NEW YORK: Americans are looking back on the horror and legacy of 9/11, gathering Monday at memorials, firehouses, city halls and elsewhere to mark the 22nd anniversary of the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil.
Commemorations stretch from the sites of the attack the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania to Alaska and beyond. President Joe Biden is scheduled to attend a ceremony at a military base in Anchorage.
His visit en route to Washington, D.C. from a trip to India and Vietnam, is a reminder that the impact of 9/11 was felt in every corner of the nation, however distant. The hijacked attacks killed nearly 3,000 people and changed American foreign policy and domestic concerns.
On that day, we “were one country, one nation, one people, just as it should be. That was the feeling that everyone came together and did what we could to try to help,” said Eddie Ferguson, chief of emergency services in Goochland County, Virginia.
It is over 100 miles (160 kilometres) from the Pentagon and more than three times the distance from New York. However, the sense of connection is anchored in a local memorial containing steel from the destroyed Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.
The largely rural county of 25,000 residents is holding not just one, but two anniversaries: a morning service focusing on the first responders and an evening ceremony to honor the memory of all the victims.
Other communities across the country pay tribute with moments of silence, bell ringing, candlelight vigils and other activities. In Columbus, Indiana, 911 dispatchers broadcast a memorial message to police, fire and EMS radios throughout the city of 50,000, which is also holding a public memorial service.
The flag is raised and lowered at a memorial event in Fenton, Missouri, where the “Memorial to Heroes” features a piece of World Trade Centre steel and a plaque honouring 9/11 victim Jessica Leigh Sachs. Some of her relatives live in the 4,000-person suburbs of St. Louis.
“We’re only a small community,” said Mayor Joe Maurath, “but it’s important that we continue to remember these events. Not just 9/11, but all the events that set us free.”
Monmouth County, New Jersey, which was home to some of the 9/11 victims, has made 9/11 a holiday this year for county employees to participate in the celebration.
As another way to commemorate the anniversary, many Americans volunteer on what Congress has designated as both Patriot Day and the National Day of Service and Remembrance.
At ground zero, Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to join the ceremony at National Square on Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum. The event will not feature remarks from political figures, instead the stage will be given to relatives of the victims for an hour-long reading of the names of the dead.
James Giaccone signed up again this year to read in memory of his brother Joseph Giaccone, 43.
“If their name is said out loud, they don’t go away,” James Giaccone said in a recent interview.
The reminder is essential for him.
“I hope I never see the day when they minimize it,” he said. “It’s a day that changed history.”
Democrat Biden will be the first president to commemorate 9/11 in Alaska or anywhere in the western US. He and his predecessors have gone to one or the other of the attack sites for most years, though Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama have occasionally celebrated the anniversary on the White House lawn. Obama followed up on one of those observances by recognizing the military with a visit to Fort Meade in Maryland.
First lady Jill Biden is scheduled to lay a wreath at the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon.
In Pennsylvania, where one of the hijacked planes crashed after passengers tried to storm the cockpit, a memorial and wreath-laying is planned at the National Park Service-operated Flight 93 National Memorial in Stoystown.
The memorial site will offer a new instructional video, virtual tour and other materials for teachers to use in classrooms. Educators with a total of more than 10,000 students have enrolled for free access to the “National Education Day” programme, which organisers claim will be available through the autumn.
“We have to give the floor to the next generation,” said memorial spokeswoman Katherine Hostetler, a National Park ranger.
