This proposed structure differs from Israel's standard model of a state commission of inquiry. Netanyahu position compared his plan to the inquiry committee established in the US after the September 11 terrorist attacks, which he said had been "half Democratic and half Republican" and had "done an excellent job." A review of the facts, however, reveals three significant gaps between the American committee and the model Netanyahu is promoting.

The intelligence failures

So what is the American committee Netanyahu is referencing? The 9/11 Commission was established in 2002 by a federal law passed by Congress. Its purpose was to investigate the intelligence, operational and institutional failures that enabled the deadliest terrorist attack in US history.

The committee consisted of ten members, five Republicans and five Democrats, most of whom were former senior public officials. It was granted broad powers, including subpoena authority and access to classified material. It conducted interviews with more than 1,000 individuals, held dozens of public hearings and in 2004 released a lengthy report detailing systemic failures across several administrations. Its findings led to sweeping reforms in the US intelligence community.

A campaign of pressure

Netanyahu claimed that a "coordinated pressure campaign by senior former officials" was being waged in recent days, saying these individuals had "allowed anarchy to seep into state systems" and now "seek to distort the facts" and influence the structure of the inquiry. He argued that "such figures must not be involved in decisions and considerations that will determine how the disaster will be investigated" and described their involvement as "a clear conflict of interest."

He insists the national inquiry committee he plans to establish "will represent the entire public, the opposition and the coalition equally."

Yet the American model he cites does not actually support these assertions. First, the 9/11 Commission was itself composed largely of former officials. The chair, Tom Kean, was a former Republican governor. The vice chair, Lee Hamilton, was a former Democratic congressman. Most other members were also retired public officials. In other words, the American model relied on experienced figures who were not politically subordinate to the sitting administration, in contrast to Netanyahu's warnings about the involvement of "former officials."

The administration did not appoint the committee

Second, the administration of President George W. Bush did not appoint the commission and did not control its membership. Congress, which is independent of the executive branch, established the committee through legislation after initial opposition from the White House. The commission was created only after intense public pressure from families of the victims.

Its members were chosen by Democratic and Republican congressional leaders, not by the administration. This ensured full independence from the executive branch it was tasked with investigating. In Israel, however, a national inquiry committee appointed by the government and staffed by its nominees does not reflect the same level of independence.

Third, the "half Democrats, half Republicans" model cannot simply be replicated in Israel, where there is no stable two party system. In the US it is clear who represents the opposition and who represents the majority. Israel's opposition is fragmented, its parties disagree among themselves and they may not even agree on who could legitimately represent them on a committee appointed by the government.

A model of how to conduct an inquiry

In such a system, an ostensibly "balanced" composition does not guarantee independence. It may instead deepen political rifts and erode public trust in the committee's conclusions. Although Netanyahu presents the 9/11 Commission as a model for the type of inquiry he wants to establish, the American committee's structure, membership and method of appointment show that it was built on one essential principle: complete independence from the government being investigated.

That principle is not necessarily reflected in the framework Netanyahu is proposing. It also contradicts his criticism of "former officials" even though, in the US case, they were at the core of the commission's credibility and professionalism.

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"I proposed on Sept. 16, 2001," Scott Honig recalls. 

It was just days after the horrific attacks on the US that stunned the nation and made everyone numb. 

But for Scott, it was a call to action and he popped the question to the surprise of his now-wife and her parents, who were literally speechless for 30 seconds when he told them about his plans and formally asked for their blessing. 

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The moment in which the critical mass had formed and made him pivot to this momentous decision was not the actual attack or the iconic images of the burning towers that we all remember. In fact, it was something much more deep. 

It was the sense of helplessness he saw in one man he saw on TV and who wasn't even supposed to be in the camera's frame. When he saw that man on the screen searching for his girlfriend who was in one of the Twin Towers, Scott realized that the marriage proposal plan he had already begun to formulate could no longer wait; there was simply no time for a calculated, well-thought-out move that would culminate with a marriage proposal. Such a timetable had to be tossed out the window. Now was the moment.  

"Steph and I had been dating at that point for just over a year. Seriously dating just over a year. Which for me was probably a little bit soon. I wasn't ready to propose, but I think she and I both knew that this was it, that this was going to lead to marriage. So I had it in my head that maybe December (2001), maybe the spring (2002). I was toying with the ideas of when and how and all of that," Scott explained in a phone interview. 

