“When the second plane hit, that’s when I knew that the world had changed,” said Johnny Jones, a former restaurant worker who joined the Transportation Security Administration shortly after 9/11. The terror attacks motivated many Americans to serve their country, with some making decisions within days that changed the course of their lives. “I left my career where I had been working previously and came to TSA, took like a 50 to 60% pay cut, because I wanted to be able to get back and make sure that never happened again,” said Jones, who still works for TSA and is part of the American Federation of Government Employees. Army Staff Sgt. Gavin Cowen was only in eighth grade on Sept 11, 2001. But 9/11 inspired him to join the Army years later. “I wanted to be in the fight. I wanted to do something for my country,” said Cowen, who’s now part of the Army’s Old Guard in D.C. His duties include working at funerals in Arlington National Cemetery and across the country. The Department of Defense says 182,000 Americans enlisted in the first year after 9/11. Thousands more Americans agreed to serve on the civilian side, and the FBI saw 11,000 applications in a single month. After 25 years, the burden we’ve asked a generation of brave volunteers to carry is coming into clearer focus, including as it relates to post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. The NBC Washington I-Team explored a moment of incredible patriotism and asked those who stepped up what those decisions look like now, as they near the end of their careers. Enlisting on Sept. 12: ‘We had been attacked and somebody needed to answer for that’ Three days before 9/11, Northern Virginia high schooler Christopher Miller toured New York City and saw the views from the World Trade Center’s South Tower. “Little did I know that three days later, they just wouldn’t be there anymore,” he said. Miller had never considered joining the military. He was planning to head to George Mason University to major in sports medicine. “9/11 completely changed all that. It erased everything. The only thing that mattered at that point was doing my part. And I felt very strongly that we had been attacked and somebody needed to answer for that,” he said. He started the enlistment process immediately. “On September 12th, I skipped school and I went to a Marine recruiter, and I was gonna join the Marines and go do my part,” he said, eventually joining the Army to become a medic. “I was extremely scared, and I wouldn’t admit it at the time,” Miller added. Now an Army sergeant major, he went on to complete tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait and other countries in the Middle East. ‘My whole goal was to go to Afghanistan’ Nick Black was a student at Langley High School on 9/11. Within months, he joined the ROTC. A few years later, he was serving in Afghanistan. “My whole goal was to go to Afghanistan and close with and destroy the guys that brought down the Twin Towers. So, that’s what I was signing up for, and I got the opportunity to go and be with incredible men and women to do exactly that,” he said. Black spent nearly two years in Afghanistan across two deployments. Aidan Garcia was working in a downtown Boston bank on 9/11 but said virtually everyone he grew up with in New Jersey knew someone touched by the attacks. Within days, he started working on his FBI application and months later joined the bureau. Garcia spent the past two decades working in the Washington field office. ‘We do this for you’ Jones, who joined the TSA, said he still feels emotional about 9/11. “I can’t even watch none of them videos. Because, as an American, to see people get, have to jump out of buildings, dude, it’s rough,” he said, fighting tears. He said he tries to convey to his children, who were little at the time of the attacks, how much the world changed that day. The I-Team asked Cowen, who joined the Army, what he wants people to know about those who chose to serve after 9/11. “I would want them to know that we do this for you. We do this because of you. This is our homefront. This is our place that we want to defend. And at that point in time, with what was going on in the country, we wanted to defend what we had,” he said. He described his work on military burials, including of people he knew, as heavy. “It hits a little bit different for someone you know. It’s real for the families for everyone else. When it’s a little personal to you, it feels different,” he said. 9/11 Sep 8 Looking back at 9/11: How the attacks shaped the last 25 years 9/11 9 hours ago 9/11 movies and documentaries worth watching 9/11 6 hours ago Declassified CIA documents show clear warnings to presidents before 9/11 ‘We’re killing ourselves at a greater clip than the enemy could have ever imagined’ Terri Tanielian researches the people who fought America’s post 9/11 wars and their families. She was in an office building across from the Pentagon on 9/11, saw