Biden attends 9/11 ceremonies in New York, Shanksville and Washington

Laura and I are honored to be with you. Madam Vice President, Vice President Cheney. Governor Wolf, Secretary Haaland, and distinguished guests. 

Twenty years ago, we all found in different ways in different places, but all at the same moment that our lives would be changed forever. 

The world was loud with carnage and sirens. And then quiet with missing voices that would never be heard again. 

These lives remain precious to our country and infinitely precious to many of you.

 Today we remember your loss. We share your sorrow, and we honor the men and women that you have loved for so long and so well. 

For those too young to recall that clear September day, it is hard to describe the mix of feelings we experienced. There was horror at the scale of destruction and awe at the bravery and kindness that rose to meet it. 

There was shock at the audacity of evil and gratitude for the heroism and decency that opposed it. In the sacrifice of the first responders, in the mutual aid of strangers, in the solidarity of grief and grace, the actions of an enemy revealed the spirit of a people. 

And we were proud of our wounded nation. 

And these memories of passengers and crew of Flight 93 must always have an honored place. 

Here the intended targets, became the instruments of rescue. And many who are now alive owe a vast unconscious debt to the defiance displayed in the skies above this field. 

It would be a mistake to idealize the experience of those terrible events. 

All that many people could initially see was the brute randomness of death. All that many could feel was unearned suffering. All that many could hear was God’s terrible silence. 

There are many who still struggle with a lonely pain that cuts deep within. In those fateful hours we learned other lessons as well. We saw that Americans were vulnerable, but not fragile, that they possess a core of strength that survives the worst that life can bring. 

We learned that bravery is more common than we imagined. 

Merging with sudden splendor in the face of death. 

We vividly felt how every hour with our loved ones was a temporary and holy gift.

And we found that even the longest days end. 

Many of us who’ve tried to make spiritual sense of these events. 

There is no simple explanation for the mix of providence and human will that sets the direction of our lives.  

But comfort can come from a different sort of knowledge. After wandering long and lost in the dark many had found they were actually walking step by step toward grace. 

As a nation or adjustments had been profound many Americans struggled to understand why an enemy would hate us with such zeal. The security measures incorporated into our lives are both sources of comfort and reminders of our vulnerability. And we have seen growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders, but from violence that gathers within. 

There’s little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home, but then there’s disdainful pluralism in their disregard for human life. 

In their determination to defile national symbols they are children of the same foul spirit and it is our continuing duty to confront them. 

After 911, millions of brave Americans stepped forward and volunteered to serve in the armed forces. The military measures taken over the last 20 years to pursue dangers at their source, have led to debate. But one thing is certain. We owe an assurance who all who have fought our nation’s most recent battles. 

Let me speak directly to veterans and people in uniform. 

 The cause you pursued and the call of duty is the noblest America has to offer. 

You have shielded your fellow citizens from danger. You have defended the beliefs of your country and advanced the rights of the downtrodden. You have been the face of hope and mercy in dark places. You have been a force of good in the world.

Nothing that has followed, nothing, can tarnish your honor or diminish your accomplishments. To you and to the honor of dead, our country is forever grateful.

In the weeks and months following the 9/11 attacks, I was proud to lead an amazing, resilient, united people. When it comes to the unity of America, those days seem distant from our own. 

Malign force seems at work in our common life, that turns every disagreement into an argument. And every argument into a clash of cultures.

So much of our politics has become a naked appeal to anger, fear and resentment.

That leaves us worried about our nation and our future together. 

I come without explanations or solutions. 

I can only tell you what I’ve seen on America’s day of trial and grief, I saw millions of people instinctively grabbed before a neighbor’s hand and rally to the cause of one another. That is the America I know. 

At a time when religious bigotry might have flowed freely, I saw Americans reject prejudice and embrace people of Muslim faith. That is the nation I know. 

At a time when nativism could have stirred hatred and violence against people perceived as outsiders, I saw America’s reaffirm their welcome to immigrants and refugees. That is the nation. I know. 

At a time when some viewed the rising generation as individualistic and decadent, I saw young people embrace an ethic of service, and rise to selfless action. That is a nation I know. 

This is not mere nostalgia, it is the truest version of ourselves. It is what we have been and what we can be again.  

Twenty years ago terrorists chose a random group of Americans on a routine flight to be collateral damage in a spectacular act of terror. 

The 33 passengers and seven crew of Flight 93 could have been any group of citizens, selected by fate. 

In a sense, they stood in for us all. 

The terrorists soon discovered that a random group of Americans is an exceptional group of people. 

Facing an impossible circumstance, they comforted their loved ones by phone, braced each other for action and defeated the designs of evil. 

