WASHINGTON (TNND) — Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Americans are gathered Friday at Ground Zero in New York, the Pentagon and the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to honor the 2,977 people killed.
At the memorial in lower Manhattan, relatives of those killed read the names of victims as attendees observe moments of silence marking each attack and the collapse of the Twin Towers. For the first time, the ceremony also includes a seventh moment of silence for people who have died from 9/11-related illnesses and injuries.
The annual name reading includes 2,983 people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Vice President JD Vance attended the Ground Zero observance, while President Donald Trump attended a separate ceremony at the Pentagon.
Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine gathered in the Pentagon Center Courtyard to honor the 184 people killed when hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the building.
“Today, we renew the sacred oath that we first swore in their names a quarter of a century ago: WE WILL NEVER, EVER FORGET,” Trump said to the solemn crowd.
In Shanksville, the National Park Service held a morning observance at the Flight 93 National Memorial, where the names of the 40 passengers and crew members were read and bells of remembrance were rung.
Flight 93 crashed in a Pennsylvania field after passengers fought back against hijackers, preventing the plane from reaching what investigators later determined was the U.S. Capitol or the White House.
The commemorations come as a generation of Americans has grown up with no firsthand memory of the attacks. The 9/11 Memorial & Museum said about 100 million Americans are too young to remember the day.
Later Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is scheduled to speak at DHS headquarters, where the department will formally commission Resilience Plaza. The memorial space includes steel from the World Trade Center and stones from the Pentagon façade, reflecting DHS’s origins in the aftermath of the attacks.
The day of remembrance will conclude in New York with the annual Tribute in Light, as two blue beams illuminate the night sky where the Twin Towers once stood.
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