25 Years After 9/11: Survivor Grief, Veteran Regret, and Renewed Security Warnings Mark Anniversary
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New testimony from British 9/11 survivor Janice Brooks has added fuller detail to coverage of the 25th anniversary of the attacks, describing how she escaped the South Tower of the World Trade Centre after being told to return inside during the evacuation, only for a second hijacked plane to strike her building minutes later. Brooks, who had moved from London to New York just 19 days earlier to work for Euro Brokers on the 84th floor, lost 61 colleagues that day and says she has never forgiven herself for attending only 23 of their funerals, adding that her "heart remains broken" a quarter-century on.
Now 66 and retired, Brooks volunteers as a speaker for the UK charity Since 9/11, visiting schools to educate children too young to remember the attacks, and is travelling back to New York to mark Friday's anniversary. Her account sits alongside wider anniversary coverage reported previously, including commemorations across Britain and the US, reflections from political leaders such as Andy Burnham and Tony Blair on the enduring UK-US partnership and terrorist threat, and Afghanistan veterans' regret over what they described as a pointless two-decade campaign as the Taliban swiftly regained control.
- Survivor Janice Brooks recounts escaping South Tower after being sent back inside
- She lost 61 colleagues, attended only 23 funerals, still grieving 25 years on
- Fits wider anniversary coverage of tributes, political warnings, and veterans' regret
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Commemorations across Britain and the United States this week mark 25 years since the 9/11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people when hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. The anniversary has brought together survivors, first responders, bereaved families and political leaders, including figures such as Andy Burnham and former Prime Minister Tony Blair, to reflect on the day's impact and the lasting UK-US relationship it shaped.
The attacks triggered a long "war on terror", including the invasion of Afghanistan, which lasted two decades before Western forces withdrew and the Taliban returned to power. That outcome has left many veterans who served there questioning what the campaign achieved, and is a key reason the anniversary carries added weight this year.
The occasion has also become a moment for wider debate about current security and immigration policy, with some former officials drawing links between border controls and the risk of future attacks. These discussions sit alongside the personal, human side of the anniversary, as survivors and responders continue to process grief and loss a quarter of a century on.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Advocates of the post-9/11 response argue that military intervention in Afghanistan was a necessary and proportionate answer to an attack that killed thousands, aimed at dismantling terrorist safe havens and protecting citizens from further atrocities. They contend that the warnings now being raised about border and immigration vulnerabilities are a prudent continuation of that vigilance, not alarmism, since the conditions that enabled 9/11 arose partly from gaps in intelligence-sharing and entry controls that must not be allowed to re-emerge. For these voices, honouring the dead means maintaining robust security postures rather than allowing complacency to return a quarter-century on.
The case against
Critics, including many who served, argue that two decades of war in Afghanistan produced a costly and ultimately futile campaign, given that the Taliban swiftly reclaimed control once Western forces withdrew, suggesting the sacrifice of lives and resources failed to secure any lasting strategic gain. They caution that framing current border and immigration policy through the lens of preventing another 9/11 risks conflating migration with terrorism, stigmatising vulnerable people and diverting attention from more effective, targeted security measures. For this camp, the anniversary is better marked by honest reckoning with the limits of military intervention than by renewed calls for restrictive controls.
Full account
Twenty-five years on from the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, in which nearly 3,000 people were killed, including 67 Britons, ceremonies were held on both sides of the Atlantic to mark the anniversary. Political leaders, survivors and bereaved families used the occasion to reflect on the scale of the loss, the way the atrocity reshaped global politics and security policy, and, for many who lived through it, on wounds that have never fully healed.
The Independent reported that tributes were paid by senior political figures, with a statement issued in the Prime Minister's name declaring that the UK and US 'stand together in memory of those we lost, and in defence of the values we cherish'. Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, also spoke of the enduring solidarity between the two countries, recalling the messages of support Manchester received from Americans, including children of 9/11 victims, after the 2017 terrorist attacks in that city. He warned that the threat of terrorism has not receded, saying it 'still knocks at the door of democracy'. Sir Tony Blair, prime minister at the time of the attacks, separately described the anniversary as a moment to honour what he called the 'unshakeable and essential bond' between Britain and America, calling 9/11 the deadliest act of terrorism ever carried out against American soil and against British citizens.
