25 years after September 11: The moment that changed the history of the United States
It has been 25 years since that fateful September 11, 2001, a date that remains etched in the global collective memory. On that day, the then-President of the United States, George W. Bush, was at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, fulfilling an agenda focused on the country’s education policy. What began as a routine visit transformed, in a matter of minutes, into the management of the greatest security crisis in the nation’s history.
The president had already been informed of an initial impact on the Twin Towers in New York, although at that moment it was being treated as an accident. However, at 9:05 in the morning, the reality changed drastically. While he was watching a group of second-grade children reading the children’s story “The Pet Goat,” his chief of staff, Andrew Card, approached to whisper the devastating news in his ear: a second plane had hit the south tower and the country was under attack.
I didn’t have much time to process what had happened, but it was quite clear to me that if we were being attacked, my job was to defend the children who were reading in front of me, their families, and the country.
George W. Bush, former President of the United States.
A moment of historical tension
The images of Bush remaining calm in front of the students during the seven minutes following the warning became an icon of that day. The reporters present, accustomed to a day of low news intensity, immediately noticed a radical change in the president’s countenance. Ann Compton, a journalist covering the tour, recalled that it was the first time she had seen the president with such a serious and solemn expression in his nine months in office.
Sandra Daniels, the classroom teacher, recounted years later how the atmosphere in the classroom transformed instantly after Card’s intervention. The security and kindness that Bush projected toward the children gave way to an attitude of maximum alertness and concentration, foreshadowing the gravity of the tragedy that was unfolding hundreds of kilometers away.
A nation’s response
At 9:30 in the morning, Bush offered his first statements from the school, describing the events as a “national tragedy.” Given the closure of the airspace and the recommendations of his security team, Air Force One was diverted to military bases in Louisiana and Nebraska. The former president later emphasized that he avoided delivering his speech from the Nebraska bunker so as not to grant a moral victory to the perpetrators.
Finally, as night fell, Bush returned to the White House to address the nation from the Oval Office. In his message, he condemned the attacks perpetrated by Al Qaeda, which resulted in the loss of nearly 3,000 lives in New York and Washington, and promised a firm response, marking the beginning of the so-called “war on terror” and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan.
