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JOHN ONDRASIK: What 9/11 taught us about courage, unity and the price of freedom
By John Ondrasik
Published September 11, 2026
9/11 occurred on a Tuesday.
In October 2009, I released a song entitled "Tuesday" — a musical plea to never forget the lessons of September 11, 2001, when Islamic terrorists murdered 2,977 innocent people on American soil.
Is Monday coming back
That’s what Mondays do
They turn and turn around
Afraid to see it through
Welcome to Monday.
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Performing my song "Superman" at Paul McCartney’s Concert for New York City was one of the great honors of my life. To spend that day — and share that stage — with heroic New York City first responders and the families of those murdered was an incredibly humbling, life-changing experience.
Much of the audience at Madison Square Garden consisted of firefighters, police officers, rescue workers and others who had spent the previous month sifting through the rubble and carnage of Ground Zero. The images of thousands of people singing, screaming, crying and embracing one another remain seared into my memory. For a few hours, music gave them — and all of us — a chance to release some of the pain we carried within.
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The world sang and cried with us.
You may remember what happened in the aftermath of 9/11. America came together in a way we had rarely seen before and have not seen since. There was no red America and blue America. There was only red, white and blue.
Americans stood shoulder to shoulder across the country with compassion, love and resolve — and with an unequivocal commitment to bring Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network to justice.
The thing about memories
They’re sure and bound to fade
Except for the stolen souls
Left upon her blade
Imagine standing in your neighborhood on September 12, 2001, and telling your neighbor what America might look like 25 years later.
Imagine telling them that radical leftist ideologies, hostile to America , would infiltrate some of our most prestigious universities and metastasize through mainstream and social media. That members of Congress would echo propaganda promoted by terrorist
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organizations such as Hamas. That candidates could associate with people who openly express hatred for America—or even suggest America deserved 9/11—and still win elections and govern American cities.
They would not have believe you, such lunacy!
The aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack in Israel provided another warning about the moral collapse taking hold within many of our institutions. Before Israel had even buried its dead, we witnessed people in the West rationalizing, excusing and even celebrating the slaughter.
It raises an uncomfortable question: If an attack on the scale of 9/11 occurred in America today, would we still respond as one people, one country?
Or would we see more mob like campus encampments, ideological justifications for terrorism, and Americans blaming their own country as the "oppressor" that somehow got what it deserved.
Tuesday came and went
One September
When will she come again?
Twenty-five years after 9/11, America finds itself in another battle — this one for the soul of our nation and, more broadly, for the future of Western civilization.
The threats are not identical to those we faced in 2001. But they are real. Radical Islamism remains a global threat, while antisemitism and anti-American extremism increasingly find expression across the ideological spectrum. Ideas once confined to society’s fringes now travel instantly, and with little consequence, through universities, political movements and social media. The enemy is in the building, and time is not on our side.
That is why "Never Forget" cannot become merely a slogan printed on a bumper sticker or repeated once every September.
It is an obligation. It is our obligation.
We have a duty to teach our children what happened on September 11, 2001: about the evil fanatics who attacked us, why they attacked us, and the carnage of what unchecked extremism can produce.
But "Never Forget" means something more.
It means remembering the best of us.
It means telling our children about the firefighters who climbed stairwells while everyone else was running down. The police officers, paramedics and ordinary citizens who ran toward collapsing infernos to save people they had never met. The passengers of Flight 93 who understood what was happening and, knowing the probable cost, fought back.
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They represent the best of humanity.
Twenty-five years later, their courage should still challenge and inspire us.
Their sacrifice should remind us that America is not sustained merely by institutions, elections or slogans. It survives because generation after generation chooses to defend the principles that make the country worth defending.
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Memory fades. History becomes distant. Tuesdays come and go.
But some Tuesdays must never be forgotten.
May the memory of those we lost — and the example of the heroes of September 11, 2001 — give us the strength, courage and fortitude to fight for America every day, especially Tuesdays, for the next 250 years.
Let’s Roll…
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/john-ondrasik-what-911-taught-us-about-courage-unity-price-freedom