The streets of lower Manhattan were sealed off Saturday, the sky as clear as it had been on the day 20 years ago when the terrorist attacks took place.
As firefighters and police, the families of those lost on 9/11, military who had served in the Afghan and Iraq wars, assembled near Ground Zero for the remembrance, there was a pervasive sense of sorrow and respect.
“My feelings today are of sadness,” Sean O’Malley, heading to the memorial to play in the FDNY band. O’Malley, who was off-duty that day and called in to respond, was assembling a team of firefighters when the towers came down.
“It just feels like yesterday. It really does. The loss doesn’t get less, and the pain is certainly still there. It doesn’t lessen with years, you just get to shoulder the burden a little easier. So many wives, lots of families and communities were impacted. So many people who didn’t get to see their children grow up, see them off to college.”