Twenty-five years have passed since the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, but for those who lived through it, memories of where they were and what they were doing when they learned the United States was under attack remain vivid. 

For Boundary County resident and U.S. Air Force veteran Rieda Sandel, that morning came during a temporary duty assignment that had taken her away from her permanent duty station at Fairchild Air Force Base in Washington. 

Sandel was temporarily assigned to Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama but had traveled to Northern California for a funeral. She had orders to fly back to Alabama on the morning of Sept. 11. 

Instead, she was awakened and told to come watch the news. 

“I watched in utter disbelief that such a thing could happen on American soil,” Sandel recalled. “I was horrified by what I was seeing in real time as the second plane entered the tower.” 

Her thoughts quickly turned to her young son, who was home at Fairchild AFB with his father, who was also active-duty military. 

“Would his father be deployed, leaving our son in the care of other family members or friends while I, too, was facing deployment?” She remembered wondering. 

In the hours that followed, uncertainty spread far beyond the military. Aircraft across the country were grounded, rental cars became difficult to find, and transportation systems were overwhelmed. 

Sandel needed to return to duty but initially had no way to get there. Eventually, she was able to secure a rental car and drove 15 hours straight back to Fairchild AFB. 

She remembers the range of emotions that Americans throughout the country felt in the days that followed. 

“We as Americans went from feelings of terror and panic and disbelief of the attacks to anger and eventually unity and patriotic pride,” she said. 

Retired Army veteran Robert “Bobby” Rains remembers the surreal nature of that day from Puyallup, Washington. 

Rains, who retired from the Army in 1996 and later worked as a Department of the Army civilian, was doing farm maintenance that morning when news of the attacks came across the radio. He remembers becoming glued to the coverage as he tried to comprehend what had happened. 

Living beneath a busy flight path into Seattle-Tacoma International Airport gave him another memory of the day. Seeing aircraft overhead was part of everyday life there, but suddenly the skies became quiet as flights across the country were grounded. 

“It was surreal for me,” Rains said. 

In the weeks that followed, Rains remembers seeing people step forward to serve. In the years afterward, the consequences of the wars that followed Sept. 11 became much more personal. During his later work at Yakima Training Center, Rains knew service members who deployed overseas, including men who were wounded or killed. 

For Sandel, serving in the military made Sept. 11 feel deeply personal from the beginning. 

“It wasn't just the military in this fight,” she said. “Civilians suffered and fought alongside us in whatever way they could. The support from them was amazing.” 

She remembers a time when no one knew exactly what would happen next. Military members were accustomed to looking to their chain of command for direction, but in those first hours, there were few answers. 

Twenty-five years later, Sandel said the passage of time itself has become striking. 

“Twenty-five years ago sounds like a long time, but to me and many others it is very surreal,” she said. 

A generation has now grown up without its own memory of watching the events of Sept. 11 unfold. For Sandel, that makes continuing to talk about the day and teaching younger generations about what happened increasingly important. 

She also remembers something that emerged from the fear and grief of the days following the attacks, people coming together. 

“People understood the suffering and emotional issues and were genuinely there for one another,” she said. 

Retired from the military for 30 years, Rains has lived in Bonners Ferry for approximately six years. He is a member of both the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars. 

For those who remember Sept. 11 firsthand, commemorating the day is about more than remembering an event in history. It is about remembering the people whose lives ended that morning, those whose lives were forever changed and those who answered the call to serve in the years that followed. 

“As with all of history, it is very important to continue to commemorate the event,” Sandel said. “Not just for the history lessons but to honor the people who lived and died during it.” 

“The magnitude of destruction and loss should not be forgotten.”