What does ‘Never Forget’ mean for a generation with no memory of 9/11?
Twenty-five years after a generation promised to “Never Forget,” that pledge now relies on education for the more than 100 million Americans with no memory of 9/11.
The Pentagon is preparing to help address that challenge by breaking ground this weekend on a long-awaited Visitor Education Center at the only one of the three 9/11 attack sites still without a dedicated museum or education center.
The new center is intended to fill the gap that has grown more pronounced with each passing year by helping Americans who never experienced the attacks understand not only what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, but why it continues to matter.
Joseph Kornhoff, executive director of the Pentagon Memorial Fund, told Fox News Digital that nearly one-third of the country was either not alive that day or has no recollection of it and therefore lacks the “personal connection” shared by those who watched the attacks unfold.
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“That’s what we’re trying to provide with the visitor education center experience,” Kornhoff said in an interview with Fox News Digital, explaining that the goal is to give visitors a personal connection that allows them to “start to understand the gravity of that day.”
Nearly 230 miles north, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York is confronting the same generational divide.
Beth Hillman, president and CEO of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, said the passage of time has only made the annual vow to “Never Forget” more important as the number of Americans with firsthand memories of the attacks declines.
“Many in my generation remember exactly where we were on that horrific day,” Hillman said during an Aug. 31 press preview outlining the museum’s plans for the 25th anniversary. “Yet, 100 million Americans were not even born or are too young to remember that day for themselves today.”
Noah Rauch, the museum’s senior vice president for education and public programs, said he has watched that transition unfold firsthand through the museum’s work with students and teachers. “I’ve seen this line creeping up between memory and history, between those who remembered the attacks and those who didn’t,” Rauch said during the Aug. 31 press event.
That transition from memory to history also raises a more modern challenge. Americans too young to remember the attacks are increasingly learning about an event they never experienced firsthand, while conspiracy theories and false narratives about 9/11 run rampant online.
Kornhoff said that makes factual education increasingly important, pointing specifically to conspiracy theories surrounding the attack on the Pentagon and narratives suggesting that America “deserved 9/11.”
“That’s the need for the education center,” Kornhoff told Fox News Digital. “As a nation, we need to really take a step back, look at how we’re educating our young children to make sure that we’re providing them with the facts of the situation … and not these conspiracy theories and entertaining wild ideas that just simply are not true.”
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The Pentagon center will include 10 exhibits telling the human stories of the attack, including the 184 people killed at the Pentagon and aboard American Airlines Flight 77, the first responders who rushed to the scene and the military and civilian personnel who aided the wounded.
“We are going to address the facts of the day,” Kornhoff said. “We are going to address the entire Pentagon story.”
The renewed focus on 9/11 education has also reached Capitol Hill. Reps. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., introduced bipartisan legislation ahead of the 25-year anniversary, which aims to direct the Department of Education to examine how 9/11 is taught in schools nationwide and identify gaps in instruction.
Kornhoff praised the effort during his interview with Fox News Digital, saying the legislation reflects a growing recognition of the need to educate generations with no firsthand connection to the attacks.
The Pentagon 9/11 Memorial Visitor Education Center is expected to open by the end of 2029 near the existing Pentagon 9/11 Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.
The project received $12 million in federal funding this year, along with $1 million from Virginia and additional private donations raised by the Pentagon Memorial Fund. Once completed, the center is expected to include interactive exhibits, historic artifacts and firsthand accounts from survivors and victims’ families while providing visitors with additional context about the attack and its aftermath.
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