Pain of Sept. 11 still ripples through America 25 years later

Opinion Pain of Sept. 11 still ripples through America 25 years later The 9/11 Memorial Museum, at the World Trade Center site, photographed July 31, 2026. The museum is adjacent to One World Trade Center and the Memorial Plaza and Reflecting Pools. USA TODAY Network, Reuters A morgue. A hospital. A courthouse. They are three different New York City buildings, each with very different purposes. Yet together, they symbolize why the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, still resonate so painfully after a quarter-century. America is no stranger to tragedy and collective sorrow. From wars – a Civil War, even – to presidential assassinations, fires, hurricanes, floods and what seems to be an unrelenting torrent of gun violence, our nation has seen its share of horror. But 25 years after the nation's deadliest terror attacks – an event known simply by two numerals, "9/11" – the pain seems especially raw and personal. Why? One reason for the continuing pain is that three deep scars from that tragedy remain unhealed. And to understand those scars, you need to consider the significance of those three buildings in New York City: the morgue, the hospital and the courthouse. Each is a real-time reminder of how the 9/11 attacks are still very much a part of present-day life. The morgue – the New York City Medical Examiner's Office – is still trying to identify victims. The hospital – Mount Sinai Medical Center – is still counting the dead from the shocking increase in people now dying from toxins released in the Twin Towers collapse. The federal courthouse in lower Manhattan is the setting for the high-stakes legal and political battle to determine all the culprits in the 9/11 plot – in particular, whether as many as a dozen Saudi Arabian government officials, including several attached to the Kingdom's embassy in Washington, helped carry out the attacks. Stop and consider for a moment the consequences of these three issues: First, we have not identified everyone who died on 9/11. Second, thousands continue to die from 9/11-related health problems. Third, we still don't know all the killers. Few tragedies in history have so many unanswered questions a quarter-century after they took place. But that is the legacy of 9/11 – a legacy that does not seem to have a clear ending. Sept. 11's ripples of pain are felt daily in greater New York The ripples of this ongoing pain are especially personal for the 20 million people who live in the New York metropolitan region. From the suburban towns across New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Long Island to the teeming streets and office canyons of New York City, the 9/11 tragedy and its aftermath became uniquely intimate. By pointing that out, I do not want to diminish what took place at the Pentagon in Northern Virginia and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania – two other sites of the 9/11 attacks. The carnage at the Pentagon was brutal. Excluding the five Islamist jihadists who took over American Airlines Flight 77 and crashed it, 184 people died at the Pentagon –125 civilians and military members in the building and 59 passengers on the jetliner. Another hijacked jetliner – United Airlines Flight 93 – crashed in a grassy field that had once been a strip mine in Shanksville. No one died in the community. Excluding the four hijackers, 40 passengers and crew members perished, some of them as they attempted to wrest control of the plane from the hijackers. The New York region was hit hardest, however. Of the 2,977 people who perished on 9/11, 2,753 were lost in the collapse of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center after two hijacked jetliners smashed into them. The death toll included more than 400 police officers, firefighters and other responders who rushed to the scene to rescue some 50,000 office workers – one of the greatest emergency rescues in history. It's an understatement to point out that the death toll in New York City was unimaginable. The city's fire department ended up conducting 25 funerals or memorial services a day for months just to honor the 343 firefighters who died. Indeed, the deaths were so numerous and touched so many facets of life that for many in the New York region, 9/11 seemed hauntingly up-close and personal. Many of us found ourselves just two degrees of separation from the tragedy. We either knew someone who died or we knew someone who knew one of the victims. At the World Trade Center, stockbrokers who earned million-dollar salaries died alongside $10-an-hour security guards. Secretaries perished with janitors and computer technicians and waiters and dishwashers and grandparents and new parents and college graduates on their first jobs and seasoned veterans who were looking at retirement in a year or two. Democrats died with Republicans, along with Whites, African Americans, Asians and Native Americans. A carpenter from Long Island was lost when he showed up at the posh Windows on the World restaurant in the Trade Center's north tower for what was supposed to have been a one-day repair job. A shopping center executive, based in Connecticut, died when he arrived for a morning meeting. Another executive whose office was elsewhere in Manhattan died when he took the place of his assistant and went to a Trade Center meeting. The youngest victim, a 2-year-old girl on her way to a vacation in Los Angeles and a trip to Disneyland, perished on United Flight 175, which crashed into the South Tower. The oldest victim, an 85-year-old World War II veteran, died on American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the North Tower. He was flying to Los Angeles to attend his son's wedding. At the Pentagon, a U.S. Army three-star general died. The jetliner that struck the Pentagon – American Airlines Flight 77 – was carrying the wife of the U.S. solicitor general, the nation's chief attorney. At Shanksville, where hijackers of United Flight 93 crashed the jetliner after passengers fought back, the dead included two former college athletic champions – in rugby and judo – as well as an author who was three months pregnant. In short, the dead were a cross-section of America – indeed, the world. Citizens of some 80 nations also died. Just like the rest of us that day, most of the dead were just going about such ordinary tasks as showing up for work, grabbing a cup of coffee and traveling on a commercial jetliner, or just trying to lend a hand to people in trouble. They left behind thousands of ordinary families, friends, neighbors, co-workers – the ripples seem endless. A firehouse in Maspeth, Queens, lost 19 firefighters who, in turn, left behind 51 children. In suburban New Jersey, a wife who had given birth only four