NEW YORK — Americans commemorated 9/11 on Monday with tear-streaked tributes, a presidential warning to terrorists and appeals from victims’ relatives for unity and hope 16 years after the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
Looking out at the solemn crowd at ground zero, Debra Epps said she views every day as time to do something to ensure that her brother, Christopher Epps, and thousands of others didn’t die in vain.
“What I can say today is that I don’t live my life in complacency,” she said. “I stand in solidarity that this world will make a change for the better.”
Thousands of family members, survivors, rescuers and others gathered for the hourslong reading of victims’ names at the World Trade Center, while President Donald Trump spoke at the Pentagon and Vice President Mike Pence addressed an observance at the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Elsewhere, thousands of Americans marked the anniversary with service projects. Volunteer Hillary O’Neill, 16, had her own connection to 9/11: It’s her birthdate.
“I always feel a sense of responsibility to give back on the day,” O’Neill, of Norwalk, Connecticut, said as she packed up meals in New York City for needy local people and hurricane victims in Texas and Florida.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed when planes hijacked by terrorists hit the trade center, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville on Sept. 11, 2001, hurling America into a new consciousness of the threat of global terrorism.
Trump, a native New Yorker observing the anniversary for the first time as the country’s leader, assured victims’ families that “our entire nation grieves with you” and issued stern words to extremists.
“America cannot be intimidated, and those who try will join a long list of vanquished enemies who dared test our mettle,” the Republican president said as he spoke at the Pentagon after observing a moment of silence at the White House.
When America is united, “no force on earth can break us apart,” he said.
At the Flight 93 National Memorial, Pence said the passengers who revolted against hijackers might well have saved his own life.
The Republican vice president was a member of Congress on 9/11, and the Capitol was a possible target of the terrorist piloting Flight 93. Instead, it crashed near Shanksville after the passengers took action. Thirty-three passengers and seven crew members were killed.
At dusk, the annual “Tribute in Light” art installation beamed two giant towers of light into the lower Manhattan skyline as a visual memorial to those who perished in the terror attack.