These Americans were brave, strong and united in ways that shocked the terrorists, which should not surprise any of us. 

This is the nation we know. 

And whenever we need hope and inspiration, we look to the skies, and remember.

God bless. 

In her heartfelt message to President Joe Biden, Queen Elizabeth reflected on her visit to Ground Zero back in 2010. 

As we mark the 20th anniversary of the terrible attacks on September 11 2001, my thoughts and prayers, and those of my family and the entire nation, remain with the victims, survivors and families affected, as well as the first responders and rescue workers called to duty.

‘My visit to the site of the World Trade Center in 2010 is held fast in my memory.

‘It reminds me that as we honour those from many nations, faiths and backgrounds who lost their lives, we also pay tribute to the resilience and determination of the communities who joined together to rebuild.’

In a defiant message played at a memorial event at the Olympic Park in east London, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the threat of terrorism remained but people refused to live their lives in ‘permanent fear’.

‘The fact that we are coming together today – in sorrow but also in faith and resolve – demonstrates the failure of terrorism and the strength of the bonds between us,’ Johnson said. 

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex changed the website of their Archewell Foundation to show rows of victims’ names.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, now President Joe Biden was riding his beloved Amtrak from Wilmington to Washington and talking on the phone to his wife. 

 ‘Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God,’ Dr. Jill Biden yelled into the phone. 

One commercial airplane had already slammed into the North Tower at the World Trade Center in New York City. She exclaimed when a second followed. 

‘Jill, what is it?’ Biden, then a U.S. senator from Delaware, asked his wife. 

‘Another plane … the other tower,’ she responded. 

Biden is set to mark the 20th anniversary of the terror attacks with visits to Ground Zero, Shanksville, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon on Saturday. 

He recounted what he experienced on 9/11 in his 2007 memoir, ‘Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics,’ which he published in advance of his 2008 presidential run. 

He wrote that he was trying to project strength and help unify the American people on that fateful day. 

When Biden arrived at Union Station, Flight 77 had already disintegrated into the side of the Pentagon, and Washington was masked with a smoky haze. 

He headed several blocks to the U.S. Capitol Building, ignoring protests over the phone from his daughter Ashley, arguing it was the safest place to be that day. 

‘Damn it, I want to go in,’ Biden told a police officer who refused his access to the building. 

Congressional leaders, at that point, had been moved to a secure location. 

Meanwhile, President George W. Bush was on Air Force One and Vice President Dick Cheney was in the White House bunker. 

Biden wrote in his memoir that it was important to ‘show the country we were still doing business.’  

Linda Douglass, who was an ABC News reporter at the time, told CNN in an interview that she found Biden and Sen. John Warner of Virginia discussing who had the most seniority, as they wanted Congress to come back. Biden, at the time, served as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  

‘He really felt it was important for the government to get right back to business,’ Douglass told CNN. ‘It was extremely important for the country to hear from a senior figure in the government,’ she added.

Biden agreed to jump on-camera and talk to ABC News, following Douglass to the live-shot location several blocks away. 

‘I think we should get back as quick as we can, Peter, into session,’ Biden said as he stood beside Douglass and spoke to anchor Peter Jennings. 

‘I think we have to show that we’re up, we’re ready, we’re ready to move, we are in fact – nothing has fundamentally altered this government,’ he continued. ‘And the tragedy that occurred to these thousands of people is one that we must in fact follow through and find out who’s responsible for.’

‘But in the meantime, we should be calm and cool and collected about going about our business as a nation. Terrorism wins when, in fact, they alter our civil liberties or shut down our institutions. We have to demonstrate neither of those things have happened,’ Biden added. 

Biden wasn’t willing to place blame on American officials not focusing on threats.  

‘This in a sense is the most God awful wake-up call we’ve ever had to how we have to redirect our resources,’ he said. 

During the TV hit, he also applauded Bush for coming back to Washington, as the president was en route. 

Later that day, Biden received a call from Bush, thanking him for his remarks.  

‘It was important to show the American people that everybody now was safe and that we were all together in this. There were the Democrats, the Republicans – we were going to be supporting the president totally. And that’s the message Joe sent, and that’s why the president called him,’ recalled former Rep. Bob Brady of Philadelphia to CNN. 

Brady gave Biden and his brother a ride back to Delaware that day. 

In his book, Biden wrote that Bush had told him the intelligence community had advised him to go to a bunker in the midwest. 

Biden argued the president needed to return to Washington, which he did. 

‘I hung up the phone, and there was silence in the van until Jimmy spoke up,’ he said of his brother. 

‘Whatever staffer suggested he call you just got fired,’ Jimmy Biden joked.