‘I gave up my life to care for my father’: How 9/11 shaped a son’s sense of duty and life trajectory

To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Cover image: © France 24 09:29 Issued on: 13/09/2026 - 19:10Modified: 13/09/2026 - 20:35 Jean-Emile Jammine is pleased to welcome Alessandro Stravato, a witness to the attacks of September 11th. His testimony offers a deeply personal account. He witnessed firsthand the second plane strike the World Trade Center from Arthur Ashe Stadium. Stravato’s first instinct was not to interpret the historical significance, just find his father, who was working at City Hall. He found him alive, covered in debris and soot, trekking dozens of blocks through Manhattan. And while his father did survive, his health seriously deteriorated over the years. By 2015, as Alessandro's dad was losing his battle with cancer, he told his son to "stay strong." Keywords for this article