Today is the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I remember them like it was yesterday, perhaps because I visited the 9/11 site while it was still smoldering, have been to the 9/11 Museum, and last summer, visited the memorial site at Shanksville, PA. All the images and artifacts sear into your brain and make the horror very real.
Shanksville played an important role in the investigation because it was a contained and unfiltered site. Unlike in New York or DC, where remains of the plane and its contents were mingled with thousands of other items from the buildings, the plane in Pennsylvania went down in an isolated field, allowing the FBI to know that everything they found was from the plane or a passenger.
And amid that pulverized debris, in the ashes of what was left from a jetliner crashing, upside down, at 550 miles an hour — was a credit card. Somehow, the card was sucked out of the plane’s cockpit before it exploded, and it fell to the ground mostly unscathed. That card happened to belong to a Mr. Ziad Jarrah, one of the hijackers. This discovery was a key piece of evidence that allowed investigators to follow the money and track the source of the heinous act.
Never forget 9/11 — or that little things can have a big impact.
