On the morning of Sept. 12, 2001, I trudged into my office in Midtown Manhattan, still shellshocked from having watched the Twin Towers collapse to the ground the day before from the roof of my apartment building in the West Village. I was an editor at Maxim , at the time king of the so-called lad mags. I walked past the wall covered in R-rated reader submissions for our “Found Porn” section, photos of coeds sitting in tubs of Jell-O, a Gatling gun that fired rubber bands, cases of booze that PR agencies sent us hoping for a little ink somewhere in our pages. When I reached my desk, there was a single blinking message on my phone. I knew exactly who it would be from. I hit play and the familiar, gravely voice of retired Col. David Hackworth came through the earpiece: “Well, we tried to w

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