It’s been 25 years since September 11, 2001. But while the terror attacks may be seared into the memories of survivors forever, 9/11 remains a tragic piece of American history we can’t afford to forget.
“Everyone’s got a story,” human rights activist Sujo John tells The Daily Wire. He was working in the North Tower at the World Trade Center. He says he survived by the grace of God.
Excluding the hijackers, almost 3,000 lives were lost that day. But the deadliest attack on American soil saw continued fatalities in the aftermath. More than 7,000 U.S. military personnel were killed in subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, along with nearly 8,000 U.S. contractors. Those numbers don’t even account for the hundreds of thousands of allied troops and police who were also killed, and the millions of veterans now living with severe disabilities and PTSD.
Immediately following the attack, the congested air and debris surrounding the 14.6-acre Ground Zero site in Lower Manhattan became toxic. Decades later, many survivors and first responders endure an ongoing nightmare.
“Victims of 9/11 who were exposed to all that stuff have died,” John reminds me. “There was a study in the New York Post that said some 57,000 people have responded saying they have cancer.” Reported diagnoses include recent spikes in cancers of the thymus gland in the chest, stomach and bowel endocrine cancers, and breast cancer in men. Cases in survivors total 28,913, now surpassing 28,131 of those in first responders.
A quarter-century later, it’s still a political flashpoint. “You’re dealing with radical Islam,” John says, citing the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ recent direction for schools not to “talk about 9/11 as a terrorist attack.” John describes a reporter who asked him, “If you were to face a group of kids, would you tell them it was a terrorist attack?” He’s shocked this is even up for debate. “It’s crazy that we were talking about something like that.”
John and his wife Mary had just moved to America from Calcutta, India, in February 2001. They were young and wanted to experience a new city early in their careers. He got a job in the North Tower; she worked in the South Tower.
“I wrote an email at 8:05 in the morning,” John remembers, pulling up a message to a friend from church on his phone. He asks if I’m a person of faith. I say yes. He reads, “This is my sixth month in this country. God has been so good to us in so many ways … Back in India, although I had a secular job, I was involved in ministry. If church doors would be open, I would be there … Here, all I find myself doing is going to church on Sundays. I’m so ashamed to admit that I’m not involved in anything. Maybe this is what God wants me to go through right now, waiting for his will and purpose.”
He had just signed a life insurance policy the night before, waking his wife up to alert her, “If something happens to me, this is who you need to call. This is the paperwork. We’ll never talk about this again.”
John had found real success in a short period of time. Still, there was something missing. “In the business world, you chase success and success shows up and yet there’s a hole in your heart. And you can’t fill that thing with stuff,” he explains. He employs a bit of gallows humor. “God reads email, I guess.”
American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the 93rd through 99th floors of the North Tower of the World Trade Center 41 minutes after he sent that message. His office on the 81st floor became a chaotic scene of fire and twisted steel as walls immediately began to collapse. There were rumors that a wing of the plane had ripped through their floor.
“Ten thousand gallons of jet fuel, flying at 440 miles an hour. You can only imagine how loud that was. But we all thought it was a small commuter plane. Nobody thought it was a large plane, let alone a terrorist attack.”
The E train stopped just short of the subway station at the South Tower where Mary was headed into work. She was four months pregnant at the time, and running a little late that day. She stepped out onto the street as people jumped to their deaths around her.
After rescuing a woman who had been trapped in a crumpled bathroom stall, John and his company made the hour and 20-minute trek down the stairs. “We pass all these firemen, policemen, and we high-five them, saying, ‘You guys are the real heroes. God be with you,’” he recalls. “We had no idea that that would be the last time we would see their faces.”
“If you’ve heard the story of two men that carried a lady down in a wheelchair, both of them worked with me,” he says, calling his friends Michael Benfante and John Cerqueira heroes. “They brought a lady who was working for Port Authority down 68 flights, and then the building collapsed. They ducked under a firetruck. They all survived.”
“Nineteen Al-Qaeda terrorists attacked America that day. And the first response came through these men. They showed the world what this country is made of.”
John heard the second explosion from the stairwell, as United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower at 9:03 a.m. Cell phones were jammed, so he made a desperate move to call his wife from a landline in an Asian bank on the evacuated 51st floor. His friends wouldn’t let go of him, but he remembers someone remarking, “What’s life for Sujo without his wife?”
Moments later, a firefighter forced him back down the stairs. John says, “I’m absolutely sure that man that came and alerted me didn’t make it out of the building.”
When his group reached the concourse level, John recalls, “In between these towers, we see this picture of death and destruction. Bodies and body parts lying there.” Not knowing if his wife Mary was alive, he exited his building and headed toward the South Tower.
“That’s when the unthinkable happens,” he remembers. “I made it through these revolving doors when I hear this incredible roar. This is the South Tower imploding and going down. I’m saying, ‘Okay, this is it. I’m going to die here.’”
“But I had this tremendous peace that if I were to die, I would make it to heaven.” He prayed with people near him, choking on thick soot. “That’s when I feel someone pull me. He says he’s with the FBI.” The two men followed a red flashing light from a crushed ambulance, leading them out of the ash and debris.
The agent told him, “‘I’ve got to go back and get more people.’ He runs back into the North Tower. The ground shakes again. The North Tower collapses. This American hero died that day.” Special Agent Leonard W. Hatton was the only active FBI agent to die in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“Both the towers have collapsed and I’m saying, why am I spared?” Several excruciating hours later, John’s cell phone suddenly springs back to life. “When I said ‘Hello,’ it’s my wife on the other side … God had spared our lives.”
He couldn’t be more grateful to have survived that day. Along with becoming the least likely candidate to launch a public speaking career around his story of resilience and faith (he laughs about his Indian accent), he founded You Can Free Us, a global initiative to fight modern slavery. With a heart dedicated to helping others, he’s “involved in ministry,” just like he wrote in that email the morning of 9/11. His outreach works to free children from international sex trafficking and forced labor, providing the resources for kids finally to be kids. There are cartels and mafias. Enormous amounts of money. Predators setting traps in the not-so-dark fringes of Instagram and TikTok, promising fake summer jobs and modeling contracts. It’s difficult work, but he does it with purpose.
I ask if there was ever a moment that he felt the pang of survivor’s guilt. “For the first few days and weeks, yes,” he says. “You used to hear these church bells. You used to see these funeral processions. But as I look back … I look at different small ways God has used my life.”
“We look at life on Earth in terms of years. But life on Earth is so short compared to life after this life,” John says. “What is important is living every day at peace within yourself, at peace with your loved ones, and at peace with God. That’s truly the secret to living a life that has purpose.”
