US commemorates 9/11 attacks with victims in focus and politics in view

The US is observing the 9/11 anniversary with an eye on the presidential campaign of 2024 as incumbent Biden, his predecessor Trump and the Vice President Kamala Harris gathered at the site where twin towers once stood. 
 
Sept. 11 — the date when hijacked plane attacks killed nearly 3,000 people in 2001 — falls in the middle of presidential campaign season every four years, and it will arrive at a particularly sensitive time in this election cycle. 
 
in ceremonies to mark the anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy in NEW YORK’S WTC SITE and at the Flight 93 National Memorial in PA. 
 
Trump and the vice presidential candidate, Sen JD Vance accompanied by his wife, arrived at the trade centre site around 8 in the morning to take pictures with some of the people in the hall. Harris came with Biden a half an hour later to the sound of “Kamala!” from some of the audience. 
 
Biden and Trump, with masks on, bumped elbows and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg introduced Harris to Trump for a handshake. Then two men who were nominated by the two major parties are just feet away from each other together with Biden and Bloomberg. 
 
Due to this the ceremony was officially started by ringing a bell followed by observing one minute of silence. 
 
But for all of this, the political was never first thought for the relatives, such as Cathy Naughton, came to mourn the death of her cousin Michael Roberts that was a firefighter among the eight hundred firefighters who lost their lives in the brought out by the attacks. 
 
This was 23 years later, and she said, “it’s just so raw”. “It’s just we want to ensure that people remember always, or say the names always and never forget. ” 
 
“It just doesn’t get easier every year,” she continued [author’s italics]. 
 
In any case, those who planned anniversary ceremonies have gone to great lengths, as far back as possible, to attempt to make victims the center of attention. For years, the politicians have stood as spectators during the ground zero commemorations, and the relatives who recite the names of the victims and read those lists. 
 
If “politicians want to know what is actually happening, wonderful, be here,” Korryn Bishop, the cousin of the deceased John F. McDowell Jr. responded. 
 
Biden was to proceed with Harris later in the day to Pennsylvania and the Pentagon, two of the three locations where commercial airplanes were seized and crashed by the al-Qaeda operatives on Sept. 11, 2001. There also was supposed to be Trump at the Flight 93 National Memorial near rural Shanksville Pennsylvania. 
 
Aircrafts officials later determined that the one which crashed there was bound for Washington. It dropped after the efforts of the crew members and the passengers to takeover from the hijackers. 
 
The attacks that day murdered approximately 2,977 individuals and left thousands of families and friends of the victims plus numerous survivors. The planes cut a swath through the Pentagon, the headquarters of the U. S. military and its two twin towers of the trade center which were among the world’s largest buildings. 
 
The catastrophe also changed the direction of the US foreign policy, the home security regime for Americans and the outlook of many people who had never really believed that they could be attacked by foreign militants. 
 
Effects spread cross the globe and across several generations where the US had to retaliate by waging a ‘ War on Terrorism’ beginning with the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. Those operations led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis and thousands of American soldiers, and Afghanistan remained the longest war of the United States. 
 
When the consequences of tragedy that was 9/11 are still rather ambiguous, people all over the United States have adopted various rituals of mourning and remembrance that may include wreath laying, flag displaying, marching, police radio messages, etc. Volunteer projects are also held on the anniversary that has been named both Patriot Day by Congress and a National Day of Service and Remembrance. 
 
For the first few years of anniversary commemoration, presidents and other officeholders read poems, portions of the Declaration of Independence and other documents. 
 
But that ceased in 2012 after the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum determined in 2012 that only the relatives whose voices are powerful could read the victims’ names. Bloomberg was board chairman at the time and in fact remains so today. 
 
The event however has not been stopped completely because politicians and candidates still have been able to attend. Most of them did, and among them were New York officeholders at the time of the attacks among whom was Hillary Clinton when she was a senator. 
 
They practiceddiogether in September 2016 when she had gone to pay her tribute at the ground zero 9/11 remembrance that had evolved into a contentious episode of the presidential campaign year. 
 
Clinton, who was then the Democratic nominee left the ceremony suddenly, nearly fainted while waiting for her motorcade and later admitted of having pneumonia two days prior. The episode brought new focus to her health that Trump had been debunking for months. 
 
The presidential campaign rivals of 2008 both the then-senators John McCain and Barack Obama were seen to be extra considerate about the event. They went there to express their condolences and even placing flowers in the pool of reflecting which was a hole at that time. 
 
Certainly, the family members of ntific victims sometimes send their own political statements at the ceremony, where the readers usually make some small speech after they had read through the list of names assigned to them. 
 
Some relatives have used the forum to express their hate for the division in America, call on leaders to focus on the safety of America, the troops, admit to the losses incurred in the WOT, lament that leaders are politicizing the September 11, 2001 incident or even call for the resignation/impeachment/removal from office of certain leaders. 
 
But the majority of readers do not overstep the mark and post only tributes with their memories. More often than before they are from children and young adults who were born after the September 11 th terror attacks that took the life of a parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle. 
 
“While I was estranged from my father, I always thought of him as a friend with whom I have been friends for years even though I never met him” Annabella Sanchez said of Edward Joseph Papa the previous year. Every day and at all times we will remember and honor you. 
 
“We love you Grandpa Eddie, to which he replied, ‘Yeah, right’ and then gave me the ‘stink eye. ’”