Today (Friday) marks 25 years since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, that left nearly 3,000 dead and altered the face of Arlington and the entire country.
Across the nation, the milestone anniversary brings memorial rituals — wreath-laying, flag-flying, moments of silence, vigils and readings of victims’ names — and volunteer projects in tribute to a day that about half of U.S. adults remember as the most historic event of their lifetime, according to a new poll.
For others it’s an occasion for private reflection — or, in many schools, education — about the attack that unfolded in a single morning but left a decadeslong trail of aftermath, from personal grief to far-flung wars.
Arlington County will mark the date with a livestreamed ceremony from 11 a.m. to noon, which follows a ceremony at the Pentagon earlier this morning — honoring 184 lives lost when the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, just after the attacks on the World Trade Center.
Officials attending the event at Fire Station 5 will include U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-8), Gov. Abigail Spanberger, State Sen. Barbara Favola (D-40), Fire Chief David Povlitz, Police Chief Andy Penn and County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti.
Also in attendance will be Jim Schwartz, who served as incident commander for the Arlington County Fire Department during the response to the Pentagon. The ceremony will include remarks, a wreath laying and a rose laying at the steel beam from the World Trade Center displayed outside Station 5.
The event is at capacity, but the following locations will host viewing events:
- Aurora Hills Library: Eads Room, 735 18th St S.
- Central Library: Quincy Room, 1015 N. Quincy Street
- Columbia Pike Library: Drew Room, 816 S. Walter Reed Drive
- Shirlington Library: Campbell Room, 4200 Campbell Avenue
- Ellen M. Bozman Government Center: County Board Room, 2100 Clarendon Blvd
The county has been hosting events throughout the month in honor of those lost. Earlier this week, retired ACPD Deputy Chief Stephen Holl shared his perspective on the day and the police department’s role in the response.
On Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida extremists hijacked four commercial jets and crashed them into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
The impacts brought down the World Trade Center’s twin towers — icons of U.S. economic power, and among the tallest buildings on Earth — and blew a hole in the Pentagon. The fourth plane also was headed for the nation’s capital, officials concluded, but the aircraft went down in Pennsylvania after passengers and crew members stormed the cockpit and fought the hijackers.
“In the course of history, there are a few moments that divide time into, really, what came before” and after, President Donald Trump said at a 9/11 remembrance in D.C. this week.
Former President George W. Bush, who was in office on 9/11, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden and current Vice President JD Vance convened for the observance at the National Sept. 11 Memorial in New York, where the hourslong reading of all the victims’ names began with the tolling of a bell and a moment of silence. Other administration officials headed to the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania.
Planned remembrances extend far beyond the attack sites, from beams of light projecting from New Hampshire’s Mount Washington to a stair climb at Mississippi State University’s football stadium to a ceremony at Honolulu’s 9/11 memorial.
At ground zero, a new tribute to those who fell ill
Traditionally, there are no political speeches at the New York commemoration, where victims’ relatives read aloud the long list of names, punctuated with moments of silence at key points in the attack timeline. A crowd of 9/11 family members watched, many holding aloft photos of loved ones who perished a quarter-century ago.
For the first time, this year’s ceremony will add a silent moment to honor people who were exposed to the clouds of toxic dust released by the twin towers’ fiery collapse and have since died of cancer and other illnesses. Questions remain about how many people developed health problems linked to the dust.
It’s a reminder of how the attacks’ long shadow has reached into many corners of life in the U.S. and beyond.
The U.S.-led global war on terrorism included invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan — the latter Washington’s longest war — and detentions and harsh interrogation of terror suspects in an international network of secret CIA prisons. The U.S. found and killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011, but accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed still awaits a trial 23 years after his capture.
The attacks changed U.S. air travel, prompted new federal surveillance and intelligence-gathering powers and banking regulations, and generated ongoing debate over the balance between security and freedom. The Department of Homeland Security, many state anti-terrorism laws and billions of dollars in state and local counterterrorism funding all are post-9/11 creations.
So, too, is the culture of individual vigilance summed up by the slogan “if you see something, say something.”
Sept. 11 isn’t a federal holiday, but Congress has designated it both Patriot Day and a National Day of Service and Remembrance.
“One appropriate way to remember is by serving,” says Jay Winuk, who lost his brother Glenn Winuk and then co-founded the volunteer organization 9/11 Day with friend David Paine. The group helps people find meal-packing and other volunteer opportunities and this year arranged for dozens of Times Square billboards to pause their advertising at 9:11 a.m. Friday.
Instead, they will simply display the time.
