Nation remembers 9/11 terrorist attacks

A somber nation spent Saturday holding events, nationally and locally, remembering the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, that killed nearly 3,000 people and changed the country and the world.

Terrorists hijacked four airliners Sept. 11, 2001, crashing two into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, one into the Pentagon in Washington and a fourth, believed to be targeting the White House or U.S. Capitol, crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers and crew fought the hijackers.

President Joe Biden, a U.S. senator at the time of the attacks, released a recorded message Friday before spending Saturday visiting the crash sites and, joined by former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, in New York.

At the Shanksville memorial, George W. Bush, president at the time of the attacks, gave an address calling for unity in the nation.

Vice President Kamla Harris also spoke in Shanksville, also calling for unity.

Bush and Harris both said the attacks showed America, reminded the people of the country, that unity is possible, people can join together to help each other and fight for common causes.

In his address Friday, Biden said to the families of the 2,977 people from 90 nations who died that day, and the thousands more injured and who have died since, “America and the world commemorate you and your loved ones. The pieces of your soul.”

He also honored all who gave their all to rescue, recover and rebuild.

And Biden also called on the nation to remember the unity the attacks brought.

“In the days that followed September 11, 2001, we saw heroism everywhere — in places expected and unexpected,” he said. “We also saw something all too rare: a true sense of national unity.”

But, he said, in the times following the attacks, America also saw the darker side of human nature, fear, anger, and resentment and violence against Muslim Americans.

That showed that unity is the one that must never break, Biden said.

That doesn’t mean that everyone must believe the same thing, but everyone must have a fundamental respect and faith in each other and in the nation, he said.

“To me, that’s the central lesson of Sept. 11th,” Biden said. “It’s that, at our most vulnerable, in the push and pull of all that makes us human, in the battle for the soul of America, unity is our greatest strength.”