ARLINGTON, Va. – President Biden laid a wreath at the Pentagon, first lady Jill Biden was speaking in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and the families of victims gathered in New York on Sunday as the nation marked 21 years since the September 11, 2001, terror attacks that rocked the world and killed almost 3,000 Americans.
Events at all three sites included a reading of the names of those who died.
Other communities around the country were holding candlelight vigils, interfaith services and other commemorations. Some Americans are joining in volunteer projects on a day that is federally recognized as Patriot Day and a National Day of Service and Remembrance.
“America itself changed that day,” Biden told a somber crowd in the rain outside the Pentagon. “But what we will not change, and never will, is the character of this nation that the terrorist thought they could wound.”
In New York, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum was hosting its annual ceremony, with family members of the victims once again reading the names of the fallen.
Six moments of silence will be observed during the ceremony to mark when each of the World Trade Center towers were struck, when they fell, when a plane slammed into the Pentagon and when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a Shanksville field.
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Firefighter Jimmy Riches’ namesake nephew wasn’t born when his uncle died in the towers, but younger Riches took the podium to pay tribute.
“You’re always in my heart. And I know you are watching over me,” he said after reading a portion of the victims’ names.
Vice President Kamala Harris and husband Doug Emhoff will also be at the events in New York, but by tradition, no political figures speak at the ground zero ceremony.
In Shanksville, the names of the passengers and crew members will be read with the ringing of the Bells of Remembrance starting at 10:03 a.m., the moment Flight 93 crashed. The plane went down after passengers and crew members tried to storm the cockpit.
The attacks were the work of 19 al-Qaeda conspirators who commandeered two passengers jets departing from Boston, one from Newark, N.J., and one from Washington-Dulles. They turned the planes into weapons, with two slamming into and toppling the twin towers in New York, one hitting the Pentagon and one, likely headed for the United States Capitol Building, crashing into the Shanksville field.
The deadly morning spurred a global “war on terror” highlighted by two decades of combat in Afghanistan and the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden, founder of the Islamist militant group. The war on terror continues today – month ago a U.S. drone strike killed Ayman al-Zawahri, another key al-Qaeda figure who helped plot the 9/11 attacks.
“America’s determination to keep our country safe will never waiver,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the Pentagon commemoration. “We will always remember, we will always stand guard over this democracy. And we will always seek to be worthy of those who we lost.”
Contributing: The Associated Press
