25 years ago this morning, Flight 77 struck the Pentagon. About 30 yards away, nearly 150 children were in the Pentagon’s Child Development Center. Staff began evacuating them. Babies were placed in mobile cribs. Service members and others came alongside the childcare workers, pushing the cribs, comforting the children and helping move them away from the burning Pentagon to safety. One father later described finding the cribs arranged in a ring, infants inside them, older children gathered within the circle, and security personnel standing watch around them. Every child made it out safely. That is the American spirit I want to remember. Ordinary people, military and civilian, seeing children who needed help and immediately doing their duty. No speeches. No cameras. No concern about rank or recognition. Just the reflex to protect the smallest among us and get them home. A republic survives when its people still know what to do when the sirens go off.