, if you had to pick one, was once we — Josephine included — were able to see out into the sun,

because we knew we were getting out. People ask me, “Do you believe that God saved you for a greater purpose?” I have a hard time accepting that, because there were almost 3,000 people who

died who didn't do anything wrong. I have no idea why I was saved. _After the towers collapsed, friends and family members began a frantic search for loved ones who worked in or near

the complex._ Mario Tama/Getty Images CHRISTY FERER, FOUNDER OF CITYBUZZ AND VIDICOM AND A FORMER TELEVISION CORRESPONDENT WHO WAS MARRIED TO NEIL DAVID LEVIN, THE PORT AUTHORITY'S

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: I went down to the site with pictures of Neil and handed them to the rescue workers and said, “Please look for this guy.” It was probably irrational, but I did it. I

guess it was about four days later that I really admitted he was gone. HADIDJATOU KARAMOKO TRAORÉ, WHOSE HUSBAND, ABDOUL-KARIM, WAS WORKING THAT MORNING AS A BANQUET CHEF AT WINDOWS ON THE

WORLD: I didn't want to accept that he had passed away. So, we're calling all the hospitals. At night my older son, who was nearly 3 years old, kept asking me, “Where's Daddy?

Is he coming back?" But when I saw the building collapse like that — he was on the 106th or 107th floor — I asked, How could someone be up there and get saved? PRINCIPAL DOLCH: My

sister Wendy Wakeford worked on the 103rd to the 105th floors of the North Tower. For the first three or four days, we were frantic. I'm thinking, _Maybe she's lost. Maybe she got

hit in the head._ We put up the posters. We knew it was an activity that was worthless, but you had to do it. Within four or five days, you begin to realize that this is the end of the

search for her. SYSTEMS ANALYST LAZAROS: It just broke my heart when children walked around looking for their parents, with pictures and posters, asking, “Anybody seen my mother, my father?”

Because all I could think of was, _It could be my daughters doing that._ PORT AUTHORITY POLICE LIEUTENANT KEEGAN, WHO LATER BECAME THE FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT OF HEART 9/11, A GROUP OF

RETIRED FIRST RESPONDERS AND CONSTRUCTION WORKERS WHO VOLUNTEER TO PROVIDE DISASTER RELIEF: On 9/11 I made my way to the mobile command at the Manhattan Community College. The people walking

around this mobile command post were all covered in dust. Their uniforms, which should have been blue, were perfectly white. I talked to a sergeant who told me we were missing 75 Port

Authority Police officers. I said, “They're probably at the hospitals, or they're working or something.” He said, “They're missing, and they're presumed dead.” I said,

“Who?” It was one name after another that I completely recognized. _For nine months afterward, workers searched Ground Zero._ Porter Gifford/Corbis via Getty Images FDNY LIEUTENANT BERKMAN:

We're looking to see if there's anybody there, and people keep coming up to us and saying, “Have you seen my cousin?” “Have you seen my father?” The Fire Department people were

looking for their family, friends or fire company. Because we knew there were thousands of people potentially trapped in that burning pile of debris, including possibly thousands of first

responders. ANNA ALLANBROOK, PRINCIPAL OF P.S. 146, A BROOKLYN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL THAT HAD A BANK OF TALL WINDOWS FACING THE WORLD TRADE CENTER: Some children were really shaken to the core.

Their parents, too. I also think the way people parented literally changed that day, from a little bit more hands-off to very much hands-on. The older children asked deep questions like,

“Why do they hate us?” The little kids didn't know why the world had turned upside down but knew that it had. 9/11 WIDOW FERER, WHO LATER BECAME NEW YORK CITY MAYOR MICHAEL

BLOOMBERG'S LIAISON TO FAMILIES WHO LOST LOVED ONES ON 9/11: Many of the families were just crumbling under the weight of the sorrow, the uncertainty and the lack of closure. A lot of

their emotions turned to anger down the road. Many of them did not find body parts. I believe that something like 40 percent still have nothing to bury. SYSTEMS ANALYST LAZAROS: I was so

very grateful to be alive. But on the other hand, I said to myself, _Why me?_ So many people didn't make it. Why was I able to get out and not Cynthia or Angela or anybody else I knew

who died in there? It took me a long time to be able to tell myself that I must have more to do. FDNY ASSISTANT CHIEF CASSANO: I was so busy. And then one night I come home. I remember just

lying there in bed. I finally said to my wife, “Why the heck did I survive?” And she said, “Did you ever think God had a plan for you and that's why you are still here?" FDNY

LIEUTENANT BERKMAN: I figured it out, at one point, that I must've worked with about 250 of the 343 firefighters who were killed that day. The guy whose gear I borrowed that day,

Captain Vinnie Brunton, from Ladder 105, he was killed. When you have 12 or 14 FDNY funerals a day — I had to make a decision a lot of days: Whose do I go to? _In the years that followed,

survivors and families pushed forward._ Angel Franco/The New York Times/Redux Pictures FDNY ASSISTANT CHIEF CASSANO: As much evil as there was that day, there was also much good. I mean the

people who came to help us from all over the country, all over the world. We couldn't have done it alone. WINDOWS ON THE WORLD WIDOW TRAORÉ: At the beginning I was really down. I had

three kids. How will I handle these kids? I saw one of my friends. She said I have to stand up for my kids, because he's not here anymore. Since then, I've been much better.

