President
Obama has led moving tributes to the nearly 3,000 victims of 9/11 as
America marks the 13th anniversary of the terror attacks.
The
Commander in Chief spoke outside the Pentagon, where 184 people lost
their lives, on Thursday, while victims' families also gathered at the
World Trade Center site in Manhattan and the memorial in Shanksville,
Pennsylvania, where Flight 93 crashed.
'It
has now been 13 years,' Obama said. 'Thirteen years since the peace of
an American morning was broken; thirteen years since nearly 3,000
beautiful people were taken from us; thirteen years of moments they
would have shared with us; thirteen years of memories they would have
made.'
But
he paid tribute to the strength and the endurance of the families,
survivors and Pentagon personnel who returned to work the next day, more
determined than ever to keep America strong.
'As
Americans, we draw strength from you,' he said. 'Your love is the
ultimate rebuke to the hatred of those who attacked us that bright, blue
morning... America stands tall and America stands proud... We will only
grow stronger.'
Today is
also the first time the The National September 11 Museum - which
includes gut-wrenching artifacts and graphic photos of the attacks -
will be open to the public on an anniversary. Fences around the memorial
plaza have come down, opening it up to the public and camera-wielding
tourists.
But
before the public is allowed inside, there is the traditional
name-reading ceremony at the 9/11 Memorial Plaza for every one of the
people who perished in the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and inside the
plane that crashed in rural Pennsylvania. The ceremony started at
8.46am, marking the moment the first plane hit the north tower.
During the
ceremony, six moments of silence will also be observed to mark the
strikes on the towers, the Pentagon, the collapse of the skyscrapers and
the time Flight 93 went down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
It
comes after two blue columns of light representing the towers
illuminated the skies over Lower Manhattan in a vivid tribute on
Wednesday night. This Tribute in Light will shine through the night,
beginning at sundown Thursday and ending early Friday.
The
memorial plaza will be closed to the public for most of the day and
available only to family members. It will reopen at 6pm, at which point
thousands of New Yorkers are expected to mark the anniversary at the
twin reflecting pools where the towers once stood.
Rebuilding
efforts at the site, where 2,753 people died, are nearing completion.
The area, by turns a smoldering grave and an off-limits construction
site for more than a decade, is now increasingly reconnected with the
streets.
In
May, when the museum opened in a ceremony attended by President Obama,
the fences that had surrounded the plaza for years disappeared, as did
the need for visitors to obtain a timed ticket. Now, thousands of people
freely visit every day, from cellphone-toting travelers to workers on a
lunch break, and those crowds will only swell further this year when
One World Trade Center finally opens.
'The
memorial and museum is extremely important to those impacted on 9/11,'
said Mary Fetchet, whose son died in the attacks. 'And surrounding that
memorial, lower Manhattan has been revitalized.'
But
for some who lost loved ones in the attacks, the increasing feel of a
return to normalcy in the area threatens to obscure the tragedy that
took place there and interfere with their grief.
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