The United States on Sept. 11 marked the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that left nearly 3,000 dead and launched the United States into the decades-long war in Afghanistan.
In the morning, President Joe Biden laid a wreath at the Pentagon building in Arlington, Virginia.
“America itself changed that day,” Biden told the crowd near the building, which houses the Department of Defense and U.S. intelligence agencies. “But what we will not change, and never will, is the character of this nation that the terrorists thought they could wound.”
“We regain the light by reaching out to one another, and finding something all too rare: a true sense of national unity,” he added, although it came just over a week after he denigrated tens of millions of Trump supporters in a speech. “To me, that’s the greatest lesson of September 11th.”
A tolling bell and a moment of silence began the commemoration at ground zero in New York, where the World Trade Center’s twin towers were destroyed by the hijacked-plane attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Victims’ relatives and dignitaries also convened at Pentagon, which also was attacked that day, and a field in central Pennsylvania.
First Lady Jill Biden attended a memorial for United Airlines Flight 93 at an event in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. That airliner crashed as flight attendants and the 40 passengers fought back against the hijackers, thwarting what was presumed to be an attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“This is the legacy we must carry forward: hope that defies hate. Love that defies loss. And the ties that hold us together through it all,” she said.
Alleged Al-Qaeda conspirators had seized control of the jets to use them as passenger-filled missiles.
Vice President Kamala Harris and husband Doug Emhoff joined the observance at the National Sept. 11 Memorial in New York, but by tradition, no political figures speak at the ground zero ceremony. It centers instead on victims’ relatives reading aloud the names of the dead.
Briefly United
Some commentators and officials offered reminders that in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the United States experienced a period of brief unity.
“Twenty-one years ago this morning, terrorists launched a brutal attack on our homeland and changed the course of American history,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement. “Though they murdered thousands of innocent people, they failed to rip apart the sacred American ideals they intended to destroy. Instead, in the hours, days, and years following the attacks, the American people rallied together, stood by our values, and unleashed our military might.”
Rudy Giuliani, who was the mayor of New York at the time, won national praise for his handling of the crisis and steady leadership.
But during a news conference last week, the Republican mayor wondered whether the United States could ever be that united again as it was in the aftermath of the attacks.
“With all of the division and all of the turmoil we have, could we do it again?” asked Giuliani, who represented former President Donald Trump following the 2020 election. “All of a sudden, our country was in mortal peril. And everything stopped and we all came together. I think that would happen again.”
One survivor recalled escaping the World Trade Center’s North Tower after a plane slammed into the side of the building.
“At first I thought it was an earthquake because the building shifted one way and then back the other, and then it started to shake,” survivor David Paventi told Fox News Digital late last week. “I started to go under the table because I didn’t want the light to fall on me, but everyone rapidly started exiting the room.”
“In the stairwell, there were not a lot of people coming from upstairs,” Paventi recalled. That “tells you what was going on a few flights up.”
When trying to get down the stairs from the 81st floor, he said that there was a crowd of people who amassed.
“A couple of times, we’d sit there, and we’d look at each other thinking, ‘Should we try another stairwell?’” he said of the group. “There was one point when everyone got over so the firemen could run up. Here we were all trying to get out and all these guys coming up in full gear, carrying hoses.
“I couldn’t imagine running up to this fire, running up stairs, and knowing you still have 40, 50 flights to go.”
How many times did Xiden check his watch like he did when they brought our dead soldiers home from Afghanistan? Impeach the schmuck.
Body Bag Biden is so concerned about terrorist in this country, that he opened up our borders to every terrorist around the world, in fact he started them off without vetting the plane loads of Afghanistan’s from his moronic departure from the Afghan war. Now he’s begging Iran to take 150Billion dollars with no strings attached. Recognize a “traitor” by his actions and how his bank accounts grow. How much has his “Tax shelter” grown since he became president? Where’s the press?
Biden has killed more of our citizens than that Go back to Afghanistan the 13 service members that were killed because of Biden’s fuck up and moving the troops out prior to the airlift Then the way he handled the Chinese virus and thousands died He says he is doing the best job as a president in history in his own mind He has destroyed businesses employees loss of cars houses and then finally the family can’t do it anymore So does that mean Biden gets a wreath at his feet
I remember that day like it was yesterday. So sad to think that this could/did happen to America.
May God bless all who perished and the families of those people. I remember the cover of Time Magazine and thinking OMG what were those people thinking. One would never know unless you were there. My heart goes out to all. RIP.
A fraudulently elected senile mental case communist ,and an America hating treasonous tyrannical New World Order elitist scumbag has no business making a comment about anything in America especially with his actions of completely trying to destroy it. IMPEACHMENT NOW !