"At the time that this happened, Steph had just graduated from college, from Binghamton University, which is where we met, and she was then living in the city in the Upper West Side with some friends," Scott said, explaining that the couple was maintaining a long-distance relationship.

"Steph was about to start graduate school at Queens College. I was finishing up my last semester of my master's degree at Binghamton. So we were not together geographically at that point. And I was starting my student teaching, and finishing up my classes, and I was set to graduate that December, which I did." 

When he first heard the news on Tuesday, September 11, Scott and many of his coworkers could not imagine the scope of the attack, let alone that their lives would change forever. 

"So it was maybe my second week of student teaching when 9/11 happened. I was at a high school in Binghamton and somebody came into the office and said that a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers. And like most people, we thought, what a horrible accident. And somebody in the school where I was in actually set up a TV on a rolling cart and put on the news so people were watching the coverage. I watched live as the second plane hit," he said about how the day's events unfolded in upstate New York. "It was in an office that a bunch of the teachers shared. We weren't showing it to the students. It was for the staff, because this was big, so on their off period teachers wanted to watch the news. I remember everybody thinking as soon as the second plane hit, 'this is not an accident.' Because we were not in the NYC area school just sort of continued as normal, but for somebody who lived down-state I found it very difficult to do my job that day, knowing what had just happened." 

Q: Did anyone else beside the teaching staff know about it? 

"A little while after the plane had hit, I think the school made an announcement along the lines of 'planes had hit the World Trade Center and that we don't know the details, everybody continue on as usual and if there is something that needs to be updated we will update you.' So the students then knew, and I remember I had a senior, 12th-grade class. I had given them a creative writing prompt, where they had to use like a couple of random words to create a story and it was like 'beach ball,' 'spatula' and stuff like that. And one of the kids wrote a story where a plane flew into a building because the passengers were hitting a beach ball back and forth and got into a cockpit and distracted the pilot and the plane crashed. According to his story they had to pick all the people up off the street with a spatula. I was so horrified that they could joke about this thing that had just happened before we even really knew. But they were just kids, they hadn't put together that this wasn't more than an accident." 

Q: Was there a collective gasp when the second plane hit?

"Oh yeah, absolutely. And silence. People were sort of talking before that, and when the second plane hit the room went absolutely silent, I mean absolutely silent. And everybody sort of exchanged knowing glances because we knew this could not have been an accident. So I finished teaching at about noon and the first thing I needed to do was call Steph because although she didn't live or work or go to school in lower Manhattan I didn't know what her plans were that day, I didn't know if she was doing sightseeing the World Trade Center, or visiting friends downtown. And of course, you couldn't get a hold of anyone. The whole country lost cell connectivity. My father has also been on a business trip to North Carolina and he was supposed to be flying home that day. So I am trying to get a hold of him and Steph at the same time. He ended up renting a car because all flights had been grounded, but I didn't know that at the time." 

Q: How long before you made contact with her? 

"It was a few hours. Maybe 3 or 4 p.m. when I finally got a hold of everybody. And I knew that everybody whom I could think of was safe. And then for the rest of that day, and well into the night, I was glued to the news. We were trying to figure out what happened. I had some friends coming over to my apartment and we just sat and stared and cried and hugged. It was an awful day as you know."

Scott didn't know that this rather trivial gathering of people to watch the news and keep up with the latest on the tragedy would set in motion a chain of events that would have him engaged just five days later. 

"I remember some point in the evening, after the initial wave of horror and fear and past the news coverage shifted in its tone to speculating on why this happened and who was responsible, and the recovery effort of trying to get close enough to ground zero to start looking for survivors. There was a female news reporter standing on a street somewhere close enough to ground zero but far enough where she wasn't in danger or covered in smoke. And more interesting to me was what was happening behind her: A man walked into the shot and he was holding a little piece of paper which I later figured out was a photograph, and the reporter's microphone picked up his voice just enough for me to hear him say to other people who were just sort of in the background, 'Have you seen this woman?; this is my girlfriend, she worked  in Tower 2, has anybody seen her?' and then he said 'I was supposed to propose to her tonight.' And it broke me. That moment broke me.

