26-year-old Scott Michael Johnson was a securities analyst who worked at the investment banking company Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, located in the World Trade Center. On 9/11 he was killed, but only now has the New York City medical examiners’ office announced that it has positively identified the victim using newer techniques of DNA analysis.

This confirmation is good for the family, although very sad. So many died in that attack, and so many of them were young.

It’s strange to think that there are college students now who were mere babies at the time of 9/11, and who therefore have had the event as part of their historical world-view from the start. It’s also strange to think that, as the linked article mentions, 40% of the dead from that day are still unidentified though DNA. I hadn’t realized the number of unidentified was still that large. It is a graphic reminder of many things, including how devastating the heat and the collapse were, incinerating and then pulverizing everything in their path.

RIP.

[NOTE: This post was originally on my older blog and had comments, but unfortunately the comments didn’t transfer over here.]