The United States marked the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on Sunday with solemn services to commemorate the victims of the deadliest terror strikes on USA soil, which changed the world forever. Afterward, the reading of the victims’ names will resume.
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Tom Acquaviva, who lost his son, Paul Acquaviva, said, “It doesn’t get easier”.
Obama said the “3,000 attractive lives” lost that day will never be forgotten.
If you live anywhere in the five boroughs you’ve probably been able to see these twin beams of light shooting into the sky from Lower Manhattan. We look up at a gleaming tower that pierces the New York City skyline.
“September 11, 2001 touched every single one of us”, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Saturday at at memorial held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral for city firefighers.
On Sept. 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaida operatives crashed four passenger jets, two into the Twin Towers in Manhattan, one into the Pentagon and one into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania – killing almost 3,000 people and changing the world forever.
The war on terror has been, at best, a mixed success. The ride pays tribute to the strength, courage and heroism of the first responders who led recovery efforts during and following the terrorist attacks.
US President Barack Obama had said in May 2011 that “justice has been done” to “those families who lost loved ones to al Qaeda’s terror” 10 years after the 9/11 attacks when US Navy Seals carried out a successful operation to kill the attacks’ mastermind Osama Bin Laden in a house in Pakistan.
“Our patchwork heritage is not a weakness”, he said. “This is the America that was attacked that September morning”. “This is the America that we must remain true to”.
US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton arrives for the 15th Anniversary of September 11 at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, on September 11, 2016, in NY.
She fell ill after about 90 minutes at the service, becoming “overheated”, aides said, and was taken to her daughter Chelsea’s apartment in Manhattan. But many dignitaries attended, including Trump and Clinton.
The 15th anniversary arrives in a country caught up in a combustible political campaign and keenly focused on political, economic and social fissures. The nation around it is different, too.
“The things we think separate us really don’t”. Two employees fall on top of the mattresses, toppling them, and a woman then turns to the camera and says, “We’ll never forget”.
Ahead of the anniversary, President Obama said it was important to remember America’s “core values”. The New York remembrance is a private event attended by families and local officials. The two candidates had followed the custom of suspending all TV ads for the day.
A ceremony was also held in Shanksville, Pa., where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field after passengers and crew members fought off the attackers.
Among the dignitaries expected at the ceremony is Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who was a USA senator from NY when the attacks happened. He said he worked this summer with children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where 26 children and adults were massacred in 2012.
“This weekend, we honor their memory once more”.
Financial and other hurdles delayed the redevelopment of the Trade Centre site early on, but now the 9/11 museum, three of four currently planned skyscrapers, an architecturally adventuresome transportation hub and shopping concourse and other features stand at the site. A design for a long-stalled, $250 million performing arts center was unveiled Thursday.
Meanwhile, the crowd has thinned somewhat at the anniversary ceremony in recent years. But some victims’ family members, like Cathy Cava, have attended all 15 years.
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“I believe most of her spirit, or at least some of her spirit, is here”, Cava said.
