I was supposed to be on Flight 77. Watching Gen Z forget 9/11 is worse than survivor’s guilt

Published September 11, 2026 7:00am ET



After 9/11, country music star Alan Jackson wrote a haunting song, “Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning?” A full 90% of Americans over 30 know — do you?

My own 9/11 memory is wracked with survivor’s guilt. If not for a last-minute change of travel plans to guest on a late-night political talk show, I would have been on American Airlines Flight 77 when it was flown into the Pentagon by a group of demonic jihadi murderers.

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