"I knew from everything I had watched on the news that the likelihood that he was going to find her alive was small. For the most part if by that evening you hadn't heard from a person or you haven't seen them it wasn't looking good. So when I heard that man say that, it sort of immediately clicked. What am I waiting for? Anything could happen at any moment, so if I know that this is the person I want to be with and spend a life with, why am I waiting until December, why until spring? I am going to do this. And I started making the plan."

Q: So in the span of less than a week you had it all figured out with the ring and all? 

"So I immediately called my parents and I said that I was going to come home this weekend, that I am going to bring Steph with me and that I am going to ask her to marry me. They were thrilled and all that. The plan was that I was going to leave Binghamton after work on Friday, drive through the city, grab Steph and drive to my parents' home, which was weird because they had literally just moved two weeks before."

Q: You weren't concerned that she would pick up that something was off?

"I think she saw it as my way of reacting to the devastating thing that happened, and I was terrified she and my father were in some sort of danger and I wanted to see them and hug them. So I don't think it registered to her that she was going to get engaged that weekend. So I picked her and I drove to my parents' new house, so I needed directions to get to my parents' house because I had no idea where it was.

"So the next day, they were still unpacking and they were going to be painting the kitchen cabinet white. Steph actually had some experience, so it worked out well. So she and I got started helping them to paint, and then I had to intentionally anger her, by telling her that my grandparents had called and they needed my help, which was a complete lie."

Scott explained that this charade resulted in Steph staying alone for most of the day with his parents and it was obvious that this move left her perplexed because after all, he was the one who insisted on going to visit them. 

"So I left her alone with my parents painting cabinets, and as I walked out the door, she shot me this death look, like I can't believe you are leaving me to do this," he recalled. To his relief, despite Steph being outraged, it was safe to assume at this point that she was not suspecting that this was a ruse for a marriage proposal. 

 "And so, I did not go and see my parents, at least not yet. I drove to Stony Brook, I called her parents Joyce and Marty on the way, and I said, 'Are you home, I want to come see you.' And they said, 'Oh, you and Steph are going to come see us.' And I said, 'No no, just me'. They thought it was weird but it did not dawn on them what was happening. So we were sitting on their back patio, and I said some nice things about Steph, and I didn't tell them the whole Sept. 11 story [about the man searching for his girlfriend), I just didn't want it to be a downer. I ended it by saying 'So I am here to ask your permission to ask her to marry me.'

"Their jaw dropped open, I can't imagine how they didn't figure out why I was there, but they didn't and we sat in silence for probably about 30 seconds. They were just in shock, and thank goodness for my darling brother-in-law that I love dearly because he broke the silence by saying 'Well, I'm in.' And we all laughed and cried and hugged."

"So I left there with their blessing and with an engagement ring [an heirloom from Steph's mother that has been passed down from generation to generation in the family]. I knew that I wanted Steph to have something that was from me. Since the ring wasn't from me, that's when I drove to Valley Stream where I grew up and picked up my grandparents and they helped me shop for a pair of diamond earrings. We spent a few hours finding the right pair of hearings. Steph is not a flashy or showy person, so we got a pair of diamond studs that she wears to this day, she never takes them out, I then dropped my grandparents' home and came back to my parent's house in Plainview and I walked in and I got an even fiercer death stare from Steph because it had been four hours and the cabinets were painted and I didn't do any of it. Rightfully so [referring to her anger]. 

Scott explained that despite Steph's anger all-too apparent, she kept her cool, and eventually he managed to explain away his absence in a convincing manner. 

"I made up a story about how my grandparents needed help, it was all a lie, and she bought it. And later that night, Steph and I were just watching TV in my parents' basement, we were in our pajamas and I had the diamond ring in one pocket and a pair of diamond earrings in the other pocket. Eventually, I just decided at around 10:30 at night, I asked her to get off the couch and walk over to a different part of the basement and she said, 'Why what are you doing?' And I said,' Nothing, just come with me.'

"We walked over and took her hand and said nice things about her and about our relationship and all of this. I didn't bring up Sept. 11 because I didn't want it to be a downer, but I told her at a later date [that this was the trigger]. I got down on one knee and I started reaching into my pocket, and she looked down and said, 'What are you doing? What are you doing?' and I asked her if she would marry me. She started tearing up and hugged me and I put the ring on her and she was just hugging and crying. I whispered in her ear, 'You haven't answered the question yet.' And she responded, 'Yes!!!' We ran upstairs, she threw open my parents' bedroom door, dove into the bed between them, and shouted: 'I am going to be your daughter.'"

