NEW YORK – As the United States marks 25 years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Americans across the country gathered to honor the nearly 3,000 people who perished and reflect on the day that forever changed the nation.
Loved ones of those killed, survivors, first responders and politicians are attending ceremonies in New York City, at the Pentagon in Virginia, outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and around the country. Thousands of names are being read out by family members and loved ones, both those who remember the trauma of that day and those who weren't alive but have grown up with the stories.
A quarter-century has passed since terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners in the deadliest attack on American soil. Today, almost one in four Americans has no personal memory of that day.
Yet, for many others, the tragedy remains etched in their memory. So do its lasting impacts: the global war on terror, backlash against Arab Americans, long term health issues and rise in government surveillance.
Gathered inside the Buckhead Club, overlooking Atlanta's skyline to the south, members listened intently as Wanda Joell recounted her experience aboard Air Force One on Sept. 11, 2001.
Joell, an Air Force veteran and the first African American flight attendant permanently assigned to the presidential plane, would serve under presidents George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama over her four-decade career.
But on this day 25 years ago, training went out the window when a plane flew into the World Trade Center.
They were scheduled for a two-hour flight back to Washington, DC, from Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, where President George W. Bush was reading to students. Joell was in the middle of her pre-flight duties when she went to place name cards in the flight's central conference room and noticed news alerts popping up on the plane's few television screens.
"President Bush was determined to go back to Washington, the nation's capital. Of course, he was advised against it at the moment. He was coming out of his office, and we met in the hall and we had the chance to embrace," Joell said. "It was unexpected, but at the time it was everything. I felt the heaviness he was carrying."
Joell said that moment was the highlight of her career, when she was able to "console a U.S. president." She described Bush as calm, and said that day taught her what leadership means.
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