On 11 September 2001, I was driving to work on the freeway in Austin, Texas when I heard the news on the radio that planes had crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
As I went about nearly crashing my own car while trying to phone my best friend in New York City, I remember thinking that we were going to be hearing a lot about this particular date for a long time to come.
Sure enough, a quarter of a century has now passed since 9/11, and the events of that day continue to shape daily existence in the US - as trite as it sounds to say it.
Those of us who are old enough may remember the pre-9/11 panorama, when it was still possible to go through airport security with your water bottle and shampoo and Muslims could go to mosque without being pursued by FBI informants.
And while the US was never exactly all it was cracked up to be in terms of democracy and respect for basic rights, 9/11 definitively obliterated the right to privacy and other civil liberties upon which the country was supposedly founded. READ MORE AT MIDDLE EAST EYE.