Leon Panetta reflects on the 25th anniversary of 9/11 at a ceremony in Seaside.

As Americans mourned the 2,976 lives lost 25 years ago during the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the subsequent war efforts to respond, first responders in Monterey County gathered to reflect on what the day meant for them, even thousands of miles away. 

Seaside Police Chief Nick Borges was 20, a young recruit just one month into the police academy with a plan to become a probation officer and working at Bruno's Market in Carmel at the time. The attack became a crystallizing force that helped guide his career, he said, as he remembers thinking: "I want to be the one running to danger." 

He traveled to New York in 2002 on the first anniversary of 9/11, moved by his own raw emotion and a desire to attend the first annual memorial service. He was invited to meet President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush. 

The experience transformed him, Borges said. Instead of a moment of silence, he has developed the tradition of a "moment of sirens" in Seaside for 9/11 anniversaries, with fire engines and police vehicles all screaming for 15 seconds simultaneously, in what Borges hopes reflects that call to action, rather than just a moment of reflection.

The emotion Borges felt then came through again on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026 on the 25th anniversary of the attack, when he invited retired CIA director Leon Panetta to speak at Seaside's ceremony. 

Panetta was tapped by President Barack Obama to lead the agency some eight years later, when Osama Bin Laden was still at large. Speaking in Seaside, he reflected on the raid on Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan in which American forces killed the Al Qaeda leader in 2011, nearly a decade after the attacks. 

When he took the helm of the CIA, he said, he asked the staff: Who is in charge of finding Bin Laden? "They all raised their hand. That is not a good sign, that meant nobody was in charge," Panetta said. So he assigned a task force to look for evidence and provide weekly reports. 

That effort eventually led them to the identities of couriers visiting Bin Laden, and then to the compound, flanked by walls 12 to 18 feet high. 

Those walls made it impossible to get eyes on the mysterious family living inside, meaning an absence of clear, direct evidence. "I said, 'I have seen movies where the CIA can do this, dammit,'" Panetta recalled. But ultimately, even without 100-percent certainty on Bin Laden's identity, at Panetta's urging, Obama directed the raid to proceed. 

It was a story he has shared before, but he said part of the sharing—of the American response, but of the Sept. 11 attacks themselves—is what the anniversaries are all about. 

"Today we come together to make a pledge," Panetta said. "The pledge is that we will never forget. We will never forget what happened on 9/11, the sacrifices that were made on this day, and the tragedy of the lives that were lost—and the courage and the hope as people had to come together, unify together, rebuild their lives, defend our country and, in many ways, rebuild our own country…

"We remember the tragedy of what happened, and we must also remember the heroism of all of those who put their lives on the line."

One in 10 Americans today were born after Sept. 11, 2001, he noted, making it imperative that memories are carried on. 

While the initiation of the War on Terror was not without controversy, Panetta described it as an unambiguously patriotic time of unity for America. 

"I could see the unity and patriotism of this country coming together. I never forgot that sense of unity, that sense that all of us had to face what had happened on 9/11," he said. 

Panetta also had a message about the president, seemingly directed at President Donald Trump's acts of aggression abroad. 

"We must also pledge that if we are going to fight future wars, let’s make sure we have an objective, a strategy to fight that objective, and that we have an endgame," Panetta said. "Most of all, we must be unified, not only to defend our country and our democracy, but to make sure we always have a government of, by and for people."