days before the attacks lost her husband and had to face life as a widow and single mother. For months, we watched smoke rise from the seven-story rubble pile in lower Manhattan. Even as far away as Long Island or Upstate New York or in New Jersey, the smell of death often permeated the air. From city neighborhoods to small towns, we held candlelight vigils. We hung U.S. flags. We brought trays of cookies and sandwiches to firehouses and police stations. After a few years passed, we erected memorials with twisted and burned Trade Center steel next to granite monuments that listed local residents who died. Perhaps most telling of all, many of us wore bracelets or hung posters that said, "Never Forget." Our political leaders promised to find out who orchestrated such an elaborate attack. They promised accountability and punishment. But those promises remain unfulfilled. The morgue, the hospital and the courthouse And this brings us back to those three New York City buildings – the morgue, the hospital, the courthouse. Let's begin at the morgue. In the months after the 9/11 attacks, some 20,000 body parts were recovered at the World Trade Center site that came to be known as Ground Zero. Over time, morgue technicians, working with DNA, were able to identify most of the body parts. But not all. Today, some 7,000 body parts remain unidentified. Which translates to the brutal fact that some 1,110 victims – more than one-third of the total – have never been identified. What this means is that the families of those unidentified victims do not have the kind of closure we expect with death – a body, a funeral, a grave. At best, they conduct a memorial service and perhaps erect a memorial marker in a cemetery. Let's consider what is taking place at Mount Sinai Medical Center. When the Twin Towers collapsed, numerous toxins were released. And even though federal authorities – notably federal environmental chief Christine Todd Whitman – said that Ground Zero's air was safe, the toxins soon began to take a toll on rescue workers, survivors and residents of the area. Health experts don't know the exact number of deaths. They've determined that at least 4,000 police officers, firefighters and other first responders have died, mostly from respiratory ailments and cancers. But more deaths are likely to follow. Some 60,000 people who were exposed to Ground Zero toxins have been diagnosed with cancer. Over the next 25 years, health experts say the death toll from post-9/11 health disorders could reach 20,000 or more. Finally, let's consider what is taking place at the federal courthouse, just off Foley Square in lower Manhattan, only a few blocks from Ground Zero. For nearly two decades, a federal judge has been hearing arguments in a lawsuit by thousands of families of 9/11 victims and survivors of the attacks who say that Saudi Arabian government officials helped the 19 Islamist jihadists from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network who carried out the attacks. After years of pushing every U.S. president from George W. Bush to Donald Trump, a series of previously secret FBI reports have been released that point to a dozen or so Saudi government officials who provided logistical and financial help to the hijackers. Why the Saudis might be involved is still a mystery. The kingdom has long been considered a U.S. ally. But some law enforcement experts say that the Saudi officials who are believed to have helped the hijackers were proponents of an especially radical Islamist theology that called for the deaths of non-Muslim "infidels." It was the same theology of the al-Qaida network. What is so distressing about the lawsuit that is grinding through the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan is that there seems to be no end in sight. The Saudi government's lawyers have argued that the case be dismissed. But in a dramatic ruling last August, a federal judge ruled that the case could go on. So now, lawyers on both sides are continuing to assemble evidence. When a trial will take place – or whether a trial will take place – is anybody's guess. But the evidence that has emerged so far is distressing, to say the least. What it shows is that Saudi officials helped two of the hijackers who arrived in Los Angeles. Months later, other Saudi officials – and others linked to Saudi Arabia's government – helped hijackers in Falls Church, Virginia, and in northern New Jersey. The helpers included a Syrian gas station attendant in Paterson, New Jersey, who was recruited by a Saudi-linked contact to assist 11 of the 19 hijackers who found apartments, opened bank accounts and even joined gyms in northern New Jersey. Such details tend to be lost in the shuffle of time – especially in those corners of America that were not directly affected by the 9/11 attacks. But for thousands who still mourn, especially in the New York region on the 25th anniversary, such fundamental concerns about identifying the victims, counting the dead and finding the culprits is the equivalent of an open wound. On the 25th anniversary, bagpipers will play their mournful versions of "Going Home" and "Minstrel Boy." We will hold moments of silence. We will ring bells and perhaps attend religious services. But we can't move on. Too many fundamental questions remain unanswered. Mike Kelly is an award-winning columnist for NorthJersey.com, part of the USA TODAY Network, as well as the author of three critically acclaimed nonfiction books and a podcast and documentary film producer. A paperback edition with an updated epilogue of his 1995 book, "Color Lines," which chronicles race relations in a small New Jersey town after a police shooting and was called "American journalism at its best" by The Washington Post, was released in 2023. His fourth nonfiction book, "After Ground Zero: Everyday Americans and the Unhealed Scars of 9/11," a study of the impact of 9/11 and other terrorism on a variety of people he has followed for the past quarter-century, will be published this summer. Email: kellym@northjersey.com This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Pain of Sept. 11 still ripples through America 25 years later Reporting by Mike Kelly, USA TODAY NETWORK / NorthJersey.com USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect A visitor to the 9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Center in Manhattan takes a photo of One World Trade Center and one of the two reflecting pools at the site April 27, 2026. The National September 11 Memorial & Museum has become one of the most visited destinations for tourists visiting New York City. Seth Harrison/The Journal News, USA TODAY Network, Reuters Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect This story was originally published September 7, 2026 at 6:02 AM.