At 9/11 memorial, Obama praises US diversity and resilience

President Barack Obama on Sunday invoked Scripture and praised the resilience and diversity of Americans while attending a Pentagon ceremony honoring the 3,000 lives lost 15 years ago in the nation’s worst terror attack.

In what was Obama’s last 9/11 memorial service as the nation’s president, he urged Americans not to let its enemies divide them. US diversity — “our patchwork heritage” — is not a weakness, he said.

“It is still and always will be one of our greatest strengths,” he said. The nation must “stay true to ourselves, stay true to what’s best in us — that we do not let others divide us.”

Speaking on a warm, sunny morning at the Defense Department’s headquarters, Obama said extremist groups such as the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda know they can never defeat America so they focus on trying to instill fear.

“As Americans we do not give into fear,” he said.

Obama also quoted from the Book of Proverbs: “Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you. Bind them around your neck. Write them on the table of your heart.”

Earlier that morning, Obama observed a moment of silence at the White House at 8:46 a.m. EDT. That’s when the first of four hijacked airplanes slammed into the north tower of New York City’s World Trade Center.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed in New York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon on Sept. 11. The American flag was flying at half-staff atop the White House and other federal buildings. Obama has invited governors, interested organizations and individuals to follow suit.

In New York, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, memorial services were being held, with victims’ relatives reading their names and reflecting on a loss that still felt as immediate to them as it was indelible for the nation.

“It doesn’t get easier. The grief never goes away. You don’t move forward — it always stays with you,” Tom Acquaviva, who lost his son, Paul Acquaviva, said as he joined over 1,000 victims’ family members, survivors and dignitaries at Ground Zero under an overcast sky.

For Dorothy Esposito, too, the 15 years since she lost her son, Frankie, is “like 15 seconds.”

James Johnson, a retired New York City police sergeant who is now police chief in Forest City, Pennsylvania, was there for the first time since he last worked on the rescue and recovery efforts in early 2002.

“I’ve got mixed emotions, but I’m still kind of numb,” he said. “I think everyone needs closure, and this is my time to have closure.”

The 15th anniversary arrives in a country caught up in a combustible political campaign and keenly focused on political, economic and social fissures.

But some at the ceremony pleaded for the nation to look past its differences.

“The things we think separate us really don’t. We’re all part of this one Earth in this vast universe,” said Granvilette Kestenbaum, who lost her astrophysicist husband, Howard Kestenbaum. “We’re all ordinary, and we’re all special, we’re all connected. We waste precious time by thinking otherwise.”

Others expressed hopes for peace or alluded to the presidential race, calling on the next commander-in-chief to ensure America’s safety.

Still, the nation tries to put partisan politics on hold on the anniversary, and both Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican rival Donald Trump were at the anniversary ceremony at the World Trade Center. Neither candidate was expected to make public remarks at a ceremony where politicians have been allowed to attend, but not speak, since 2011.

Clinton and Trump also followed a custom of halting television ads for the day.

Ceremony organizers included some additional music and readings Sunday to mark the milestone year. But they kept close to what are now traditions: moments of silence and tolling bells, an apolitical atmosphere and the hours-long reading of the names of the dead.

For relatives, it’s an occasion to keep their loved one in the public’s consciousness, while also having a tone of personal remembrance. Some speakers updated their lost loved ones on weddings and grandchildren or described how their loss had moved them to connect with others who had been through tragedy.

Jerry D’Amadeo was 10 when he lost his father, Vincent Gerard D’Amadeo. The son said he worked this summer with children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and six school staffers were massacred in 2012.

“Sometimes the bad things in our lives put us on the path to where we should be going — to help others as many have helped me,” he said.

Financial and other hurdles delayed the redevelopment of the Trade Center site early on, but now the 9/11 museum, three of four currently planned skyscrapers, an architecturally adventuresome transportation hub and shopping concourse and other features stand at the site. A design for a long-stalled, $250 million performing arts center was unveiled Thursday.

Around the Trade Center, lower Manhattan now has dozens of new hotels and eateries, 60,000 more residents and ever-more visitors than before 9/11.

Meanwhile, the crowd has thinned somewhat at the anniversary ceremony in recent years. But there’s been no sustained talk of curtailing the ceremony.

Cathy Cava, who lost her sister, Grace Susca Galante, has attended all 15 years.

“I will keep coming as long as I am walking and breathing,” Cava said, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the image of her sister.

“I believe most of her spirit, or at least some of her spirit, is here. I have to think that way.”

Almost exactly a decade after the attacks, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces in a raid in Pakistan that Obama authorized. Former president George W. Bush was reportedly the first person Obama called to inform of his death.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report