House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie joined first responders and veterans Friday at the Presidio of San Francisco for a ceremony commemorating those who lost their lives on 9/11 and to honor veterans who served in the wars following the terror attack.
“To the families who lost loved ones on 9/11, and to the first responders who survived but carry their memories, we hold on to your hearts,” said San Francisco Fire Chief Dean Crispen in a speech. “We remember your sacrifice, and we continue the work of supporting one another in your honor.”
The solemn ceremony marked 25 years since 9/11, when terrorists hijacked commercial airliners and flew them into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C.
A fourth plane bound for San Francisco was also hijacked by terrorists and was believed to be headed to the U.S. Capitol or the White House. Passengers stormed the cockpit and diverted the plane, later crashing into a field in Pennsylvania, according to the FBI.
Nearly 3,000 people died that day, and the attacks sparked the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
“It was a day that shook our very being as individuals and our core as a nation.”
— House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi
Musicians from the San Francisco Symphony played a somber piece as the American flag was raised to half-staff. Representatives from the San Francisco Interfaith Council, a coalition of various faiths, led speeches and prayers.
“It was a day that shook our very being as individuals and our core as a nation,” said the council’s executive director Michael Pappas in a speech. “In the midst of seeming helplessness, we naturally came together.”
Leaders reflect on the day of the attack
Lurie, Crispen and Pelosi reflected on their experiences surrounding that day. Lurie was in New York City and saw the towers get hit, while Pelosi evacuated the U.S. Capitol building.
“I saw things that no one should have to see.”
— San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie
“I saw things that no one should have to see,” Lurie said.
“They get us out of the Capitol, send us to our offices, and on the way, we see the Pentagon burning,” Pelosi said. “This was a complete surprise and it was horrible.”
Crispen was one of several San Francisco firefighters who went to ground zero after the attacks to help support the first responders in New York City.
“For those of us in the fire service, the images from that morning are etched permanently into who we are,” Crispen said. “At any cost, the work that took place at ground zero wasn’t just physical. It changed us. It stayed with us.”
The ceremony was hosted by the Heart & Armor Foundation for Veterans Health, an organization that helps support the mental and physical health of veterans. The event focused on honoring the veterans who signed up to serve in the U.S. military after the attacks.
The U.S. launched the “War on Terror” after 9/11, with millions of troops invading Afghanistan and Iraq in wars that killed hundreds of thousands of people, mostly civilians, according to Brown University’s Cost of War Project.
The Project, which conducts research on the impacts of the post-9/11 wars, also found that at least four times as many U.S. service members and veterans who served in the post-9/11 wars have died by suicide than in combat.
Veterans carry the legacy and wounds
Matthew Smith, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who was deployed to Iraq, discussed the challenging aftermath of serving in combat. Like many veterans who served in the post-9/11 wars, he was influenced to join the military after the 9/11 terror attack.
“I had changed. Accepting death in combat made it hard to embrace life afterward.”
— Matthew Smith, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran
“When my enlistment ended, I thought I could return home to the person I was before the war, find a job, fit back into society, and move on. But it did not happen this way,” he said in a speech. “I had changed. Accepting death in combat made it hard to embrace life afterward. I carried stress, depression, and a dependence on alcohol.”
After a fellow Marine died by suicide in 2013, Smith decided to go to University of California, Berkeley to get bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work. Now he is a mental health counselor for veterans at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ North Bay Vet Center in Rohnert Park.
As the unrelenting fog blanketed the Presidio and a strong breeze waved the American flag, the San Francisco Symphony ended the ceremony by playing “America the Beautiful.”
Lurie announced that City Hall and 18 other buildings will be “bathed in blue light” Friday night to remember 9/11.
“I think the truest way to honor all of these heroes is to thank them,” Lurie said. “And to ask ourselves what it looks like if each of us run towards something hard instead of away from it. That’s what gets our country and our city through its darkest days. That’s how we will continue to rise.”
