Americans who died in the busiest city in the world, the headquarters of the Department of Defense and a quiet field in Pennsylvania were remembered by a country Sunday on the 10th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
On Sunday morning in New York City, families of those lost in the attacks on the World Trade Center could enter the tree-covered paths surrounding the reflective pool where the Twin Towers once stood for the first time.
As the memorial was unveiled, President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and former-President George W. Bush spoke with family members of the victims.
Many of the nation’s prominent politicians were at hand outside the Pentagon to remember the 184 men and women who were killed during the attack on the defense building 10 years ago. Victims’ families were at hand to listen to speeches and to gather around the small pools and benches that mark each life lost.
The president also visited the field in Shanksville, Penn., where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed down after passengers took control of the plane from hijackers.
Around the country, many reflected how the events of 9/11 altered the history of the United States and the rest of the world.
University of Wisconsin political science professor Charles Franklin said the attacks caused a sense of vulnerability and fear within American society.
In the ’90s, he said, Americans experienced a decade of considerable security, especially compared to the previous cold war generations. This, he said, was shattered on 9/11.
“We got 10 or 15 years, if not more, where we didn’t think of attack on our soil as being a real possibility,” Franklin said. “Sept. 11 showed we’re vulnerable and that we could suffer a very substantial loss, not just to a country but to a movement like Al Qaeda. I think that has then pervaded how we’ve spent the last 10 years.”
A unified desire to combat terrorism could be seen immediately following the events of 9/11, Franklin added.
He said the invasion of Afghanistan – and to a perhaps more indirect and misconstrued sense Iraq – could be seen as outcomes of this national determination.
While the wars of the last decade were in some ways reactions to the fear Americans felt 10 years ago, Franklin said it is important to separate the fights happening in these conflicts from the works of Al Qaeda, the group directly responsible and still active in the Middle East and around the world.
While the events and those who were killed on 9/11 will always be remembered, Franklin said the death of Osama bin Laden last spring creates at least some sense of closure in the eyes of many Americans.
“I think [the death of Osama bin Laden] does put a period at the end of this whole affair that had always ended in a comma,” Franklin said. “In a sense, it’s an important endpoint to this whole 9/11 period.”
– The Associated Press contributed to this report.
