On Sept. 11, 2001, 2,977 innocents went about their daily business, boarding commercial airliners, traveling to work, or suiting up at local firehouses and police stations. Cornflower blue skies offered no portents of the series of terror attacks that would soon claim their lives.

Throughout the day, the world would watch shocking footage of those lives being stolen in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. For a time, we were wrenched from our reverie that our American way of life rendered us untouchable.