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John,

Twenty-five years ago, nearly 3,000 people went to work, boarded a plane, or answered a call for help and never came home.

I had graduated from West Point just months earlier and had only just finished Army Ranger School. I remember knowing, almost immediately, that the oath I had taken and the training I'd received had just taken on a meaning none of us in my class could have truly expected.

Today I'm thinking of the families who lost someone that morning, and in the days and weeks that followed. Of the brave first responders still sick from their work at Ground Zero. Of the service members who never made it home from the wars that came after. And of the Americans in uniform who are in harm's way around the world right now, at this very hour.

As we remember one of the darkest days in our nation’s history, I'm also thinking about what came next, in the days after the attacks. Americans and Montanans looked out for our neighbors. We saw each other first as fellow citizens, before anything else.

That unity and camaraderie didn't last as long as it should have, but it was real, and I've never forgotten what it felt like.

As Montanans gather at memorials across our state today, in Missoula and Billings and Great Falls and in small towns that lost someone too, my hope is that we find our way back to seeing one another not just as voters who supported this candidate or that, but as neighbors and citizens of the same great nation.

Chelsea and I are holding everyone touched by that day in our hearts.

We will never forget.

— Seth Bodnar

Paid for by Seth Bodnar for Montana. Use of his military rank, job titles and photographs in uniform does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Army or the Department of Defense.

Seth Bodnar for Montana

PO Box 7188



Missoula, MT 59807

United States

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