U.S. marks 25 years since the September 11 attacks

Amer­i­cans com­mem­o­rat­ed the 25th an­niver­sary of 9/11 on Fri­day, re­mem­ber­ing the shock, the dead and the sweep­ing con­se­quences of the al-Qai­da at­tacks on sym­bols of U.S. might and pros­per­i­ty.

The mile­stone an­niver­sary brought memo­r­i­al rit­u­als — wreath-lay­ing, flag-fly­ing, mo­ments of si­lence, vig­ils and read­ings of vic­tims’ names — and vol­un­teer projects in trib­ute to a day that about half of U.S. adults re­mem­ber as the most his­toric event of their life­time, ac­cord­ing to a new poll. On Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qai­da ex­trem­ists hi­jacked four com­mer­cial jets and crashed them in­to New York’s World Trade Cen­ter, the Pen­ta­gon and a field near Shanksville, Penn­syl­va­nia, killing near­ly 3,000 peo­ple.

Elsie Cald­well car­ried a pho­to­graph of her son Ken­ny Cald­well to the trade cen­ter to hear his name and all the oth­ers read aloud Fri­day morn­ing. 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. His re­mains, like those of many oth­er vic­tims, have nev­er been re­cov­ered.

Trump at­tends Pen­ta­gon ob­ser­vance

The at­tacks brought down the World Trade Cen­ter’s twin tow­ers — icons of U.S. eco­nom­ic pow­er, and among the tallest build­ings on Earth — and blew a hole in the Pen­ta­gon, the U.S. mil­i­tary’s fortress-like head­quar­ters near Wash­ing­ton. The fourth plane was head­ed for Wash­ing­ton, of­fi­cials con­clud­ed, but the air­craft went down in Penn­syl­va­nia af­ter pas­sen­gers and crew mem­bers stormed the cock­pit and fought the hi­jack­ers.

“Sept. 11 re­mind­ed us of the ter­ri­ble pow­er of hate,” Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump said Fri­day at the Pen­ta­gon’s an­niver­sary cer­e­mo­ny Fri­day.

“The 25 years since have shown us the even greater pow­er of the Amer­i­can spir­it to en­dure and pre­vail, and to win,” added the Re­pub­li­can, who was in his na­tive New York on 9/11.

For­mer Pres­i­dent George W. Bush, who was in of­fice on 9/11, and ex-Pres­i­dents Bill Clin­ton, Barack Oba­ma and Joe Biden and cur­rent Vice Pres­i­dent JD Vance con­vened for the ob­ser­vance at the Na­tion­al Sept. 11 Memo­r­i­al in New York. 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.

Oth­er ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cials went to the Flight 93 Na­tion­al Memo­r­i­al in Penn­syl­va­nia.

At ground ze­ro, a new trib­ute to those who fell ill

For Angilic Casal­duc, at­tend­ing the New York com­mem­o­ra­tion “helps to show you’re not alone.” She lost her moth­er, Vi­vian Casal­duc.

“There’s no time­line for grief, and un­for­tu­nate­ly, no one can say how can you can grieve, but com­ing here once a year makes it feel just a lit­tle bit bet­ter,” she said.

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, there are no po­lit­i­cal speech­es at the ground ze­ro com­mem­o­ra­tion, where vic­tims’ rel­a­tives read aloud the long list of names and added per­son­al mes­sages. They thanked first re­spon­ders and the mil­i­tary, in­voked re­li­gious faith, ap­pealed for na­tion­al uni­ty and touched on the U.S. re­la­tion­ship with Sau­di Ara­bia. The king­dom was the home­land of most of the hi­jack­ers but de­nied any in­volve­ment in the at­tacks.

Most­ly, rel­a­tives spoke of, and to, loved ones — who some were too young to re­mem­ber.

“You dreamed my whole life for me, and you on­ly got eight months of it,” said Tr­isha Pak­ka, who lost her moth­er, Deepa Pakkala.

Kier­sten Haub, who was 16 months old when the at­tacks killed her fa­ther, fire­fight­er Michael Hel­mut Haub, said: “I car­ry you through every mile­stone.”

Be­sides mo­ments of si­lence at key points in the at­tack time­line, this year’s cer­e­mo­ny added an­oth­er mo­ment to hon­or peo­ple who were ex­posed to the clouds of tox­ic dust re­leased by the twin tow­ers’ fiery col­lapse and have since died of can­cer and oth­er ill­ness­es. Ques­tions re­main about how many peo­ple de­vel­oped health prob­lems linked to the dust.

The im­pact of 9/11 en­dures

It’s a re­minder of how the at­tacks’ long shad­ow has reached in­to many cor­ners of life in the U.S. and be­yond.

