Arkansas officials speak of importance of passing down 9/11 lessons

Standing before members of the military, law enforcement officers and others, Arkansas’ leaders spoke Friday of the importance of educating the next generation about Sept. 11 as they marked the terrorist attack’s 25th anniversary at the Arkansas Capitol.

“As the years tick past, there are going to be more and more Americans who have no memory of 9/11. For them, that day is a blank slate,” said Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “It’s up to us, the ones who do remember, to remind the next generation why this day is so important in our nation’s history.”

Sanders, 44, was a student at Ouachita Baptist University, and was in a political science class when the attacks began. Her father, Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee, and mother Janet Huckabee were at a conference out of state when the attacks began.

“I’ll never forget trying and failing to call my parents while they were being hustled into the safe room. It was a fear that was felt by millions of Americans all across our country,” Sanders said.

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Nearly 3,000 people died when hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a rural field in Pennsylvania. The victims included Arkansans such as Sara Low, a flight attendant and Batesville native, and Nehamon Lyons IV, a Pine Bluff native who was killed in the Pentagon attack.

Attorney General Tim Griffin, a Republican who is also a member of the Arkansas National Guard and was in the Army Reserves at the time of the attacks, had moved back to Arkansas from Washington the month before, he said. He heard the news on the Today Show, which was on in the other room.

“I was getting ready for work, and I heard in the background that a plane had hit a building, and they talked about it being an accident,” Griffin said. “And then I heard them describe the second plane, and that’s when I walked from the other room, in front of the television, and it all started unfolding, not as an accident, but as an intentional attack.”

Sept. 11 was his generation’s “collective moment,” he said — referring to how many in his parents’ generation could remember exactly where they were when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. Griffin said he visits the Pentagon once every month or so, but it’s been so long since the attacks that there are times that he doesn’t think about Sept. 11 when he’s there.

Like Sanders, he said teaching Americans too young to remember what happened on Sept. 11 was imperative.

“We are so much stronger together when we can— We may not agree on everything, but when we can find that common ground,” Griffin said, calling it one of the three great lessons Sept. 11 taught him. “If you want to find common ground with the next generation, you better make sure you’re telling them about 9/11, contextualizing it.” 

America is the only nation with “the capability, the reach, the strength to do what needs to be done around the world,” and if it doesn’t lead, “bad actors” will step up to fill the vacuum, Griffin said.

“The world without an active, strong, leading United States is a more dangerous world,” Griffin said. “When America is engaged overseas — not isolationist, but engaged overseas — we are safer here. I used to say to people, ‘You want to fight in Baghdad or Boston?’”

Both Sanders and Griffin implored listeners to remember the sacrifices of the first responders who lost their lives during and in the aftermath of the attacks, as well as those of the members of the military who joined in America’s military response in the months and years that followed.

North Little Rock’s assistant fire marshal, Capt. Gary Williams, also spoke of survivor’s guilt, and urged people to call their loved ones as much as they could.

Arkansas students learn about 9/11 attacks through oral histories 

“If you, by chance, have those loved ones that you haven’t talked with in a little while, pick up the phone and tell them, “All I wanna do is hear your voice,’” he said.

Before a final prayer, a lone military band bugler stood and played Taps, which is played at the end of the day on military installations and at military funerals, the sound echoing in the Capitol rotunda.