the plane hit and saw the fireball, she said. She worked for the nonprofit global policy think tank Rand, then headed to Congress as a congressional fellow with the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, then spent four years in President Joe Biden’s White House. “Between the combat exposures that we saw the troops face, the longer and more frequent deployments, the stop-loss policies that had to be put in place, folks may have gone in thinking they we’re going to be in theater for nine months. They were now there 12 months and 15 months,” she said. Struggling members of an “amazingly resilient generation of veterans” need support, Tanielian said.NBC Washington asked, are we doing so? “I think so,” she replied, adding that the country’s responsibility to them isn’t over. “We know that they’re at increased risk for other types of illnesses, including some cancers and other types of disorders that are typically associated with environmental exposures. We see a higher rate of suicide,” Tanielian said. Black spoke about the profound weight of veteran suicides. “Two weeks after we came home, one of my soldiers took his own life. I didn’t really know what to do with that,” he said. “We lost more men and women of suicide than we had killed in action. So, what are we doing?” According to the Brown University Costs of War Project, 7,052 U.S. service members were killed in post-9/11 war operations through 2021. In that same period, more than 30,000 post-9/11 service members and veterans of those wars died by suicide. It’s more than four times as many. “It’s really hard for me, even to this day to hear that we’re killing ourselves at a greater clip than the enemy could have ever imagined. So, what is wrong, what are doing?” Black asked. He became vice chairman of Stop Soldier Suicide, an organization dedicated to saving lives and helping reduce the staggering loss. “I don’t think we should be in a country where veterans are at greater risk of taking their life than anybody else. I don’t think we can get to zero, but I think it’s reasonable that veterans should be able to live just like everyone else,” he said. “We’re doing so much better,” said Miller, the Army sergeant major. “Are we doing enough? No. And you can see it in the suicide rates and the rates of PTSD.” If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or chat live at 988lifeline.org. You can also visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional support. There is help for veterans in crisis. The 988 hotline is the easiest way to reach out. NBC Washington asked the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs for their take on the care veterans and active duty service members from this period are receiving. A VA spokesman pointed to “great strides improving access to care, expanding available therapies, speeding up claims processing and more for Veterans of all ages.” Mental health visits jumped from 14.2 million in fiscal year 2010 to over 23.7 million in fiscal year 2025, he said. Veterans have had access to payments for suicide crisis care. The Defense Department did not respond. ‘There is a long tail on the consequences of war’ Among Americans old enough to remember Sept. 11, 93% remember exactly where they were or what they were doing when they heard the news, a Pew survey in August found. More than 100 million Americans have been born since that awful day. For that third of all Americans, 9/11 isn’t a core memory; it’s just history. NBC Washington asked our group of brave Americans who stepped up to serve what the rest of us should remember. Jones, of the TSA, said, “We must never let our guards down again, because the moment that you let your guards down, that’s when they’re going to start looking for a way to inflict pain on us.” Black said, “Unfortunately, it seems like only horrific things can bring us together. And what would it be like if we could naturally come together?” He reflected on how Americans can serve our country. “Whether you’re gonna be a nurse or you’re going to join a nonprofit or you’re gonna serve your community, this is not free, right? You owe it to your country, and you owe it your countrymen and women to do something and to continue to fight so that we can continue to be the standard for the rest of the world to follow.” Tanielian, the researcher, spoke about the “long tail” of war. “I hope we never forget and that we always remember the heroism, the patriotism, the service, the sacrifice that this generation of service members and veterans, first responders, have taken on behalf of the rest of us,” she said. “And that we commit to making sure that we’ll continue to support them and not forget that some of the consequences, again, we may not see for another five, 10 years as we learn more about the tail of war. I mean, and there is a long tail on the consequences of war.” This story originally appeared on NBCWashington.com. ...read more read less