President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive at John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport Sept. 11, 2018. Photo / Getty
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive at John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport Sept. 11, 2018. Photo / Getty
President Donald Trump commemorated the victims of Flight 93 on Tuesday in Pennsylvania, praising the heroes who stopped a hijacked plane from reaching Washington, D.C. seventeen years ago - but only after starting the day of national unity by tweeting about the FBI, its scandal-tainted lovers and Hillary Clinton then arriving for the event with a double fist pump.
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive at John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport Sept. 11, 2018. Photo / Getty
A quartet of plots in 2001 shook America's collective sense of national security and signalled the global beginning of a new normal.
They "took their own fate, and America's fate, into their own hands" by storming the cockpit and forcing a group of jihads to crash into a field instead of turning the U.S. Capitol building into a domed inferno.
"America will never forget what your loved ones did for all of us," he told a crowd of hundreds.
"They stopped the forces of terror and defeated this wicked, horrible, evil plan," Trump said, referring to "radical Islamic terrorism" several times as "the enemy."
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump, stand along the September 11th Flight 93 Memorial. Photo / AP
His remarks came during an annual ceremony marking the 9/11 attacks that shook America's collective sense of national security in 2001.
Speaking against the backdrop of wind turbines and mountaintops, Trump praised law enforcement and first responders while promising to do "everything in my power to prevent terrorists from striking American soil."
He said the four planes were "hijacked by evil men bent on terror and conquest" and promised to "never flinch in the face of evil."
Trump and his wife Melania traveled to the rural town of Shanksville, where a California-bound commercial airliner crashed after the 40 passengers and crew members learned what was happening and attempted to regain control of the aircraft. Everyone on board was killed.
Trump is a New York City native making his first visit as president to the site.
"A piece of America's heart is buried on these grounds, but in its place has grown a new resolve to live our lives with the same grace and courage as the heroes of Flight 93," he said.
"This field is now a monument to American defiance" that delivers "a message to the world: America will never, ever, submit to tyranny."
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump board Air Force One to attend the September 11th Flight 93 Memorial Service in Shanksville. Photo / AP
At the Pentagon, a choked-up Vice President Mike Pence recalled the deaths of "little children just finding their way in the world" when American Airlines Flight 77 brought down part of the Pentagon's west wall.
saying it would help the US "drive ISIS from the face of the earth."
Al Qaeda's terrorists "looked to break our spirit and they failed," Pence said.
New York City marked the anniversary with a moment of silence at the site of the attacks on Tuesday morning.
Governor Andrew Cuomo, Rudy Giuliani, Nikki Haley, Bill de Blasio and Chris Christie were in attendance in New York.
Giuliani was the New York City mayor and Christie governor of New Jersey on the day Al Qaeda terrorists killed nearly 3,000 Americans with coordinated airliner hijackings and calculated crashes.
Americans nationwide commemorated the anniversary with somber tributes, volunteer projects and a new monument to victims Tuesday, after a year when two attacks demonstrated the enduring threat of terrorism in the nation's biggest city.
Trump started the day tweeting about his domestic political enemies.
"There were new recruits and dedicated veterans, patriots all," he said.
President Donald Trump speaks during the September 11th Flight 93 Memorial Service in Shanksville. Photo / AP
But he recalled the teamwork as military brass and enlisted men and women rushed to crawl through the rubble for survivors.
"I'll never forget what I saw that day. I saw heroism. I saw strength," Pence said.
He was incensed about a new development in the investigation of a senior FBI agent caught conspiring with his lover to help ensure his defeat in 2016.
A text message revealed Monday night by a Republican congressman shows Peter Strzok telling Lisa Page in April 2017 that they should collaborate on a "media leak strategy."
So as he prepared to visit Shanksville, he blasted the pair and praised his own lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who was mayor of New York City when the terrorists struck in 2001.
"New Strzok-Page texts reveal 'Media Leak Strategy'," he marvelled, citing a Fox News Channel report.
"So terrible, and NOTHING is being done at DOJ or FBI – but the world is watching, and they get it completely."
Strzok's lawyer said a few hours later that "media leak strategy" referred to an effort to stop leaks, not to initiate or promote them.