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The world solemnly marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11 on Saturday, grieving lost lives and shattered American unity in commemorations that unfolded just weeks after the bloody end of the Afghanistan war that was launched in response to the terror attacks.

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Victims' relatives and four US presidents paid respects at the sites where hijacked planes killed nearly 3,000 people in the deadliest act of terrorism on American soil.

Others gathered for observances from Portland, Maine, to Guam, or for volunteer projects on what has become a day of service in the US. Foreign leaders expressed sympathy over an attack that happened in the US but claimed victims from more than 90 countries.

"It felt like an evil specter had descended on our world, but it was also a time when many people acted above and beyond the ordinary," said Mike Low, whose daughter, Sara Low, was a flight attendant on the first plane that crashed.

"As we carry these 20 years forward, I find sustenance in a continuing appreciation for all of those who rose to be more than ordinary people," the father told a ground zero crowd that included US President Joe Biden and former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

In a video released Friday night, Biden said Sept. 11 illustrated that "unity is our greatest strength."

Unity is "the thing that's going to affect our well-being more than anything else," he added while visiting a volunteer firehouse Saturday after laying a wreath at the 9/11 crash site near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. He later took a moment of silence at the third site, the Pentagon.

The anniversary was observed under the pall of a pandemic and in the shadow of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, which is now ruled by the same Taliban terrorist group that gave safe haven to the 9/11 plotters.

"It's hard because you hoped that this would just be a different time and a different world. But sometimes history starts to repeat itself and not in the best of ways," Thea Trinidad, who lost her father in the attacks, said before reading victims' names at the ceremony.

Bruce Springsteen and Broadway actors Kelli O'Hara and Chris Jackson sang at the commemoration, but by tradition, no politicians spoke there.

At the Pennsylvania site – where passengers and crew fought to regain control of a plane believed to have been targeted at the US Capitol or the White House – former US President George W. Bush said Sept. 11 showed that Americans can come together despite their differences.

"So much of our politics has become a naked appeal to anger, fear and resentment," said the president who was in office on 9/11. "On America's day of trial and grief, I saw millions of people instinctively grab their neighbor's hand and rally to the cause of one another. That is the America I know."

"It is the truest version of ourselves. It is what we have been and what we can be again."

Calvin Wilson said a polarized country has "missed the message" of the heroism of the flight's passengers and crew, which included his brother-in-law, LeRoy Homer.

"We don't focus on the damage. We don't focus on the hate. We don't focus on retaliation. We don't focus on revenge," Wilson said before the ceremony. "We focus on the good that all of our loved ones have done."

Former US President Donald Trump visited a New York police station and a firehouse, praising responders' bravery while criticizing Biden over the pullout from Afghanistan.

"It was gross incompetence," said Trump.

The attacks ushered in a new era of fear, war, patriotism and, eventually, polarization. They also redefined security, changing airport checkpoints, police practices and the government's surveillance powers.

A "war on terror" led to invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, where the longest US war ended last month with a hasty, massive airlift punctuated by a suicide bombing that killed 169 Afghans and 13 American service members and was attributed to a branch of the Islamic State extremist group. The body of slain Marine Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo was brought Saturday to her hometown of Lawrence, Massachusetts, where people lined the streets as the flag-draped draped casket passed by.

The US is now concerned that al-Qaida, the terror network behind 9/11, may regroup in Afghanistan, where the Taliban flag once again flew over the presidential palace on Saturday.

Two decades after helping to triage and treat wounded colleagues at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, retired Army Col. Malcolm Bruce Westcott is saddened and frustrated by the continued threat of terrorism.

"I always felt that my generation, my military cohort, would take care of it – we wouldn't pass it on to anybody else," said Westcott, of Greensboro, Georgia. "And we passed it on."

At ground zero, multiple victims' relatives thanked the troops who fought in Afghanistan, while Melissa Pullis said she was just happy they were finally home.

"We can't lose any more military. We don't even know why we're fighting, and 20 years went down the drain," said Pullis, who lost her husband, Edward, and whose son Edward Jr. is serving on the USS Ronald Reagan.

