U.S. President Donald Trump commemorated the 9/11 victims at the Pentagon on Friday, the 25th anniversary of the terror attacks.
“With the events of that morning, 2,977 beautiful souls were ripped from our world, and many more died in the weeks and years after. Horrible, grotesque injuries, so many were sustained,” he said. “Today we renew the sacred oath that we first swore in their names a quarter of a century ago. We will never, ever forget. That’s why we fight today.”
The president shared some of the names of the victims and their families, like Capt. Timothy Stackpole of the New York City Fire Department, who had just been promoted and had recovered from a fire three years earlier that burned 40% of his body.
He led a team into the south tower of the World Trade Center. He and others in his team were killed, Trump said.
The president said that Stackpole’s widow, Tara, “found the strength to be a rock, not only for her kids but for the countless members of a very grieving fire department.”
The president named each of the Stackpoles’ five children. He asked the whole family to stand and listed some of the accomplishments of the family members.
“No one can ever prepare for a day like 9/11, but we can always choose to be the kind of nation the world saw in those days after,” Trump said. “We can build families like the Stackpoles. We can raise our children to know that their country is good, that their fathers are brave and that our flag is a symbol of justice and freedom.”
The president also saluted everyone in the military who has fought in the war on terror over the past 25 years and those who are fighting to “ensure the world’s number one sponsor of terror, the Islamic Republic of Iran, will never, ever have a nuclear weapon.”
