September 11, 2001 is a historic day in America and around the world.
Advertisement
Ceremonies are taking place in the city and around the country today to commemorate those who perished at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, 15 years ago in the September 11th terror attacks.
As classical music drifted across the 9/11 Memorial plaza in lower Manhattan, family members and first responders slowly read the names and delivered personal memories of the nearly 3,000 victims killed in the worst attack on US soil since the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor.
A September 11, 2001 file photo of rescue workers carry mortally injured New York City Fire Department chaplain. The last two record when the North and South towers of the Trade Center collapsed.
Mourners sobbed and laid flowers in the grooves of their loved ones’ names, carved into the walls of two reflecting pools in the footprint of the towers overlooked by the Freedom Tower, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.
SchwittekIt’s the 15th anniversary of September 11, 2001, the date of the deadliest attacks on USA soil since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in World War II. Numerous first responders died while running up stairs in the hope of reaching victims trapped on the towers’ higher floors. We can not give in to those who would divide us.
“We are still the America that looks out for one another, bound by our shared belief that I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper”. The New York remembrance is a private event attended by families and local officials.
The reading of the names of the almost 3,000 victims started a minute later.
When hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center’s north tower at 8:46 a.m. that day, time all but froze for the nation. The bells will ring at 9:03 AM, when one plane hit the South Tower, and again at 9:37 AM, when one of the planes hit the Pentagon.
A third will come at 9:37a.m., the time when American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon.
Advertisement
By the time passengers overtook the terrorists and crashed United Airlines Flight 93 into a field in southwest Pennsylvania at 10:03 a.m., and the north tower collapsed at 10:28 a.m., future generations had been altered forever by 9/11.
