NEW YORK: The U.S. marked the 15th anniversary of 9/11 on Sunday, with victims’ relatives reading their names and reflecting on a loss that still felt as immediate to them as it was indelible for the nation.
The 15th anniversary arrives in a country caught up in the presidential campaign, keenly focused on political, economic and social fissures and still fighting terrorism. But for those who lost relatives, the fraught passage of 15 years feels “like 15 seconds,” said Dorothy Esposito, who lost her son, Frankie.
Organizers estimated 8,000 people gathered Sunday at the lower Manhattan spot where the twin towers once stood. They listened to the nearly four-hour recitation of the names of those killed.
“It doesn’t get easier. The grief never goes away. You don’t move forward — it always stays with you,” Tom Acquaviva, who lost his son, Paul Acquaviva.
James Johnson was there for the first time since he last worked on the rescue and recovery efforts in early 2002, when he was a New York City police officer.
“I’ve got mixed emotions, but I’m still kind of numb,” said Johnson, now a police chief in Forest City, Pa. “I think everyone needs closure, and this is my time to have closure.”
Nearly 3,000 people died when hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pa., on Sept. 11, 2001. It was the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil.
Sunday night, two giant towers of light illuminated the night sky in lower Manhattan as a visual memorial to those who lost their lives on 9/11.
The National September 11 Memorial and Museum’s “Tribute in Light” art installation switched on just after sundown and was to stay on until dawn. The beams from the 88 searchlights represent the twin towers.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said on Sunday news shows that the United States is safer now than it was in 2001 against another 9/11-style attack but continues to face the challenge of potential attacks by solo and homegrown violent extremists.
President Barack Obama, speaking at the Pentagon memorial service, praised America’s diversity and urged Americans not to let their enemies divide them.
“Our patchwork heritage is not a weakness — it is still and always will be one of our greatest strengths,” Obama said. “This is the America that was attacked that September morning. This is the America that we must remain true to.”
Some victims’ relatives at ground zero pleaded for the nation to look past its differences.
“The things we think separate us really don’t. We’re all part of this one Earth in this vast universe,” said Granvilette Kestenbaum, who lost her astrophysicist husband, Howard Kestenbaum.
About 1,000 people gathered for a name-reading observance in Shanksville. Forty passengers and crew members died in the Pennsylvania crash.
For the first time, the Shanksville ceremony was being held outside of the Flight 93 National Memorial visitor center that opened last year rather than at the granite mall that runs along the crash site.