Captain America & 9/11

[Leoparis]

"The Four Fives"
Story published in Amazing Spider-Man 73 and other Marvel comics released on Sept 8, 2021.

Synopsis: Spider-Man and Captain America attend the 20th anniversary ceremony (it doesn't specifically say it's the 20th anniversary). When Spidey asks Cap if he knew anyone, Cap answers, "Every single one of them."

How can we make sense of that last line? If it's the 20th anniversary Cap was unfrozen after 9/11 had occurred and could not have known these people. If it's another anniversary (say, fifth), it becomes theoretically possible that he knew "every single one of them" but not so likely. Now, the idea of Cap having known every soldier, including fire soldiers on 9/11, has already been expressed in another Cap issue, Captain America Theater of War: Ghosts of my Country.

His 9/11 chronology currently looks like this:
CAPTAIN AMERICA/STEVE ROGERS
CA4 1-FB-FB jogging through city before attack
ASM2 36 clearing debris
CATOW:GOMC going up the stairs dressed as a fireman
CA4 1-FB clearing debris

In both ASM2 36 and CA4 1-FB, he's clearing debris, looking for survivors, and the inclusion of an issue in-between where he goes up the stairs dressed as a fireman strikes me as odd.

I'm not entirely sure what part of CATOW:GOMC was meant to occur in that interval. Certainly something from the last three pages where we have the following panels:
a) Cap with a fireman hat going up a WTC tower
b) charging with WWII or Korea soldiers
c) planting a flag on the Moon (Apollo 11 mission)
d) with Martin Luther King on a march
e) raising the flag at Iwo Jima
f) on a 4th of July ceremony
g) on another ceremony as speaker
h) ghostly figure in front of a Captain America comics cover gallery

Panels a) or g) would be the prime contenders. But none of those panels a) to h) are meant to be an actual physical appearance from Cap. The fireman sequence is just following from the previous page, showing a couple of firemen who surely died in the collapse of the tower, just as we saw the ghost of Cap present at a number of military deaths on the previous pages. They're figurative appearances showing Cap in the place of firemen, soldiers, militants, astronauts from history. It is not meant that Cap marched with MLK, planted a flag on the Moon or climbed WTC stairs with firemen.

In CA4 1-FB Cap says he was not there when the tower collapsed, which by itself would eliminate the possibility that he accompanied firemen up the stairs. He says he saw people jumping from the windows while he was jogging.

The writer Paul Jenkins explained his intent for CATOW:GOMC in an article reprinted in the Captain America: Theater of War trade paperback, "he is the sum total of all of the most important and meaningful and meaningless and mundane and intense moments throughout the history of the U.S. He is the personification of America. [...] we journey across time to see Cap as the ghost of his country. He exists throughout all of the most important moments of American military history. He was there. And he was there because the sum total of everything that was happening made him come alive. It's kind of a strange concept I suppose, but he is alive because of everything these soldiers did. Every American soldier brings Captain America alive."

While CATOW:GOMC can explain the comment that Cap "knew" every single responder who died, when can these appearances of Cap as a ghost take place? Is there a time when Cap was a ghost going through time? Yes, there is. This is Captain America:Reborn 1-4. Cap is psychically bouncing up and down his timeline (the last 100 years), he had also been physically sent to the most important moments of American history in Captain America: Bicentennial Battles and sent by Father Time to its mythical past in Captain America #383 and so, traveling on his timeline, could exist in these moments before he was born. So the two requirements of going through time as a spirit and being there at the most important moments of American history are met.

PS: While looking for an appropriate spot in CA:REBORN 4 when his "ghost" could appear in CATOW:GOMC, I saw a scene at the bottom of page 23 not referenced anywhere, Steve's parents holding him as a baby.

Suggested additions and corrections:

CAPTAIN AMERICA/STEVE ROGERS
*CA:REBORN 4 (23) add
CA7 1-FB
...
ASM2 36
*CATOW:GOMC move from here
CA4 1-FB
...
CA:REBORN 4 (1 - 22)
*CATOW:GOMC insert here
CA:REBORN 4 (23 - 28)

ROGERS, JOSEPH
*CA:REBORN 4 (23) add
CA7 1-FB
CA 282-FB
CA 283-FB

ROGERS, SARAH
*CA:REBORN 4 (23) add
CA7 1-FB