A message from our CEO
Remembering September 11: 25 years later
September 8, 2026
Teammates and Friends,
Friday marks 25 years since September 11, 2001. A quarter century is enough time for an entire generation to grow up, enter the workforce, and never know a world before that Tuesday morning. Therefore, for some of you reading this, 9/11 is history you’ve studied rather than a day you vividly recall. For the rest of us, that day's details stay sharp. Where we were, what we were doing, who we called first.
I was living and working in London that day, sitting in a routine review in my office when my administrative assistant told me a plane had hit one of the towers. Like most people hearing that for the first time, I assumed it was an accident. Likely a small aircraft had steered off course. When she came back minutes later with news of the second plane hitting the second tower, I walked next door to the head of Communications’ office, where there was a TV, and immediately understood that the world had just fundamentally changed.
I watched the rest of that day unfold on that television in the office next door, and in the weeks that followed largely through British reporting from the BBC, the Times of London, and the Financial Times. I was an American consuming a homeland tragedy outside my homeland. It wasn’t until weeks later during my first trip back to Washington, D.C. that I understood how differently I experienced that day compared to those who lived it in the U.S. What I remember from London, though, is how the British people responded. Countless offered condolences. Flowers piled up outside the U.S. Embassy. The world grieved with us as though our losses were their own.
That’s the part of 9/11 I hope stays with us, even as the images grow more distant. Not just what was taken away, but what it revealed about the strength of our alliances when it mattered most.
Twenty-five years on, we remember the nearly 3,000 people lost that day in New York City, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field. Among them were 372 people from 90 other countries — including 67 British citizens, 24 Canadians, and 10 Australians — a reminder that this tragedy reached far beyond American shores. We remember with honor and gratitude the first responders who ran toward danger that morning and never came back; the generation of servicemembers, American and Allied alike, who answered the call to action in the years that followed; and the thousands who have died or continue to suffer from 9/11-related illnesses. And we remember, too, that for a while, we were simply kinder to one another. That’s a lesson worth keeping and repeating.
This solemn anniversary comes at a moment when the world feels, in some ways, as unsettled as it did in the fall of 2001, though the threats now take different forms. That is why the missions we support have never mattered more. Wherever our Leidos teammates sit around the world, we remain part of how we ensure it’s harder for something like that to happen again, and that’s why we carry a steadfast commitment to the work we do for our customers, every day.
Thomas A. Bell
Chief Executive Officer
To commemorate the 25th anniversary, Leidos is donating to the 9/11 Memorial Museum Never Forget Fund to educate future generations about the events of 9/11, and Tuesday’s Promise in support of military and 9/11 families.