Twenty-five years on

Families, first responders and officials gathered Friday in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania to mark a quarter-century since the attacks.

Trump at the Pentagon

The president honored the dead and the sacrifices the day inspired, then turned the moment toward military action against what he called the menace of radical Islam.

“Today we renew the sacred oath we first swore in their names a quarter-century ago.”

We were all New Yorkers

Trump returned again and again to the unity of the weeks after the attacks, calling it the authentic spirit of the nation.

“We were all New Yorkers that day, every one of us.”

Names, bells, silence

In New York, relatives read the names of the dead while Yo-Yo Ma played and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus sang the anthem. Four living ex-presidents watched from the seats.

Enemies sitting together

Rudy Giuliani and current Mayor Zohran Mamdani, opponents on almost everything, sat side by side talking quietly. The ceremony has stayed stubbornly nonpartisan.

The milestones they missed

Speakers read each name alongside what the person never got to see: grandchildren, great-grandchildren, a Knicks championship.

A widow names Saudi Arabia

Terry Strada, whose husband Tom died in the towers, ended her reading by accusing Saudi Arabia of backing the hijackers and demanding transparency from the administration.

“Administration after administration chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families.”

Don't turn grief into hate

Michael Massaroli Jr., who lost his father, closed the New York ceremony by asking people to stop using the day as a license for bigotry.

“I've had to spend the past 25 years seeing people use it to hate on our Muslim brothers and sisters.”

A headstone finally filled

Barbara Keating died on Flight 11. Her remains were identified only last year, and she is now being laid to rest in Massachusetts.

“We carved the headstone 25 years ago but she wasn't there. Now she will be.”

What happened that morning

Al-Qaida hijackers flew planes into both World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. At least 2,977 people died in the attacks themselves.

The deaths that kept coming

Tens of thousands later fell ill from the toxic debris cloud, and many have died of illnesses linked to it. That toll is still growing.

Forty people on Flight 93

At Shanksville, the Bells of Remembrance tolled for passengers and crew who fought back and kept their plane from reaching its target.

“They did not wake up that morning with the expectation that they would find themselves on the front lines of a war.”

The chaplain at ground zero

Rev. Eric Olsen's National Guard unit deployed to the wreckage pile within days, working under the fear that more attacks were coming.

“Are there going to be more attacks? Is this just the forerunner?”

Then came the wars

Olsen served in Iraq and spent over a decade counseling troops and delivering death notifications to families.

“I did a lot of death notifications for families who lost sons and daughters.”

The wider death toll

A Brown University study counted about 7,000 more U.S. service members killed in post-9/11 wars, with far larger civilian tolls in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Yemen.

Vance asks the young to look

The vice president urged Americans too young to remember to spend a couple of hours watching what that day actually meant.

“That sense of commonality and common purpose that we all had on 9/11, that's something we really try every single day to get back to.”

Lives rebuilt around service

A new exhibition at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum honors people who went into public service after the trauma. Director Elizabeth Hillman says 9/11 reshaped foreign policy, the armed forces and the very idea of safety.

Buried for 25 years

New York officials just released air quality documents withheld by past administrations. Jon Stewart, now an advocate for survivors, was furious it took this long.

“They didn't recognize that the air everybody was breathing in downtown Manhattan was toxic until October of 2001.”

The unity didn't hold

Former Gov. George Pataki calls the polarization since his biggest disappointment. Olsen puts it plainer: everybody's afraid of everything, and we're bombing the Middle East again.

“It's the opposite of the sense of unity, that we were all Americans, that we felt on Sept. 12.”