Nation marks 25 years since 9/11 with ceremonies at Ground Zero, Pentagon, Shanksville

On a Friday morning twenty-five years after the attacks, the nation paused to mark September 11 with ceremonies at three sites: Ground Zero in Manhattan, the Pentagon, and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The rituals were familiar by now—the reading of nearly three thousand names, the moments of silence, the tolling bells—but this year carried a weight that earlier anniversaries had not. The dead were not only those who perished in the towers and on the planes. They included the roughly six thousand first responders, survivors, and volunteers who have since died from illnesses contracted in the aftermath, their names added to memorials only recently, their deaths still arriving.

Four living former presidents gathered in Lower Manhattan alongside Vice President JD Vance, while President Trump attended the Pentagon ceremony. The New York gathering began at 8:40 a.m., as it does each year, with the first moment of silence marking 8:46 a.m.—the moment American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower. Six more moments would follow throughout the morning, each one tied to a specific catastrophe: the second plane at 9:03 a.m., Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., the South Tower's collapse at 9:59 a.m., Flight 93 crashing into a field near Shanksville at 10:03 a.m., the North Tower's collapse at 10:28 a.m. This year, a seventh moment was added—a permanent addition to the ceremony—for those who died of 9/11-related illnesses. It came after the names were read, after the traditional six moments had passed.

At the Pentagon, General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recalled the morning he learned his nation was under attack. He had been in a scheduling meeting at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland when a staffer burst in with news of the first plane. He watched on television as the second struck. "I knew right away that our nation was under attack," he said, "and we began to move right into action immediately." His squadron received orders to arm their weapons—air-to-air missiles loaded—and within hours, as smoke rose from the Pentagon itself, they were scrambled to defend Washington. The rules of engagement, he noted, were "very liberal."

Condoleezza Rice, who had been President George W. Bush's national security adviser, stood at the Pentagon and spoke of remorse. "Those of us in authority on that day did not see the nature of the danger in time to prevent the attack of 9/11," she said. "We did what we knew to do. But by definition, it was not enough." She carried, she said, a deep personal remorse for the pain the families still endured. At Ground Zero, Terry Strada, whose husband Tom died in the towers, called on the Trump administration to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for what she described as its role in fomenting anti-American terrorism and supporting the hijackers. Her remarks drew applause at a ceremony ordinarily marked by silence.

The health toll continued to mount. The New York City Fire Department had recently added thirty-six more names to its memorial wall—firefighters who died from diseases contracted in the aftermath. The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund had received at least one hundred thirty thousand claims and awarded more than eighteen billion dollars. Peter Raho, who worked as an accountant near Ground Zero and was later diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, recalled that the government had told people the air was safe to breathe. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani had recently released documents from the aftermath showing the city was aware of airborne toxins that would later sicken and kill thousands.

At Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the names of the forty passengers and crew members aboard Flight 93 were read aloud by their loved ones, each name accompanied by the toll of a bell. Gordon Felt, whose brother Edward was on the plane, spoke of them as "citizen soldiers of the new century." They had stormed the cockpit to prevent the hijackers from reaching their intended target in Washington. All forty died in the crash. Twenty-five years later, Felt expressed frustration that the alleged plotters—including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused principal architect of the attacks—still had not faced trial. A military judge at Guantánamo Bay had ordered jury selection to begin, but the case remained in a pre-trial phase that had, as Felt put it, "been dragging on endlessly."

The ceremonies reflected a nation still grappling with the attack's legacy. A drone show over New York Harbor had recreated the Twin Towers at full height using twenty-nine hundred seventy-seven lights—one for each person killed. The Tribute in Light, two towering beams that fill the night sky where the towers stood, returned as it does each year. One World Trade Center rose from the footprint of the North Tower. The Pentagon had been rebuilt. Yet the work of remembrance remained incomplete, and the work of justice remained unfinished. The attack had transformed American security, spawned new agencies, expanded surveillance, and launched wars that lasted two decades. Twenty-five years on, the nation was still counting its dead.