Barack Obama honors unsung heroes on 9/11 anniversary

The ex-president U.S. Barack Obama paid tribute, this Saturday, to the anonymous heroes who responded twenty years ago to the attacks of the 9/11 and also those who are now reacting to the challenges facing the country, such as the pandemic or the climate crisis.

In a statement marking the twentieth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Obama opined that “America has always been the home of heroes who run into danger to do the right thing.”

“For Michelle and me, the lasting image of that day is not just the falling towers or the burning debris, but the firefighters running up the stairs while others ran down them,” said the former president between 2009 and 2017.

Obama, who attended this Saturday the solemn ceremony at ground zero in New York along with President Joe Biden and former president Bill Clinton (1993-2001), said that the same courage has been repeated in the last two decades “over and over again time”.

“And we see it today, in the doctors and nurses, completely exhausted, who do everything possible to save lives; in the military, some of whom were not even born 20 years ago, who have put themselves at risk to save Americans and help refugees,” he said, apparently alluding to the aerial rescues in Afghanistan.

He also included in that group firefighters and emergency teams “who fight wild fires and rising waters to save families”, referring to two phenomena, fires and floods, which are becoming more frequent in the United States due to the climate crisis.

“9/11 reminded us of the extent to which so many Americans give themselves in extraordinary ways, not just in times of great crisis, but every day. Let’s never forget that, and never take their work for granted”, concluded Obama.

While Obama, Clinton and Biden attended the ceremony in New York, former President George W. Bush (2001-2009) delivered a heartfelt speech in Shanksville (Pennsylvania), where the fourth plane crashed 20 years ago, after which they impacted in the Twin Towers in New York and in the Pentagon.

With the exception of Jimmy Carter (1977-1981), who at 96 no longer travels to official events, the only living ex-president absent from the events this Saturday was Donald Trump (2017-2021), who issued a statement in the charged at Biden for his strategy in Afghanistan.