The families spoke of lives cut short, milestones missed and a loss that still feels immediate. Several pleaded for a return of the solidarity that surged for a time after Sept. 11 but soon gave way.

"In our grief and our strength, we were not divided based on our voting preference, the color of our skin or our moral or religious beliefs," said Sally Maler, the sister-in-law of victim Alfred Russell Maler.

Yet in the years that followed, Muslim Americans endured suspicion, surveillance and hate crimes. Schisms and bitterness grew over the balance between tolerance and vigilance, the meaning of patriotism, the proper way to honor the dead and the scope of a promise to "never forget."

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Trinidad was 10 when she overheard her dad, Michael, saying goodbye to her mother by phone from the burning trade center. She remembers the pain but also the fellowship of the days that followed, when all of New York "felt like it was family."

"Now, when I feel like the world is so divided, I just wish that we can go back to that," said Trinidad, of Orlando, Florida. "I feel like it would have been such a different world if we had just been able to hang on to that feeling."

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Allan Englander usually commemorates Sept. 11 at the Tribeca Synagogue where he was having breakfast after morning prayers that Tuesday in 2001 when he learned a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

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"We didn't believe it at first – somebody called in, and we all rushed out and ran to the corner, where we had a view of the World Trade Center," he recalls. "I got there just in time to see the second plane crash into the tower."

On the anniversary of the attacks, they pray, have breakfast, and think back at what they were doing and how they felt, he says. "I try to make an effort to go there on 9/11 simply because it's reminiscent, it's remembering," he says.

This year's commemoration will be different, though. With the 20th anniversary of the tragedy falling on Saturday, instead of being minutes from the World Trade Center site, where he prays on weekdays, Englander will mark the day closer to home at a synagogue on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

Jewish groups across New York City will be marking America's worst international terrorist attack against the backdrop of Shabbat this year. For some, that means moving programming to adjcaent days; for others, it means having a group of community members gathered to remember together.

On that day, they will recall how 19 Islamist terrorists hijacked four airplanes, two of which struck the World Trade Center in New York City, a third that hit the Pentagon just outside Washington, and a fourth that crashed in an open field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing 2,977 people.

At the conclusion of Shabbat services this Saturday, Rabbi Jonathan Glass of the Tribeca Synagogue and his community will welcome clergy from different faiths to honor the victims and pray for peace. They plan to use a large outdoor space for the commemoration, where they will host pre-registered attendees, as well as emphasize social distancing and mask-wearing. They will also partner with other area organizations and hear from a woman who was the synagogue's office manager at the time.

"I felt it was very, very important to do something," he explains.

"What we will accomplish simply by marking the occasion to the degree that we are … we are showing we don't forget, and that this was a very significant event," he says. "Just because it's 20 years later, it doesn't become relegated to the dustbin of history. The people who died, they mattered, and the survivors were seriously affected. We don't take this lightly."

Although Shabbat is not meant as a day for mourning, there are still appropriate ways to mark the event, he says.

"Sometimes on Shabbat, we memorialize things; we recite the memorial prayer when it's the anniversary of the passing of a person, we say Kaddish [the mourner's prayer]," Glass explains. "It just has to be adjusted so you don't go overboard. It's not, in essence, antithetical to Shabbat; it just has to be done in the proper context."

'To reflect together and serve together'

Dorot, an organization that works to address social isolation among older adults and seniors, aims to enlist over 1,000 volunteers in 9/11 Day Activities, according to Laura Colin Klein, director of volunteer services. They will deliver care packages to the homes of older adults in Manhattan and Westchester, and following up with phone calls to discuss with recipients what the events of Sept. 11 mean to them. They will also facilitate intergenerational phone discussion groups between teens and older adults, host an intergenerational art project where participants will make commemorative medallions, and invite volunteers to make cards for veterans and active duty service members. The organization does not run programs on Shabbat, so they are spreading events out throughout September, including a package delivery on Sept. 12 and Sept. 13.

"The messaging around this program for us is coming together as a community to recognize an important event in our nation's history – to reflect together and serve together," says Colin Klein. Their programs will be socially distanced and masked.

"I hope people feel more connected to their community so that they're part of something bigger," she adds, so "that both the older adults and the volunteers feel like they have a really good experience from being involved and doing something for someone else."

