President Donald Trump
on Tuesday praised the men and women of United Flight 93 for
saving countless lives when they struggled with hijackers on
Sept. 11, 2001, and called the field where the plane went down a
monument to "American defiance."
Commemorating the 17th anniversary of the attacks that
destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and struck the
Pentagon outside Washington, Trump said the nation shared the
grief of the family members whose loved ones were lost that day.
"We grieve together for every mother and father, sister and
brother, son and daughter, who was stolen from us at the Twin
Towers, the Pentagon and here in this Pennsylvania field," Trump
said.
Commemorations also took place in New York and Washington to
mark the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by al Qaeda, in which
nearly 3,000 people were killed.
Flight 93 was heading to San Francisco from Newark, New
Jersey, when passengers stormed the plane's cockpit and sought
to take control from the hijackers. All were killed when the
plane crashed in a field, preventing what was thought to be
another planned target in Washington.
Family members of Flight 93, some of their voices breaking,
read aloud the names of the 40 passengers and crew members who
died. Memorial bells tolled.
Trump and his wife, Melania, traveled to the Flight 93
National Memorial from Washington and paused for a moment of
reflection while overlooking the field where the plane crashed.
"They boarded the plane as strangers and they entered
eternity linked forever as true heroes," Trump said of the
passengers and crew.
"This field is now a monument to American defiance. This
memorial is now a message to the world: America will never, ever
submit to tyranny."
Trump is still dealing with the consequences of that day,
with the war in Afghanistan, launched in response to the
attacks, now America’s longest. He cited the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan in his remarks, saying: "Nearly 7,000 service
members have died facing down the menace of radical Islamic
terrorism."
In New York, the Bell of Hope rang out at St. Paul's Chapel
to mark the moment at 8:46 a.m. when the first of two hijacked
planes hit the World Trade Center. The bell has been rung on
every anniversary since 2002, when it was presented to New York
by the City of London to honor those who died.
Mourners gathered at the National September 11 Memorial
plaza in Manhattan for the annual reading of victims' names.
Members of the U.N. Security Council stood for a moment of
silence led by U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley.