Nation's
Promise

Twenty-five years later, this book is a part of our tradition of remembering. The stories are not about calamity or carnage, but about hope, resilience, leadership, and compassion. They’re about the things that made us Americans then and continue to make us Americans today.

If ever there was a way to help all of us remember, it is through curating and preserving stories of heroism and resilience and passing these narratives down from one generation to the next.

I was looking outward, not inward. I never thought about myself. I was part of a much bigger situation. I thought maybe I could help lead the way. None of us had any idea what it was going to take.

We struggled . . . but we survived. We showed the cowards they didn’t kill us. They couldn’t kill us. Our spirit was stronger than they thought.

We didn’t do it for medals. We did it out of love. We weren’t trained for any of it. We did what we had to do because it was the right thing to do. That’s who we are.

There was a lot of weight to collapse under. One thing that kept us going was that we knew the entire country was behind us. Rescue teams came from all over. They’d seen floods, fires, earthquakes, but they admitted they’d never seen devastation like this. They continued to show up. We needed them. We needed construction crews and iron workers. We needed all the volunteers. The message was that the towers had fallen, but we hadn’t.

The events of 9/11 changed everything about how we understood readiness. We’d convinced ourselves the world was safe and that history had ended. It reminded us that complacency is never a strategy. You can’t just protect a nation with hardware. You protect it with people who are willing to rise when the moment calls. That’s what happened. A lot of good people rose to the occasion and improvised for things they’d never been trained for.

Everywhere we went, people told us we were giving them joy in a really difficult moment. That responsibility wasn’t about pressure but purpose. What I dwell on when I think about that World Series is how badly we wanted to win it for everyone.

We have to understand who suffered, who helped, and who ran toward the danger. If we lose that sense of shared identity, then we lose something essential about who we are as Americans.

It’s extremely important that we remember 9/11, especially those who weren’t yet born. We saw the world at its worst, but the way we responded represents America at its best. Keeping Our Nation’s Promise captures this as well as any book I’ve read.

Chris Meek and Dave Jarecki do a masterful job of recounting the service and sacrifices ordinary Americans made in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, of the unity the attacks fostered in our country, and of our promise to never forget the 2,977 victims and their families. It’s a timely read for the 250th anniversary of our country and the 25th observance of those attacks.

Keeping Our Nation’s Promise challenges us to reflect on what we promised one another and on how we continue to live that promise today. It is both a tribute and a call to action—personal, moving, and profoundly important.

Whether directly affected or observing from afar, our world paused in horror and sadness on 9/11. Keeping Our Nation’s Promise is a poignant and powerful reflection of the day and the era. We must always remember the sacrifices. I know I will.

Keeping Our Nation’s Promise reminds us that September 11 was a day of loss and a test of who we are as a nation. Through intimate and deeply reported profiles, this book honors those who died and those who responded. It challenges us to consider what service and responsibility mean today. This book underscores a deep truth: resilience is not an individual act but a shared endeavor. In remembering, we strengthen our national character and capacity to meet the complex challenges of the future.

With profiles of first responders, survivors, public servants, military personnel, and families, Keeping Our Nation’s Promise highlights the quiet strength that helped carry our country through an unimaginable moment.

A quarter century has passed since the horrific events that unfolded on Sept. 11, 2001. Chris Meek and Dave Jarecki’s book proves there is still much to learn from the people who lost their lives that day, their families, and survivors. Keeping Our Nation’s Promise masterfully and tenderly weaves together stories of leadership, sacrifice, and resilience to produce a meaningful history.

Public life often asks leaders to speak about unity and service. Those values are best understood through the lives of people who embody them when circumstances demand it most. Keeping Our Nation’s Promise brings together stories that show what courage and responsibility look like in practice. I’m grateful to be a part of this book.

Keeping Our Nation’s Promise reflects so closely my own story of survival on and after September 11. The experiences in this book have yet to fully heal our hearts but allow us to move through each moment with love and grace.

Hope is an important thing. I believe Keeping Our Nation’s Promise is a book about hope. Even the stories that are set in the moment of the 9/11 attacks will carry forward in a timeless and meaningful way.

Keeping Our Nation’s Promise reminds us that words like resilience and legacy aren’t just slogans, and that memory deserves more than occasional headlines. The book’s call to action is about remembering as an ongoing act, which is particularly important for post-9/11 generations.