By Miles Layton

Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, communities across eastern North Carolina paused Friday to remember — from a mayor’s reflection in Plymouth to a classroom lesson at Washington County High School to a courthouse ceremony in Windsor, where residents joined the county’s youngest generation in carrying the memory forward.

In Washington County, the tribute took shape through both words and action, and it was the county’s youngest residents who helped carry it forward.

Plymouth Mayor Crystal Davis captured the day’s weight in a social media post published under the heading “From the Mayor’s Desk,” writing that the anniversary “still carries a weight that is difficult to put into words.” For those old enough to remember that Tuesday morning, she wrote, “we remember where we were, who we were with, and the moment we realized that our country had changed forever.”

She recalled that “nearly 3,000 innocent people lost their lives that day” — “mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends, coworkers and neighbors” — and praised the first responders who “ran toward danger while others were running away.” Those men and women, Davis wrote, along with countless others, showed “extraordinary courage, compassion and sacrifice.”

Davis also reflected on what followed the tragedy. “Americans came together. Strangers helped strangers. Communities opened their doors,” she wrote. “People prayed together, stood together and reminded one another that even in our darkest moments, we still had the capacity to care for each other.”

Davis asked residents to use the day for reflection. “Today, I ask our community to pause and remember every life lost, every family forever changed, and every first responder and volunteer who answered the call to help,” she wrote, closing with a simple pledge: “We remember. We honor. We will never forget.”

That spirit carried into Washington County High School, where JROTC cadets held a ceremony honoring those affected by the attacks, lowering the flag to half-staff as classmates stood at attention.

On campus, JROTC instructor Sgt. Maj. Curtis Arnold used the moment to drive home a lesson far beyond history. Addressing cadets directly, he reminded them that the victims of September 11 had no warning their lives were about to end. “When you got out of your bed this morning, brushed your teeth, took your bath, put on your clothes, I’m almost positive that you was planning on returning home this afternoon,” Arnold told students. “But as I showed this film earlier to my class, they had no idea what occurred on this day 25 years ago. So many people at the Trade Center, the Pentagon, traveling across the states, had no idea that they would not reach their destination or return home.”

Arnold invoked Scripture to underscore how quickly life can change without warning. “I think somewhere in the Bible it says — I’m going to paraphrase — here they go on today, they didn’t expect that,” he told cadets. “And as students, ROTC students or just regular students, do not take your life for granted, because this next second is a promise to you.”

A few miles away in Bertie County, the morning air outside the courthouse in Windsor carried the same weight of memory as first responders, elected officials and residents gathered to mark the anniversary.

Meanwhile in Windsor, Bertie County Sheriff Tyrone Ruffin opened the ceremony, welcoming firefighters, EMS crews, law enforcement, county employees and neighbors “united in remembrance and committed to never forgetting.”

“September 11, 2001, ordinary people became heroes, and heroes gave their lives so others could live,” Ruffin told the crowd, honoring the nearly 3,000 people killed that day. Story’s photo comes from Bertie County government.

Windsor Police Chief Justin Jackson recalled learning of the attacks in a college chemistry class before finding a television and watching, stunned, alongside classmates. He said what stayed with him most was the unity that followed. “It didn’t matter what political party you were part of, we were one group,” he said, adding he hoped the country could find that spirit again.

Windsor Fire Chief Josh Kilpatrick read the toll of that day in full — 2,753 dead at the World Trade Center, 184 at the Pentagon, 40 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and 343 New York firefighters among the first responders lost. “They climbed the stairs while others were coming down,” he said. “That is the meaning of duty, courage and sacrifice.”

The morning’s featured speaker, retired Alexandria, Virginia, firefighter Richard “Chip” Myers, described arriving at the Pentagon that day to find “this giant fiery hole” in the building. He said his job was triage, though the enormity of the moment made it hard to focus. Like others, he pointed to the weeks that followed as what he wanted people to hold onto. “We were all Americans,” he said.

The ceremony paused twice for moments of silence, at 8:46 a.m. and 9:03 a.m., marking when the hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center towers. Closing the service, organizers thanked Bertie County Clerk of Court Angie Todd for the use of the courthouse grounds, as well as county commissioners, Windsor town leaders and the day’s organizer, Investigator Braxton Manning, before sending attendees into their day with a final call to remember.

Two counties, two ceremonies — a high school flagpole in Plymouth and a courthouse lawn in Windsor — but one shared thread stretched between them: a call, repeated by mayors, instructors, sheriffs and firefighters alike, to hold onto the unity of that terrible morning even as the memory of it fades further into history for those too young to have lived it.