While I did not personally know anyone who was lost on September 11, 2001, that day had a profound impact on my life and ultimately shaped much of the path I would travel. In the years since, I have lost several members of my military units who were unable to overcome the demons they carried as a result of their service following that day. They, too, are part of the legacy of September 11th.

That morning, I was sleeping after working a long bartending shift at Tuckers in Beach Haven. I was supposed to work again that night.

I was awakened by a phone call from my mother asking if I was watching the news. I immediately turned on the television and watched in disbelief as the events unfolded and the towers fell.

I called my boss. Before I could even explain, he simply asked, “Do you need your shift covered?”

I said yes.

Without receiving any official word yet, I began packing. Within hours, I was reporting to the 253rd Transportation Company as a young Lieutenant. Our mission was to transport the New Jersey Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) toward Ground Zero.

That ride north on the New Jersey Turnpike toward the Lincoln Tunnel will forever be etched in my mind. Seeing the smoke billowing from lower Manhattan while traveling on roads that were eerily empty was surreal. Approaching the tunnel, we checked in with a New Jersey State Trooper before entering. On the other side, we were met by an NYPD officer.

We eventually staged at Chelsea Piers awaiting further instructions. Ultimately, our mission changed, and we were reassigned to Stewart Air Base in Newburgh, New York.

I never set foot at Ground Zero.

At the time, part of me believed we would have been better suited there. But over the years, I have come to believe that everything happens for a reason.

The days and weeks following September 11th were unlike anything I have experienced before or since. In the midst of unimaginable tragedy, this country came together. There was a sense of unity, patriotism, and common purpose that transcended our differences.

I pray we never experience another tragedy that brings us to that point again.

Fate would eventually take me much farther from home.

In 2003 I received orders to support the Global War on Terrorism and deployed to Iraq. Our Unit spent more than a year deployed, and I was in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was captured. I returned home in 2004 a very different person.

Seven years later, I found myself deployed again—this time to Afghanistan. I was assigned to the 119th Logistics Task Force, supporting operations during the period in which Osama bin Laden was ultimately brought to justice.

When I look back on my military career, I do so with both pride and wonder.

I am proud of my military career but I often wonder how a kid who grew up in Barnegat, NJ who woke up on September 11, 2001, expecting to bartend that evening instead found himself responding to one of the darkest days in American history—and how the path that began that morning would eventually take me to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

25 years.

Somehow, it feels like a lifetime ago and yesterday at the same time.

As we mark this anniversary, it is important that we continue to remember those who were taken from us that morning, the first responders who ran toward danger, the families whose lives were forever changed, and the men and women who answered our nation’s call in the years that followed. We must also remember those who came home carrying wounds that could not always be seen—and those we have lost in the years since.

Their stories matter. Their sacrifices matter.

We have a responsibility to continue telling those stories so future generations understand what happened, what it cost, and why September 11th must never become simply another date in a history book.

Never Forget.