More than 100 million Americans have been born since September 11, 2001 — meaning for a growing share of the country, 9/11 isn't a memory but a history lesson. As the 25th anniversary approaches, Boise State University public affairs professor Stephanie A. (Sam) Martin examines what it means for a defining national trauma to fade into the past: how collective memory selects what gets carried forward, how the attacks became entangled with the policies and wars that followed, and what's lost when an event moves from lived experience to something "learned about." This piece, republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license, is intended for readers in grade 8 and above.