Manhattan resident Lori Klamner has been volunteering with Dorot for over two decades. This year, she will be standing by for her 9/11 assignment, which will take place on the days around the anniversary. "Especially in New York City, that generation really remembers 9/11," she says of the package recipients. "It was one of the major events in their lives. And I think it really is important to them to not forget about it, not to have it be forgotten by society."

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As she connects with residents as part of the delivery, Klamner plans to share her own experience as well – of waiting to hear from her sister, who was on an airplane that day. "On 9/11, I think a lot of people want to do something meaningful, whether it's help clean up a garden or help in a school. This is the thing I like to do," she says.

Dorot volunteer Jennifer Weintraub will drop off packages and chat by phone with residents as part of the initiative. Weintraub was in high school in 2001 and living on Long Island, but she remembers how close the event felt for her class, many of whom had parents and other relatives working in New York City. Even though they won't be going out on Sept. 11 itself, she says she believes the impact will be significant. "I think the sentiment still carries through," says Weintraub. "It feels shocking to realize it's been that many years."

Other events taking part around the city include a memorial walk on Friday, Sept. 10 through the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, a concert through the Museum of Jewish Heritage and the Knickerbocker Chamber Orchestra timed to start after Shabbat, and two talks at the 92nd Street Y on Thursday and Friday – one with Jim O'Grady, who covered 9/11 for The New York Times, and the other about the impacts of 9/11 and other environmental factors on physical and mental health.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Victims' relatives assembled at ground zero, where the observance began with a moment of silence and the tolling of bells at 8:46 a.m. – the exact time a hijacked plane slammed into the World Trade Center's north tower.

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Elsewhere around the country, President Donald Trump laid a wreath at the Pentagon, saying: "This is your anniversary of personal and permanent loss." Vice President Mike Pence spoke as well, at the third crash site, near Shanksville, Pennsylvania during a ceremony commemorating the downing of Flight 93.

"Passenger Jeremy Glick called his wife and told her that they had planned to storm the cockpit," he said on the grounds where Flight 93 was downed when passengers fought back the terrorists in an attempt to prevent the hijacked plane from crashing into the White House or another government building in Washington DC.

"Flight 93 plummeted to the Earth right here," Pence said emotionally as he looked out onto the fields.

"Those 40 people are also carved into the hearts of the American people. The American people will never fail to be inspired by the courage of those on flight 93. We will do as they did ... in all our very roles to prevent such evil from ever happening again," he said.

"We did not start this war, we did not seek it but in every year that has passed, our forces have taken this war to our enemies, on their soil. The threat of terrorism remains, and I can assure you that under our commander in chief that our administration will never rest until this earth is purged from the radicalism of Islamic terror. The American people's love of peace, is exceeded only by our resolve to freedom," said Pence.

The nation is still grappling with the aftermath of 9/11. The effects are visible from airport security checkpoints to Afghanistan, where the post-9/11 US invasion, as part of a NATO coalition, has become America's longest war.

Earlier this week, Trump called off a secret meeting at Camp David with Taliban and Afghan government leaders and declared the peace talks "dead." As the Sept. 11 anniversary began in Afghanistan, a rocket exploded at the US Embassy just after midnight.

The political legacy of the 9/11 flowed into the ground zero ceremony, too.

After reading victims' names, Nicholas Haros Jr. used his turn at the podium to tear into Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) over her recent "Some people did something" reference to 9/11.

"Madam, objectively speaking, we know who and what was done," Haros, who lost his mother, Frances, said as he reminded the audience of the al-Qaida attackers.

"Our constitutional freedoms were attacked, and our nation's founding on Judeo-Christian values was attacked. That's what 'some people' did. Got that now?" he said to applause.

The anniversary ceremonies center on remembering the nearly 3,000 people killed when hijacked planes slammed into the trade center, the Pentagon and the field in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001.

All those victims' names are read aloud at the ground zero ceremony by loved ones – now, quite often, ones too young to have known their lost relatives.

"Uncle Joey, I wish I got to know you," Joseph Henry said of his uncle and namesake, firefighter Joseph Patrick Henry.

Others made a point of spotlighting the suffering of firefighters, police, and others who died or fell ill after exposure to the smoke and dust at ground zero.

Sept. 11 has become known as Patriot Day, it is also a day of service. People around the country volunteer at food banks, schools, home-building projects, park cleanups and other charitable endeavors on and near the anniversary.

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