It was around 3 a.m. on this day, two decades ago, when the horrifying news hit these sleeping islands with searing impact. The fear that another world war had broken out reverberated as Hawaii residents rose to confront the devastating images.

In one sense, that’s exactly what had happened. The world shifted to a war footing against terrorism, and many things across the globe would change forever on Sept. 11, 2001 — “9/11.”

There was tragic loss of life, first and foremost. Five people from Hawaii, and four more with Hawaii ties, were among the nearly 3,000 who died. Each year the nation has memorialized those lost when hijacked airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center twin towers, the Pentagon and — in a flight aborted as passengers and crew members heroically fought back — a field in Pennsylvania.

Among the casualties, long-term, must be counted those killed or wounded in the 20-year war in Afghanistan. Almost immediately after the attack, Congress authorized the use of military force, and the fighting began in October 2001.

The world has just witnessed a chaotic and bloodstained end of allied military presence in that country. It was a conflict that began as Operation Enduring Freedom, a name with painful irony now that Afghanistan has reverted to the repressive control of the Taliban regime.

Far from the battlefields, fighting in Afghanistan — and, soon after, in Iraq — affected the training of forces in Hawaii, adding to tension over military exercises adjacent to civilian communities.

Beyond the war itself and the military readiness, 9/11 reshaped geopolitical forces in myriad ways and left a lasting imprint on the homeland and around the world.

The new apparatus and rules of security, the long lines and scans at airports everywhere, altered the experience of travel. Divisions between the Muslim world and the West became poisoned, exacerbating the fighting in the Middle East, erupting in terrorism around the world.

But on this 20th anniversary of a supremely dark day, what’s also worth remembering is the sense of national and global empathy that arose from those terrible moments.

At a time when, even in the Aloha State, there is division over how to emerge from our current global crisis, taking hope in our common humanity, and acting on it, would be a fitting tribute to those we lost.