SYSTEMS ANALYST LAZAROS: I try to keep 9/11 under wraps as much as possible. But every September 11, I take it all out again. I talk or text with three or four friends who were with me that

day. I try to watch the memorial services and watch for everybody's name I know. That's my day. And then I put it all back again for the rest of the year, because you can't

live with it every day. MORGAN STANLEY EXECUTIVE JACKSON, WHO LATER BECAME A SPECIAL ADVISER ON CLIMATE POLICY TO NEW YORK CITY MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO: Most of the people in my department

ended up leaving the industry. Because I had gone through this twice, in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and in 2001, I'd had enough. Tomorrow is not promised to you. I recognize

that I need to spend more time with my friends, more time doing things I like doing. That's what I've done over the past 20 years. SYSTEMS ANALYST LAZAROS: You learn to hold

everybody closer and don't take anybody for granted. I never get off the phone with anybody I care about without saying, “Hey, love you.” PRINCIPAL DOLCH: There was a long time during

which I didn't take care of myself, and emotionally I was a mess, but I didn't really know that until a good two years later. I finally asked myself, _Why do I feel almost

catatonic most of the time? Why am I still jumping every time there's a siren?_ I did a lot of resiliency work — talking, writing. Learning to appreciate the moon, the stars, the skies

and the creator of the moon, the sun and the stars. PORT AUTHORITY POLICE OFFICER LIM: Several months after September 11, I attended a concert of my 14-year-old daughter's school

orchestra. Ravel's Boléro was on the program, and Debra had a clarinet solo. All of a sudden, I broke out crying. I told my wife, “I'm so lucky to be here to hear this.” It taught

me to appreciate the important things in life. And at the same time, it was hard to come to grips with the loss of my canne partner, Sirius. Every time I talked about it, I would always say,

“Well, the people were more important than a dog, obviously.” But I was told by people smarter than I was that until I accepted the loss of my friend, my dog, that I would never get over

this completely. Now I can finally say I have. CHEF LOMONACO, WHO LATER BECAME A COFOUNDER OF THE WINDOWS OF HOPE FAMILY RELIEF FUND CHARITY: The families of the victims have rebuilt their

lives, without forgetting the past. That is what I think the 72 Windows on the World staffers we lost that day would have wanted us to do. I dedicate myself to them every day in a silent

prayer. _Today the world remains irrevocably changed._ ALEXANDRE FUCHS/AFP via Getty Images ALICE GREENWALD, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE NATIONAL SEPTEMBER 11 MEMORIAL & MUSEUM AT THE FORMER

WORLD TRADE CENTER SITE: We have young people and people starting careers who have no memory of this event. And yet they are living in a world that has been defined geopolitically, and in

terms of security consciousness, by the events of 20 years ago. This next generation has grown up with the sense that terrorism is the norm, and that breaks my heart. Things will happen, and

we may not always be able to prevent them. The one thing we have control over is how we respond, and that is what we at the museum call the 9/12 story. That message, that understanding that

we have this capacity for compassion, resilience and hope when horrible things happen, is, I think, a tool for meeting the future. PORT AUTHORITY POLICE LIEUTENANT KEEGAN: This country came

together. We found that what makes us human together is that people hurt the same way. No matter what your political affiliation is, what your color is, what your religion is. Seeing how we

came together and seeing the goodness of people, I think that's something we need to take forward into this COVID situation and further on. HISTORIAN SNYDER, WHO LATER BECAME A RUTGERS

PROFESSOR EMERITUS AND THE MANHATTAN BOROUGH HISTORIAN: What 9/11 convinced me about, above all, was that America can't wall itself off from the problems of the world, that terrorists

can reach us here. And we have to be able to deal with them. CHEF LOMONACO: We also learned that we can rise from the ashes. We learned that we can rebuild our lives. NYPD LIEUTENANT TOBIN,

WHO BECAME THE DEPARTMENT'S CHIEF OF INTERAGENCY OPERATIONS: No one person ever suffers without the rest of us being affected by that suffering. I go down to the site on September 11,

and I always go to my cousin's firehouse and leave flowers on his name, Robert Thomas Linnane. The collective consciousness, when you're at ground zero on September 11, is so

heavy. You see people holding photos of someone who was so dear to them and so young, in many cases, and just know their life was never the same after that day. BANK EXECUTIVE PRAIMNATH: The

things that I took for granted, I no longer take for granted. The men and women in uniform, the firefighters, the EMS workers — before 9/11, I thought, _Oh, they're just doing their

job._ Now I know that had it not been for them, I would not have lived. FDNY ASSISTANT CHIEF CASSANO: I think about September 11 probably every day of my life because there's always a

reminder. There's always a family member I speak to. There's always a story that I read or hear about. It was just a devastating period. It feels like 50 years ago, and then it

feels like yesterday. _*Job titles in this story are as of the day of the attacks._ _Steven Greenhouse, a retired _New York Times_ reporter, is the author of _Beaten Down, Worked Up: The

Past, Present, and Future of American Labor_. _ MORE FROM AARP