Nation marks 14th anniversary of 9/11 terror attacks
WASHINGTON - This Friday marked 14 years since the terror attacks on New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people died when planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
New York honored the victims with what has become the traditional tolling of bells, moments of silence and a reading the names of those who lost their lives.
In western Pennsylvania, the Flight 93 National Memorial honored victims at 9:45 a.m., the moment Flight 93 crashed into the field. On Thursday, a ceremony was held to mark the completion of the memorial's visitor center.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon unfurled an American flag at sunrise on the side of the building that was hit by an American Airlines flight.
PHOTOS FROM THE 14TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 9/11 TERROR ATTACKS: http://www.fox5dc.com/galleries/18884395-gallery
Secretary of State Ashton Carter took part in other ceremonies throughout the day to honor the survivors and Pentagon employees.
Many people say the 9/11 attacks may seem like an ever-increasing distant memory. Here at the Pentagon, the memories are still fresh. And on this day and at this place, those memories came rushing back.
Fourteen years later, 184 lives are still missed -- lives like Lisa Young. Her family said even all these years later, it is still not easy to come here.
"I'm still a bit uncomfortable," said Young's daughter, Chaquita. "I still get a little upset about the whole situation, so I don't come as often as I should."
"It's a relief of comfort to know that they still remember," said Virginia Jones, Young's aunt.
At the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial, the families of victims on American Airlines Flight 77 and those who were at work inside Pentagon gathered to mark the exact moment the world changed forever.
This memorial, now seven years old itself, has become a gathering place each Sept. 11, but it is not an easy place to be.
"It takes a great deal of courage to come back on a day like today that's not unlike that day back in 2001," Gen. Paul J. Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Members of the armed forces and the Pentagon's civilian workforce joined together at its center court. Carter called them America's modern greatest generation.
"Men and women who in our own time served, sacrificed and voluntarily answered our country's call," he said.
There is no concern here that memory of 9/11 will ever fade here. It is a place where so many were lost and many more set out and never returned from the war on terror.