Americans to mark 25 years since September 11 attacks amid enduring grief, reflection

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, 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 American Airlines Flight 11, which flew into the North Tower of the World Trade Center 47 minutes after taking off from Boston, killing everyone aboard.

Ogonowski, now 39, had her first baby this year and named him John, after her father. She took him to visit her father's grave last week and will attend 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.

In New York, Vice President JD Vance and all four living former presidents, including President George W. Bush, who was in office at the time of the attacks, will join Mayor Zohran Mamdani alongside victims' relatives at the September 11 memorial in downtown Manhattan.

The ceremony is scheduled to include moments of silence to mark when the two planes hijacked by al Qaeda militants struck the World Trade Center towers, as well as when each tower collapsed. Family members will read aloud the names of all 2,977 victims in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, as well as those of the six killed in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

President Donald Trump will commemorate the occasion at the Pentagon. Mourners will also hold a ceremony in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at the crash site where passengers brought down a fourth hijacked jetliner that had been headed for Washington.

GENERATIONAL PAIN

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 creation of the Department of Homeland Security and 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 current 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. Mamdani, New York's first Muslim mayor, has faced calls from some Republicans to skip Friday's ceremony, which he has 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.

Patrick Whalen's father, also named Patrick, was a New York City firefighter who responded to the attacks and continued working at Ground Zero for months amid the dust and rubble. In 2020, he was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, a rare cancer linked to exposure to toxic carcinogens, and died on August 22, 2021.

"The government told him it was safe to breathe, and, obviously, it was not true," the younger Whalen said after a New York City Fire Department memorial service this week.

Information that the air at Ground Zero was safe to breathe came from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Its former administrator, Christine Todd Whitman, apologized in a 2016 interview with The Guardian, saying the agency did its best with the knowledge it had.

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.

(Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova and Joseph Ax; editing by Paul Thomasch and Rod Nickel)