‘These were people like you and me going to work’: America remembers 9/11 victims 25 years on
Twenty-five years after the deadliest attack on US soil, Americans paused on Friday to commemorate the nearly 3000 people killed when hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania – and to wrestle with the consequences of September 11 that reverberate to this day.
In New York, family members of the victims joined Vice President JD Vance, former president George W. Bush, who was in office on 9/11, and ex-presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan. The ceremony began, as always, at 8.46am with a moment of silence to remember the shocking instant when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the World Trade Centre’s North Tower.
Shortly after, victims’ family members began reading aloud the names of all 2977 people who died on September 11, as well as the six people killed in the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing, a sombre recitation that lasts for hours. In a reminder of the time that has passed, some readers were children who had never met the relatives they lost in 2001.
Elsie Caldwell carried a photograph of her son Kenny Caldwell to hear his name and all the others read aloud. She last spoke to him that morning a quarter-century ago.
“Mom, I just want to let you know that I love you,” Caldwell said he told her in a final phone call. She is one of many relatives of victims whose remains never were recovered.
Other moments of silence, marking when the other three planes hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists crashed and the two towers collapsed, followed. For the first time, a seventh silence was observed to honour the thousands who have died since 2001 from illnesses tied to the toxic dust that poisoned the air for months afterward.
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wiped away a tear as he revisited the place where the attacks killed 658 of his then-colleagues – including his brother, Gary Lutnick – at the investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald.
Gregory Carafello came to the ceremony to honour the memory of his lifelong friend James Martello, who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald. Carafello himself was on the 18th floor of the South Tower but managed to evacuate.
“Everyone should realise that it was a very bad, catastrophic day for many families,” he said. “These were not warriors. These were people like you and me going to work.”
At the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, where American Airlines Flight 77 struck the building’s west flank, killing 184, senior military leaders gathered amid heavy rain to watch the unfurling of an American flag before US President Donald Trump chronicled some of the stories of those aboard who perished in the crash: a woman pregnant with her first child, a family of four headed to Australia, three sixth-graders on a field trip.
“In those harrowing days after the attacks, we saw the authentic spirit of our nation,” Trump said at the ceremony.
The president and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who also delivered remarks, both used their speeches to make the case for the Iran war, which they have defended as necessary to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
“We salute our first responders and law enforcement, and we love them,” Trump said. “And we salute the service members working right now to ensure the world’s number one sponsor of terror, the Islamic Republic of Iran, will never ever have a nuclear weapon.”
Trump added: “September 11th reminded us of the terrible power of hate. The 25 years since have shown us the even greater power of the American spirit to endure and prevail, and to win.”
The Washington Post reported that Trump, ahead of his remarks, at times appeared to be struggling to keep his eyes open. The president got back to the White House about 2.30am from his trip to Dallas.
White House spokesman Davis Ingle rejected claims suggesting the president was asleep.
“[He] was solemnly listening and remembering the victims and heroic first responders who tragically lost their lives on that fateful day. Anyone ridiculously claiming the president was asleep is lying,” he said.
A ceremony was also being held in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at the crash site where passengers brought down one of the four hijacked jetliners, United Airlines Flight 93, that had been headed for Washington.
The attacks shaped generations of Americans who lived through the day or grew up in its aftermath, influencing US 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 Flight 11, which took off from Boston 47 minutes before striking the North Tower.
Ogonowski, now 39, had her first baby this year and named him after her father. She brought him to her father’s grave last week and was attending 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.
The attacks initiated the “war on terror”, which led to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the US 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 colours Americans’ perceptions of Muslims to this day. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, faced calls from some Republicans to skip Friday’s ceremony, which he 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 in 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 US Environmental Protection Agency. Its former administrator, Christine Todd Whitman, apologised 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.
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