Twenty-five years later, Paul Rieckhoff finally tells his own 9/11 story in full. Sitting at Ground Zero with Fox Business correspondent Connell McShane, Paul walks through the days he’d quit his Wall Street job, linked up with fellow New York National Guardsmen, and searched the shattered bottom of the Winter Garden while truck horns signaled another possible collapse. It is the worst thing he has ever seen. It is also, he says, the most beautiful — because of the unity, the volunteers, the fire crew from Arkansas that just got in the rig and started driving. Retired combat pilot Glenn Ignazio joins from the other side of the world he was on that day, in a wartime footing on the Iraqi border when the second plane hit.
This is not a forever-wars episode. That conversation matters, and this show has it constantly. Today is about service, sacrifice, and the spirit that made a generation raise their hand. It’s about Wells Crowther and the red bandana. It’s about the kids at football practice tonight under the lights who weren’t born yet and have no formal 9/11 curriculum to learn from. It’s about what we, the keepers of the flame, are obligated to pass down before the memory goes cold. Love one another. Look for the helpers. Adapt, improvise, overcome. Independent is an attitude — and so is remembering.
In this episode
- Paul tells his 9/11 story in full for the first time on the show — from quitting Wall Street the week before to linking up with his New York National Guard unit
- Searching the Winter Garden and the shattered base of the towers, with truck horns signaling possible collapses
- “I’m not from the 82nd Airborne. We live here.” — the citizen-soldier reality of that first week
- “The worst thing I’ve ever seen. And the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” — Paul on what unity actually looked like
- Glenn Ignazio on being on the Iraqi border flying Southern Watch missions when the second plane hit
- The fire crew from Arkansas that just got in the rig and started driving toward New York
- Wells Crowther, the man in the red bandana, and Boston College’s Red Bandana Game as a teaching moment
- No formal 9/11 curriculum exists in New York or America — why first responders and survivors are now the keepers of the flame
- Glenn’s homecoming a month later: every house on the block flying an American flag
- The seventh moment of silence today — for those still dying of 9/11-related illnesses
