September 11, 2026, marks twenty-five years since the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, at the Pentagon, and in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. American Legion Post 38 in Floresville, Texas, remembers that morning not as a closed chapter but as a living obligation: to honor the dead, to stand with those who served in the wars that followed, and to look after one another in the years still unfolding.
On that Tuesday, nineteen terrorists hijacked four airliners. Two struck the World Trade Center. One struck the Pentagon. Passengers and crew on United Flight 93 fought back; their aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania, short of its intended target. First responders ran toward the fires. In the days that followed, Americans enlisted, donated, and gathered under flags hung from porches and overpasses. A generation of service members — many of them now Legionnaires — deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq, and other theaters in the long conflict that began that morning.
This September 12, Post 38 will memorialize the anniversary in a way the community can see: members will select neglected cemeteries in Wilson County and perform brush clearing, mowing, and other maintenance as a service back to the community. Remembrance that day is a rake, a mower, and a few hours of work among the stones. Members are asked to turn out.
Service is the other half of memory. Children and grandchildren did not live through 2001; they inherit it. Teaching them why we stand for the colors, why we retire worn flags at the collection box at 1412 4th Street, and why veterans still carry that day is part of our charge in Floresville and Wilson County.
Looking out for one another belongs to that charge as well. The American Legion's Be the One initiative asks every member to notice when a veteran is struggling and to act. A Buddy Check is not a speech. It is a phone call, a chair saved at the Tailgate on the third Thursday, a ride to the second-Thursday meeting. If you or a veteran you know is in crisis, dial 988 and press 1 for the Veterans Crisis Line. Help is available around the clock.
Twenty-five years is long enough for children to grow up and for some wounds to stay fresh. We will not forget. We will also not leave our own to remember alone.
Twenty-five years on, the wars that followed 9/11 have sent a generation home to Wilson County. Some sit in our Hall. Some do not. Remembrance without care is incomplete.
On September 11, raise a flag properly, pause at noon if you can, and look in on a veteran who served after 2001. Watch Post meetings and txlegion38.org for any local observance the Post announces. Until then, the work is the same: remember the dead, stand with the living, and do not leave a comrade to carry that day alone.
Meet at the Hall for assignments and tools, then go out to the cemeteries. When the work is done, second-Thursday meetings and third-Thursday Tailgates remain the place a post-2001 veteran can find a chair and a hearing. Bring someone who has not been in. Show up the way this country showed up that week — not with a speech, with a presence.
If the anniversary sits heavy, you are not the only one in Wilson County who feels it. Stay with a comrade who needs the day named. Dial 988 and press 1 if it turns toward crisis. Fold a worn flag for the collection box. Teach a child or a grandchild why we still stand. Memory is a practice, not a headline.
Wilson County sent people to the wars that followed that morning. Some came home to 1412 4th Street. Some have not walked through the door in a long time. A Buddy Check on the week of the eleventh is not extra credit. It is the charge.
Raise the colors. Pause at noon. Then pick up the phone. The twenty-fifth anniversary will pass whether we mark it well or not. Post 38 intends to mark it by taking care of our own.
Post 38 – We Remember, and We Take Care of One Another.