25 Years On, 9/11 Legacy Splits Between Heroism and Lingering Harm

Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, the day’s immediate victims and its long-term survivors continue to shape public memory in sharply different ways. One account centers on Danny Lewin, the first confirmed fatality aboard American Airlines Flight 11, whose background as an Israeli commando and co-founder of Akamai Technologies is recounted by his childhood friend Marco Greenberg. Greenberg states that Lewin would have opposed current political divisions and any reframing that downplays the attacks’ origins. A separate report focuses on first responders such as retired New York police officer Mia Farina, who developed chronic lung disease years after working at the World Trade Center site and now relies on the federally funded World Trade Center Health Program.

Lewin, born in Denver and raised partly in Israel, served in the elite Sayeret Matkal unit before earning degrees at the Technion and MIT. The 9/11 Commission Report placed him in seat 9B on Flight 11, directly behind hijacker Mohamed Atta, and noted the possibility that he attempted to intervene before being killed by Satam al Suqami, a Saudi national. Greenberg describes Lewin fighting the hijackers and being fatally wounded roughly twenty minutes before impact. Farina, who responded on September 11, 2001, later received a diagnosis tied to dust exposure; she and thousands of others depend on the health program whose funding has repeatedly lagged behind enrollment growth.

These two threads—one biographical and interpretive, the other medical and programmatic—illustrate the range of ongoing consequences. Greenberg’s comments link Lewin’s record to criticism of contemporary language and attitudes toward the attacks. Farina’s experience underscores documented gaps between promised and delivered medical support. No new evidence concerning Saudi intelligence ties appears in either account, and claims about Lewin’s views on post-2001 domestic politics rest solely on Greenberg’s statements.