Personal testimony from those who were there added a different, more visceral register to the day's commemorations. Thomas von Essen, who was New York's fire commissioner in 2001 and oversaw a department that lost 343 firefighters that morning, recalled the confusion of the attack's opening minutes, when reports of a 'small plane' striking the North Tower gave way to the realisation that a commercial jet had hit the building and that people trapped above the fire were falling or jumping to their deaths. He described the moment a second aircraft struck the South Tower as the point at which it became clear the city was under deliberate attack, and used the anniversary to urge governments not to lose sight of the conditions that allowed the plot to succeed.
A British survivor, Janice Brooks, gave her own account of escaping the World Trade Center. Having moved to New York only weeks earlier to work for Euro Brokers, she was on the 84th floor of the South Tower and had begun evacuating after the first plane struck the North Tower, only to be directed back inside by officials before the second aircraft tore through the floors occupied by her firm. She survived the descent down the burning building, but 61 of her colleagues did not; she has said she still struggles with having attended the funerals of only 23 of them, and now speaks to schoolchildren through the charity Since 9/11 about extremism and tolerance, conscious that no pupil alive today has any living memory of the attacks.
The anniversary also prompted a markedly more critical reflection from British veterans of the Afghanistan campaign that followed 9/11, in which Western forces sought to dismantle the al-Qaeda network responsible for the attacks and remove the Taliban government that had sheltered it. Ben McBean, a former Royal Marine who lost an arm and a leg to an improvised explosive device in Helmand province in 2008 and also lost two comrades during his deployment, said the eventual outcome of the war had left him feeling that the sacrifices made by British forces counted for little. He pointed to the collapse of the Afghan government within days of NATO's withdrawal in August 2021, and the Taliban's subsequent reimposition of restrictions on women's education and public life, as evidence that the gains of the 20-year campaign had been reversed.
Taken together, the coverage of the anniversary revealed differing emphases between outlets. The Independent's account centred on formal political messaging — statements of transatlantic unity from Downing Street, Andy Burnham and Sir Tony Blair — framing the day around continuity, defiance and the bond between Britain and America. Reports carrying testimony from Thomas von Essen and Janice Brooks concentrated instead on first-hand trauma and grief from the day itself, with von Essen using his platform to issue a broader warning to governments about complacency, and Brooks emphasising personal, lasting guilt over colleagues who did not survive. The reporting on Ben McBean and fellow Afghanistan veterans struck a distinctly more sceptical note, questioning not the memory of 9/11 itself but the long-term value of the war waged in its name, and highlighting the toll on British forces — 457 killed and around 2,000 wounded — set against the Taliban's return to power.
Where outlets differ
The Independent's coverage foregrounds official political tributes (a Downing Street statement, Andy Burnham, Sir Tony Blair) and a message of transatlantic unity and defiance, whereas the other reports focus on personal, eyewitness testimony.
There is an apparent inconsistency in how the political tribute is sourced: a quote attributed to 'the Prime Minister' about UK-US unity appears alongside separately quoted remarks from Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester — the original report does not clearly distinguish which figure said what, so this account attributes the Manchester-specific reflections to Burnham without asserting he holds the office of Prime Minister.
Coverage of Thomas von Essen and Janice Brooks emphasises the human and psychological toll of the day itself — chaos, loss of colleagues, survivor's guilt — rather than politics or policy.
The veterans' account (Ben McBean) is notably more critical in tone, questioning whether the Afghanistan war achieved anything lasting, in contrast to the more solemn, unifying tone of the political tributes.
Casualty figures are reported precisely but differently across stories — nearly 3,000 killed overall with 67 Britons; 2,977 given elsewhere; Janice Brooks's firm alone is said to have lost 61 colleagues — reflecting different sourcing rather than a single agreed figure.
Coverage
- Daily Mail — Afghanistan war veterans say their friends ‘died for nothing’ as they speak out 25 years after 9/11
- The Independent — Terror ‘still knocks at door of democracy’, Burnham says on 9/11 25th anniversary
- Daily Mail — 25 years after 9/11, New York fire chief who risked his life that day warns of the terrorism dangers of Britain’s ‘idiotic’ migrant open-door policy
- Daily Mail — British 9/11 survivor says she will never forgive herself for ‘only’ attending 23 funerals as her ‘heart remains broken’ 25 years later
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