The U.S.-led glob­al war on ter­ror­ism in­clud­ed in­va­sions of Iraq and Afghanistan — the lat­ter Wash­ing­ton’s longest war — and de­ten­tions and harsh in­ter­ro­ga­tion of ter­ror sus­pects in an in­ter­na­tion­al net­work of se­cret CIA pris­ons. The U.S. found and killed al-Qai­da leader Osama bin Laden in Pak­istan in 2011 but ac­cused 9/11 mas­ter­mind Khalid Sheikh Mo­hammed still awaits a tri­al 23 years af­ter his cap­ture.

The at­tacks changed U.S. air trav­el, led to the cre­ation of the De­part­ment of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, prompt­ed new fed­er­al sur­veil­lance and in­tel­li­gence-gath­er­ing pow­ers and bank­ing reg­u­la­tions and gen­er­at­ed on­go­ing de­bate over the bal­ance be­tween se­cu­ri­ty and free­dom.

Sept. 11 en­gen­dered a cul­ture of in­di­vid­ual vig­i­lance summed up by the slo­gan “ if you see some­thing, say some­thing,” while a wave of pa­tri­o­tism pro­pelled some Amer­i­cans to join the mil­i­tary, fire de­part­ments and po­lice forces.

Casey Kloepfer was 4 when his fa­ther, po­lice Of­fi­cer Ronald Kloepfer, was killed at the trade cen­ter. The son be­came an of­fi­cer him­self this June, wear­ing his dad’s badge num­ber.

“It’s big foot­steps to fill, but it’s def­i­nite­ly some­thing that I take very se­ri­ous­ly and want to con­tin­ue to hon­or him and be the best po­lice of­fi­cer I can,” he said by phone this week.

New York’s may­or comes un­der scruti­ny

Amid the post-9/11 calls to ser­vice and ap­peals for na­tion­al uni­ty, the at­tacks al­so fanned mis­trust, prej­u­dice and hate crimes di­rect­ed at Mus­lims.

In the quar­ter-cen­tu­ry since, Mus­lim Amer­i­cans have played a grow­ing role in pub­lic life from state­hous­es to Con­gress to New York City Hall, where Zohran Mam­dani is the city’s first Mus­lim may­or. Yet he faced some crit­i­cism for at­tend­ing the an­niver­sary cer­e­mo­ny at ground ze­ro.

Re­pub­li­can ex-Gov. George Pata­ki and 9/11 vic­tims’ rel­a­tives cit­ed, among oth­er things, past re­marks that some of Mam­dani’s po­lit­i­cal as­so­ciates have made about the at­tacks. For­mer May­or Rudy Giu­liani, a Re­pub­li­can, al­so in­veighed against Mam­dani at­tend­ing the re­mem­brance, though the two shook hands there Fri­day.

Mam­dani, a De­mo­c­rat, said this week he loves the city and coun­try and that he want­ed the an­niver­sary to fo­cus on vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, first re­spon­ders and New York­ers who helped one an­oth­er af­ter the at­tacks, which he called a “hor­rif­ic act of ter­ror.” The 34-year-old may­or was an el­e­men­tary school stu­dent in New York on 9/11.

One vic­tim’s son and name­sake, Michael Mas­saroli, used his time at the podi­um Fri­day to de­plore peo­ple “us­ing this tragedy to spread hate” against Mus­lims and oth­ers.

“That’s wrong, and that does no ho­n­our to the vic­tims here,” he said.

Times Square bill­boards pause ad­ver­tise­ments

Re­mem­brances ex­tend­ed far from the at­tack sites, in­clud­ing beams of light pro­ject­ing from New Hamp­shire’s Mount Wash­ing­ton, a stair climb at Mis­sis­sip­pi State Uni­ver­si­ty’s foot­ball sta­di­um and a cer­e­mo­ny at Hon­olu­lu’s 9/11 memo­r­i­al.

Sept. 11 isn’t a fed­er­al hol­i­day, but Con­gress has des­ig­nat­ed it both Pa­tri­ot Day and a Na­tion­al Day of Ser­vice and Re­mem­brance.

“One ap­pro­pri­ate way to re­mem­ber is by serv­ing,” says Jay Winuk, who lost his broth­er Glenn Winuk and then co-found­ed the or­ga­ni­za­tion 9/11 Day with friend David Paine. The group co­or­di­nates vol­un­teer op­por­tu­ni­ties and this year arranged for dozens of Times Square bill­boards to pause their ad­ver­tis­ing at 9:11 a.m. Fri­day.

In­stead, they sim­ply dis­played the time. —NEW YORK (AP)

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Sto­ry by JEN­NIFER PELTZ and TED SHAF­FREY | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ists Michael R. Sisak, An­tho­ny Iza­guirre and Julie Walk­er con­tributed.