Today marks the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, a horrific day in which nearly 3000 people were killed and thousands more injured in New York.

The ugly incident happened on the morning of September 11, 2001, when 19 members of al-Qaeda, an Islamic extremist group led by the late Osama bin Laden, hijacked four commercial planes while flying two into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, while another crashed in the Pentagon, Arlington, VA.

The fourth jet brought down by passengers, knowing their danger, crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pa., before it could reach the hijackers’ obvious targets – the US Capitol in Washington, DC or the White House.

This memory has continued to haunt a lot of Americans and other foreigners who lost a loved one(s) in the deadly attacks.

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the deadly attacks, the United States President; Joe Biden, and First Lady; Jill Biden will today visit all three sites of the coordinated attacks.

Biden is not scheduled to deliver remarks at any of the sites, but he released a video on Friday to express his condolences to the loved ones of the victims and highlight the national unity that resulted, at least initially, after 9/11.

“It’s so hard. Whether it’s the first year or the 20th, children have grown up without parents and parents have suffered without children,” Biden said.

The president noted the heroism that was seen in the days following the attacks.

“We also saw something all too rare: a true sense of national unity,” Biden said.

U.S. presidents often travel to one of the three attack sites on the 9/11 anniversary but it is unusual to go to all three of them on the same day.

“The president felt it was important to visit each of these three sites to commemorate the lives lost, the sacrifices made on a day that has impacted millions of people across the country but certainly many people in those communities,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Friday.

The White House said Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband Douglas Emhoff would travel to Shanksville for a separate event, then join the Bidens at the Pentagon.

According to Reuters, in August, several families of the victims of the attack asked Biden to skip 20 years of memorial events until he made public documents they claimed supported the attacks by Saudi Arabian leaders.

Heeding the call last Friday, Biden ordered the Justice Department to review documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigating the attacks for declassification and release. The order requires US Attorney General Merrick Garland to make declassified documents public over the next six months as it oversees “a declassification review of documents” related to the FBI investigation.

“We must never forget the enduring pain of the families and loved ones of the 2,977 innocent people killed during the worst terrorist attack on America in our history,” Biden said on September 3 during an annual ceremony.

Last year the reading ritual was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but this year’s memorial at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in NYC on Saturday, family members of 9/11 victims will gather to read the names of those killed in the September 11 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.

It’s hard to tell how much things changed after the 911 attacks, but for many, the day remains an experience that can never be forgotten.

May their souls continue to rest in peace, Amen