A man stops to lay flowers on one of the benches at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial. Photo / AP
The White House told reporters that "bad weather" had forced the president to travel to Joint Base Andrews via motorcade instead of helicopter, denying the press the chance to ask him questions on the South Lawn.
White House aides participated in a moment of silence on the South Lawn later in the morning, in fair weather.
Margie Miller was among the 9/11 victims' relatives, survivors, rescuers and others who gathered on a misty Tuesday morning at the memorial plaza where the World Trade Center's twin towers once stood.
She came to the site from her home in suburban Baldwin, as she does 10 or so times a year, to remember her husband, Joel Miller. Only a few fragments of his remains were recovered.
"To me, he is here. This is my holy place," his widow said before the ceremony began with a moment of silence and tolling bells at 8.46am, the time when the trade center was hit by the first of two terrorist-piloted planes.
President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence headed to the two other places where hijacked planes crashed on September 11, 2001, in the deadliest terror attack on American soil.
The World Trade Center site is seen from an upper floor of 3 World Trade Center in New York. Photo / AP
Trump took the occasion of last year's anniversary to issue a stern warning to extremists that "America cannot be intimidated."
Nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks on 9/11, when international terrorism hit home in a way it previously hadn't for many Americans. September 11 still shapes American policy, politics and everyday experiences in places from airports to office buildings, even if it's less of a constant presence in the public consciousness after 17 years.
A stark reminder came not long after last year's anniversary: A truck mowed down people, killing eight, on a bike path within a few blocks of the World Trade Center on Halloween.
In December, a would-be suicide bomber set off a pipe bomb in a subway passageway near Times Square, authorities said. They said suspects in both attacks were inspired by the Islamic State extremist group.
The recent attacks in New York, as well as terror attacks elsewhere, were on Miller's mind as she arrived Tuesday.
"You don't want to live in fear, but it's very real," she said.
Visitors lay carnations on a beam salvaged from the wreckage of the World Trade Center after a 9/11 memorial ceremony at Pease Park in Ypsilanti. Photo / AP
Debra Sinodinos, who lost her firefighter cousin Peter Carroll and works near the trade center, said she tries not to let the recent attacks unnerve her.
"You have to move on," she said as she headed into the anniversary ceremony with her extended family. "Otherwise, you'd live in fear."
The 9/11 commemorations are by now familiar rituals, centred on reading the names of the dead. But each year at ground zero, victims' relatives infuse the ceremony with personal messages of remembrance, inspiration and concern.
For Nicholas Haros Jr., that concern is officials who make comparisons to 9/11 or invoke it for political purposes.
"Stop. Stop," pleaded Haros, who lost his 76-year-old mother, Frances. "Please stop using the bones and ashes of our loved ones as props in your political theater. Their lives, sacrifices and deaths are worth so much more. Let's not trivialise them."
This year's anniversary comes as a heated midterm election cycle kicks into high gear. But there have long been some efforts to separate the solemn anniversary from politics.
The group 9/11 Day, which promotes volunteering on an anniversary that was declared a national day of service in 2009, routinely asks candidates not to campaign or run political ads for the day. Organisers of the ground zero ceremony allow politicians to attend, but they've been barred since 2011 from reading names or delivering remarks.
A woman weeps by herself as she leans against a tree during a ceremony marking the 17th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States. Photo / AP
Hours after the ceremony, two powerful light beams will soar into the night sky from lower Manhattan in the annual "Tribute in Light."
Memorials to 9/11 continue to grow at Shanksville, where the Tower of Voices will eventually include a wind chime for each of the 40 people killed there, and ground zero, where work is to begin soon on a pathway honouring rescue and recovery workers.
It will serve as a way to honor those who became sick or died from exposure to toxins released when the Trade Center's twin towers collapsed. Researchers have documented elevated rates of respiratory ailments, post-traumatic stress disorder and other illnesses among people who spent time in the rubble.
About 38,500 people have applied to a compensation fund, and over $3.9 billion in claims have been approved.
Meanwhile, rebuilding continues. A subway station destroyed on 9/11 finally reopened Saturday. In June, doors opened at the 80-story 3 World Trade Center, one of several rebuilt office towers that have been constructed or planned at the site. A performing arts center is rising.
However, work was suspended in December on replacing a Greek Orthodox church crushed in the attacks; the project hit financial problems.
