Twenty-five years after the deadliest attack on U.S. soil, Americans paused on Friday to commemorate the nearly 3,000 people killed when hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania — and to wrestle with the consequences of September 11 that reverberate to this day.
In New York, family members of the victims, many carrying pictures of their loved ones, joined Vice President JD Vance and four former U.S. presidents at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan. The ceremony began, as always, at 8:46 a.m. Eastern Standard Time with a moment of silence to remember the shocking instant when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the World Trade Center’s North Tower.
Shortly after, victims’ family members began reading aloud the names of all 2,977 people who died on September 11, as well as the six people killed in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a somber recitation that lasts for hours. In a reminder of the time that has passed, some readers were children who had never met the relatives they lost in 2001.
Other moments of silence followed, marking when the other three airplanes crashed and the two towers collapsed. For the first time, a seventh moment of silence was set to honor the thousands who have died since 2001 from illnesses tied to the toxic dust that poisoned the air for months afterward.
Gregory Carafello attended the ceremony to honor the memory of his lifelong friend James Martello, who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial firm that lost more than 650 employees in the attacks. Carafello was on the 18th floor of the South Tower but managed to evacuate.
“Everyone should realize that it was a very bad, catastrophic day for many families,” he said. “These were not warriors. These were people like you and me going to work.”
At the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, where American Airlines Flight 77 struck the building’s west flank, killing 184, President Donald Trump chronicled some of the stories of those aboard who perished in the crash: a woman pregnant with her first child, a family of four headed to Australia, three sixth-graders on a field trip.
The president and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who also delivered remarks, both used their speeches to make the case for the Iran war, which they have defended as necessary to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
“We salute our first responders and law enforcement, and we love them,” Trump said. “And we salute the service members working right now to ensure the world’s number one sponsor of terror, the Islamic Republic of Iran, will never ever have a nuclear weapon.”
Mourners were also gathering in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at the crash site where passengers brought down one of the four hijacked jetliners, United Airlines Flight 93, that had been headed for Washington.
Generational pain
The attacks shaped generations of Americans who lived through the day or grew up in its aftermath, influencing U.S. foreign policy, domestic politics and public attitudes toward security.
But for many whom the attacks directly affected — the victims’ families and friends, first responders and rescue workers — the anniversary is a tribute to the lives lost on a clear blue day a quarter century ago and the heartbreak that followed.
Caroline Ogonowski’s father, John, was the captain of Flight 11, which took off from Boston 47 minutes before striking the North Tower.
Ogonowski, now 39, had her first baby this year and named him after her father. She brought him to her father’s grave last week and attended a memorial ceremony in Boston on Friday.
“This year, there’s this new sadness in knowing that they won’t ever get to know each other,” Ogonowski, who has worked in disaster relief and humanitarian assistance, said in a phone interview. “My father will never know his grandson. And my son will never know his grandfather.
“We owe it to my father and all the others that we lost on that day to make sure that we continue to teach future generations about what happened, about who these people were, who these heroes were, how our country came together and became stronger because of it,” she added.
Lasting legacy
A generation of Americans has grown up since 2001 who are too young to remember the attacks but whose lives were fundamentally altered by them.
The attacks initiated the War on Terror, which led to the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq that lasted years. The resulting public backlash helped fuel Trump’s rise a decade ago, when he vowed not to start new foreign entanglements — a promise being tested by the Iran war.
At home, Americans expressed deep solidarity and patriotism, as well as sorrow, in the immediate wake of the attacks.
At the same time, however, Muslim Americans and immigrants from Muslim-majority countries faced a rise in prejudice and hate crimes. Public polls have found 9/11 colors Americans’ perceptions of Muslims to this day. Zohran Mamdani, New York’s first Muslim mayor, faced calls from some Republicans to skip Friday’s ceremony, which he rejected.
Casualties were not limited to those who perished on September 11. Many rescue workers who spent weeks or months at the site afterward, as well as nearby residents and others, were sickened by toxins in the air and eventually died.
The New York City Fire Department lost 343 members on September 11. More than 600 additional firefighters, including some retired members who took part in the rescue effort, have died of 9/11-related illnesses since then, department figures show.
Twenty-six have died this year alone.
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