For 25 years, I have never wanted to write this story.

Then I received this message from Gary Sinise asking a simple question:

Where were you on 9/11?

I decided it was finally time to answer.

On September 11, 2001, I was an American Airlines Boeing 767 Captain based in Boston. I had been with American for 16 years. That Tuesday was a scheduled day off. My normal flying that month was Boston to Bermuda and back, allowing me to be home each night with my children, who were 14 and 16.

It was a beautiful morning.

Shortly before 9:00 a.m., my partner, Dan, answered the telephone. It was my friend and fellow American Airlines pilot John Jenkins.

“Doug, turn on the TV and see what’s going on.”

“What channel?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s on every channel.”

Our old projection television took a moment to warm up. When the picture appeared, one of the World Trade Center towers was burning. Initial reports suggested that perhaps a small airplane had struck it.

Then I watched another airplane traveling at very high speed strike the other tower.

As a pilot, I knew immediately that it was a large airplane.

The telephone rang again.

This time it was Robin Humpherys, our American Airlines Boston Flight Administrator.

“Doug, it was one of ours. It was Flight 11.”

Then she told me who was flying it: Captain John Ogonowski and First Officer Tom McGuinness.

I had been based in Boston for 16 years. These weren't simply names on a crew manifest. They were our pilots. They were our friends.

I asked, “What can I do?”

Within minutes I was showered, in uniform, and heading for the Portsmouth Police Department. Captain Bill Bronson, our Boston Chief Pilot, would meet me there. Two other pilots were being sent to John Ogonowski's family. Bill and I were going to the McGuinness home.

Nobody yet understood the scope of what was happening. We didn't know whether American Airlines was under attack, whether individual families might be at risk, or whether something even larger was underway.

It wasn't even 10:00 in the morning.

The Portsmouth Police had already secured the neighborhood around the McGuinness home. Eventually, accompanied by the police chaplain, Bill and I drove there.

There were cars in the driveway and people gathered inside.

I stopped my car in front of the house, stepped out carrying my uniform jacket, and put it on.

Then I heard a sound.

Twenty-five years later, I still cannot adequately describe it.

Cheryl McGuinness had looked outside and seen an American Airlines Captain getting out of a car in front of her home.

She knew.

Bill came over and stood beside me. Shoulder to shoulder, we walked to the front door.

I had spent years accepting responsibility for taking care of our Boston pilots and their families. I had worked with pilots in crisis and believed deeply that taking care of our people was part of my responsibility as a Captain and leader.

Nothing had prepared me for this.

Inside that home, we had to tell Cheryl that her husband, First Officer Tom McGuinness, had been murdered while performing his duty as an American Airlines pilot.

There were questions we couldn't answer. Less than two hours had passed. We could only tell her what we knew and promise that she and her family would not face what came next alone.

Eventually, Cheryl looked directly at me and asked why I was there.

Before I could answer, she turned toward her pastors and pleaded with them not to make her hear the words.

They looked at me and told me I needed to tell her again.

So I did.

Her eyes never left mine.

When I finished, I left the room.

There are details about September 11 that I know and will never share. Repeating them would serve no purpose. Some things do not need to be preserved for history.

Eventually, Bill came to me and told me I needed to go home.

I resisted. There was still work to do. There were still people who needed help.

Then Bill handed me his cellular telephone because mine didn't have service and told me to call Dan.

Dan told me that my dear friend Dave Charlebois was the First Officer of AA77 - the airplane that struck the Pentagon.

I could barely comprehend what he was saying.

Until that moment, I had been functioning as an American Airlines Captain. There was a grieving family in front of me, and my responsibility was to help take care of them.

Suddenly, I wasn't only the person providing support.

I had gone to Portsmouth that morning to take care of a pilot's family. Before I left, I had become one of the people who needed to be taken care of.

I handed Bill his telephone.

He didn't say, “Call me if you need me.”

He simply said:

“Call me when you need me.”

I have never forgotten those words.

I drove home alone on the same quiet two-lane New Hampshire roads I had driven earlier that morning. They were almost completely empty. It seemed as though everyone had gone inside and the entire world had stopped.

When I reached home, I finally allowed the emotions that had begun that morning in my kitchen to take over.

Twenty-five years later, I am not certain they ever completely stopped.

In the years that followed, I participated in memorials and remembrances. I delivered the pilots' eulogy at an American Airlines memorial in Boston and later represented American at the first-anniversary remembrance at Boston Logan.

I could stand before people and speak about September 11.

What I could never bring myself to do was sit down and write about my September 11.

There is, however, another part of this story I want preserved.

A few years later, I contacted Cheryl. I told her that if Tom's son Tommy ever wanted to learn to fly, I would be honored to take him up.

Cheryl immediately accepted. Tommy was 16.

I lived on a small grass airfield, and its owner generously offered his airplane so I could take Tommy flying.

I had the privilege of giving Tommy McGuinness his first flight.

Today, Tommy McGuinness is an American Airlines Captain.

That does not replace his father. It does not make September 11 right. And it does not provide a convenient ending to a story that has never really ended.

But it means something to me.

Now, somehow, 25 years have passed.

I am in my 42nd year as an American Airlines pilot. I was only 22 when American hired me in 1985. Today I have approximately 15 months remaining before reaching the mandatory airline pilot retirement age of 65.

I have lived so much life through this career.

I raised my children, watched them become adults, became a grandfather, flew airplanes around the world, and spent decades trying to take care of pilots and their families.

And eventually, I watched the son of the man whose death I helped announce become an American Airlines pilot himself.

I have lived an extraordinarily full life since September 11, 2001. But I have never left that morning completely.

Every year, as summer begins turning toward September, I can feel the anniversary approaching.

I hate this time of year.

Twenty-five years have not erased the sadness. There are memories I wish I didn't have. There are things I know that I will never repeat.

And there is a sound that, after 25 years, I can still hear.

Years later, I was given another opportunity to serve grieving families through the Gary Sinise Foundation's Snowball Express. I had the privilege of serving as Captain of a Snowball Express flight carrying Gold Star families from Dallas to Orlando.

On September 11, I learned what it meant to stand at someone's door while their life was changing forever.

Snowball Express later gave me the privilege of standing on another side of grief—not to fix it, because some losses cannot be fixed, but simply to help carry families on part of their journey.

So when Gary asked us, 25 years later, “Where were you on 9/11?” so generations who weren't alive that morning might understand, I finally felt an obligation to answer.

I was home when the telephone rang.

I was standing in front of a television when the second airplane struck the World Trade Center.

I was an American Airlines Captain when I put on my uniform and drove to Portsmouth.

I was standing outside the McGuinness home when Cheryl saw my uniform and understood why I was there.

I was a friend when Dan told me that Dave was gone.

And I was simply another human being when I finally made it home and could no longer hold back the grief.

Twenty-five years later, I remember Captain John Ogonowski.

I remember First Officer Tom McGuinness.

I remember my dear friend First Officer Dave Charlebois.

I remember Cheryl and the families whose lives changed forever that morning.

And I remember the 2,977 people who did not have the privilege of living these last 25 years.

For most of those years, I could not write this story.

Today, I finally can.

We promised we would never forget.

I haven't.

— Captain Doug Wood

American Airlines