Ottawa, home to a large community of Canadian Armed Forces members and their families, is where a personal reflection on the September 11 attacks published by Ottawa Life Magazine this week is striking a particular chord. Written by Bryan Brulotte and published on September 8, 2026, the piece revisits a morning that changed the course of the author's life and, for many in the capital's military community, still carries weight 25 years on.
What Happened That Morning
On September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked four civilian aircraft and attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Nearly 3,000 people were murdered that day, including 24 Canadians.
Brulotte writes plainly about recognizing the nature of what he was witnessing: "I knew evil when I saw it, and what we witnessed that morning was evil."
A Path Into Service
For Brulotte, a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, the attacks did more than shock. They reinvigorated his desire to serve. "As a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, September 11 reinvigorated my desire to serve," he writes, tying his own career directly to the events of that morning.
That sense of purpose carried a real cost for Canada. In the Afghanistan mission that followed 9/11, 158 members of the Canadian Armed Forces lost their lives. It's a toll that anchors why the anniversary remains more than a date on the calendar for the CAF community, including those based in Ottawa.
Why It Resonates Here
His reflection isn't a policy statement or an official commemoration. It's one service member's account of how a single morning redirected a life, and of the losses, 24 Canadians on 9/11 itself and 158 more in the Afghanistan mission that followed, that give the anniversary its ongoing weight for people who serve.
The piece doesn't dwell on ceremony or official events. Instead, it offers the kind of personal testimony that readers in a city with deep military ties tend to return to each year: a reminder that the anniversary isn't only about remembering what happened in New York, Washington and rural Pennsylvania, but about the choices it prompted afterward, choices that, for some in Ottawa's CAF community, are still being lived out.
Earlier This Month
Ottown has covered other angles on this year's 9/11 anniversary, including how ottown's earlier report describes Newfoundland and Labrador's Muslim community reflecting on neighbourly support after the attacks, and how ottown's earlier report covered Gander's commemoration of taking in stranded flights 25 years ago.
Sources: Ottawa Life Magazine
