Tom Jerome

Tom Burnett grew up in Bloomington, was the quarterback at Bloomington Jefferson, graduated from the Carlson School at the University of Minnesota, and on the morning of September 11 he was a passenger on Flight 93. He called his wife Deena four times from that plane. She told him about the towers. On the last call, he told her that he and the other passengers had decided to take the plane back. His final words to her were “Don’t worry, we’re going to do something.” They did. Flight 93 never reached Washington. Tom was among the nearly 3,000 people killed twenty-five years ago today. I was activated as a U.S. Marine shortly after 9/11 alongside thousands of young men and women who didn’t look like me, pray like me, or come from where I came from, and every one of us had sworn the same oath: to support and defend the Constitution. Because the attacks were never only about buildings. They were an attack on America itself, and on the idea that defines it: that all of us are created equal and free, that we govern ourselves, and that our rights can’t be taken away. That idea held on a field in Pennsylvania. It is still standing today. We remember the fallen. And we honor Tom Burnett the way I hope he’d recognize: by continuing the fight.