The entire country mourned. Thousands of lives were lost. 9/11 was a major turning point in the history of the United States, a day of innocence lost. Scattered among the painful stories are thousands of tales of people who banded together to pick up the pieces. Among them, AOPA's Melissa Rudinger, who pushed for weeks to reopen the nation's airspace to general aviation and all its important contributions. Melissa describes what it was like inside the FAA at the time, and the many battles to keep our freedom to fly.