I was born after the moon landing. I always regretted that I did not live during those moments when all of America huddled around television screens–somehow both apart and together at the same time–to experience monumental history.

In 2001, I got to share in a collective moment of a different kind.

I was teaching at Tulane University 18 years ago. American Government. After the end of my first section of class, a student came into the room and asked to turn on the television. We saw live shots of smoke billowing across the New York skyline, which looked off-kilter.

I had no cell phone. This was before social media. Facebook and Twitter were not yet ideas, much less realities. The internet was still crawling. I walked to my office and called my wife to find out what was happening. It is remarkable how in the dark we were. Planes had crashed into the the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. The Pentagon had also been attacked.

Denise, my wife, drove to pick me up. Caleb, our son, was not yet a year old. We went home, parked ourselves in front of the television, and watched history unfold in horror. The early belief was that tens of thousands had died in the Twin Towers alone. Everyone knew that first responders had suffered since so many were rushing toward the site even as the buildings fell.

There were fears of additional terrorist activity. New Orleans was always vulnerable to natural disaster, but was not an obvious target on that day. There was a small military presence in the area, and some worried that oil and gas platforms, of which there were many, could be next.

Classes were canceled at Tulane. Many of the students were from the Northeast corridor and were awaiting phone calls from friends and family. Some got the worst news imaginable. The university scheduled a chapel service for public grieving.

Now, I find myself in the uncomfortable position of referencing 9/11 as a historical event. Our current crop of students were either not quite born or were so young that they have no conscious memory of those days. For most of them, it is as far removed from their minds as Vietnam or Korea. Sadly, they have come of age as children of war, which feels, even to us, as if it will be never-ending.

We always say, “Never Forget” or “Always Remember” when we reference 9/11, and rightly so. But I always ask myself, “who could forget? Who could fail to remember?” Surely, those of us who lived through even the smallest parts of 9/11 will always carry those events with us. But we do not remember for us. We remember first for the ones who died on that day, for now they live only through our memories. We remember so that we honor them. We also remember for those who came later. We remember because they need to see. They need to hear. If there is any hope of learning lessons from 9/11, our children and their children will be the ones who turn those lessons into reality long after we are gone.