It was the worst terrorist attack in United States history. Three days before the first anniversary of September 11, Americans are remembering the thousands of men and women who perished in New York and Washington.
Nearly a year after the horrifying attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that killed nearly 3,000 people, First Lady Laura Bush told an interviewer on the ABC television program This Week that the nation is still in mourning.
"For all the people who lost somebody and for really a lot of us, you know it will not be something that we will get over," she said. "I mean time will go on and time will heal a lot of the wounds, and we will all go on. But still I think our country still mourns."
One of the people who lost someone was Lieutenant Dennis O'berg of the New York City Fire Department. Lt. O'berg's son, also a member of the fire department, was among the 343 firefighters killed on September 11 trying to rescue people trapped in the World Trade Center towers after terrorists slammed two commercial jets into the high rise buildings.
In an interview on the CBS television program Face the Nation, the fireman was asked what he'd like to see built on the site where the twin towers used to stand.
"My son is really still here, along with a lot of other people that have not been recovered," Lt. O'berg said. "I would like to see something like the Vietnam Veterans' memorial wall in Washington, D.C., maybe with an etching of the person's bust, their face."
The Vietnam Memorial contains more than 50,000 names of soldiers who fought and died during the Vietnam War.
Lt. O'berg would also like to see an existing firehouse located near the site knocked down and replaced with one dedicated to the firefighters who died in the September 11 disaster.
"Because 343 firefighters died here," he said. "What better place to have a firehouse? It may sound strange, but his spirit would have, some place to go."
New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, appearing on ABC's This Week program, said she wants a memorial on the site that withstands the test of time. But Senator Clinton would also like to see the area where the Twin Towers once stood brought back to life.
"This was a thriving neighborhood. Children went to school here," she said. "They rode their bikes around the World Trade Center. So we want it once again to demonstrate the reality that New York is the global financial capital of the world. But we also want it to be a place where people raise their children, where tourists come to have a moment of silence and where all of us know life has returned, which in many ways, is the best tribute we could pay to those who were lost."