Werner, a 46-year public safety veteran and retired Charlottesville Fire Chief, was honored as a Homeland Security Today Person of the Year and also serves as a valued member of the Editorial Board. His distinguished career includes his role as Senior Advisor at the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, where he provided expert guidance on emergency response and public safety. Werner’s decades of dedicated service have made him a respected leader in the field of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
Remembering September 11, 2001 and the horrific attacks on our Homeland is of utmost importance. First to remember all that lost their lives on 9/11 and to also honor those firefighters and police officers that gave their lives to save others.
September 11th demonstrated that the ideals of America are strong but are always vulnerable from other nations who do not share the same feeling about democracy and freedom. Most importantly, protecting these freedoms will require that all citizens remain vigilant to recognize these threats.
What is also important to remember about 9/11 is the powerful resilience of the American spirit. Citizens united. We came together to help one another. The American flag was displayed like never before in almost every neighborhood as a symbol of unity and freedom.
Today, much of this unity is fractured with the country divided by different opinions on how the United States should govern. The country has drifted from a sense of conversation, compromise, and unity to division and cancellation. Extreme factions on both the left and right are creating an atmosphere of one-sided conversations that do not further our understanding, our policies, or our future.
Our enemies see this and are exploiting it. People are being inundated with misinformation from adversaries both domestic and abroad through the use of social media. This misinformation is designed to create animosity and division within our country.
While we are facing very difficult challenges, America’s future can still be great but it is up to you – our young people to bridge this divide. September 11th taught us that there are those who wish us harm. Grave, murderous, devastating, harm. They relish our discord. They leverage it to make deeper chasms in our democracy. Our future leaders must call more on the spirit of America that Oprah Winfrey called upon at the Democratic convention: if your neighbor’s house is burning you don’t ask who lives inside, you go and work to save them. Like we all did on 9/11. Our future leaders need to learn from the Founders of this great nation and demonstrate a path forward that is inclusive of all viewpoints, encourage discussion of varying thoughts, work toward compromise/consensus, and restore the rule of law.
It is also critical that our young people be free thinkers that will take the time to learn about the issues, not accept things at face value, and challenge the status quo for new, innovative, and better solutions. We missed a lot of things on 9/11. There were warning signs. There were clues. And as the 9/11 report showed, we did not have the apparatus in place to recognize them and piece them together. We cannot allow any bias or belief blind us to what is in front of our eyes.
Since September 11th the nation has also weathered COVID. Another crisis that revealed just how much everyone is dependent on one other and how much this interdependency matters. I call on our next generation to listen and learn, be open to new ideas, be accepting of others, collaborate, and build unity. The true and best successes come from meaningful relationships, open dialogue, and trust.
As I reflect on this 9/11 and remember the people we lost, I believe there is a great opportunity to lead this nation to greater heights than ever. To learn from the mistakes of the past, listen to all points of view, and rebuild the fabric of our country. I believe that the United States has been and remains the greatest nation on earth and encourage our future leaders to focus on mending our divides so that our enemies cannot exploit them.