NEW YORK -- President Barack Obama on Thursday dedicated the long-awaited museum commemorating the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, with a mournful elegy to the victims, a stirring tribute to the heroes and a firm resolve to never let terrorists shatter the spirit of America.
"No act of terror can match the strength or the character of our country," Obama told a crowd that included family members of those slain and other invited guests in the cavernous underground hall of the National September 11 Memorial Museum.
"Like the great wall and bedrock that embrace us today," he added, "nothing can ever break us. Nothing can change who we are as Americans."
Surrounded by the twisted and graffiti-inscribed steel remnants of New York's twin towers, the president and the other guests vowed never to forget the worst foreign attack on U.S. soil.
Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg played host for the event, joined by other figures from the region, including Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Andrew Cuomo of New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former Gov. George Pataki.
Outside, flags were at half-staff on the memorial plaza, where bronze panels bear the names of the nearly 3,000 people killed in New York, northern Virginia and Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, and in the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.
Inside, the event was held in the museum's Foundation Hall, 70 feet beneath ground level, with about 700 invited guests attending.
Obama, solemn and quiet, used his remarks not to focus on the victims who died in flames and smoke and those who tried to save them.
"Here we tell their story, so that generations yet unborn will never forget, of co-workers who led others to safety," he said.
He singled out the heroism of a young man with a red bandanna who helped save people in the south tower before it collapsed. His identity was long unknown until months later when his mother read an article about the mysterious savior with the red bandanna and recognized him. He was Welles Crowther, 24.
"He had a big laugh and a joy of life and dreams of seeing the world," Obama said. "He worked in finance, but he had also been a volunteer firefighter. And after the planes hit, he put on that bandanna and spent his final moments saving others."
Joining Obama for a tour of the museum before the ceremony were former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. A spokesman for former President George W. Bush, who was in office on the day of the attacks, said he was invited but could not make it because of a scheduling conflict.
In addition to the political figures, survivors and relatives of victims told their stories in videos projected on the wall or from the podium -- including Crowther's mother, Alison, and Ling Young, who was among those he saved that day.
Eileen Fagan, whose sister Patricia died on the 98th floor of the south tower, also attended the ceremony. Some of her sister's remains have been identified, and she chose to leave part of them in a specially built medical examiner's repository at the site, which is separated from the museum by a wall.
"Everyone here can feel the presence of their loved one, in a very real way," she said. "I walked with Pat through the World Trade Center so many times, and I feel like I am walking with Pat again. It's a good feeling, a little bit sad, but a good feeling."
With Michelle Obama, Bloomberg and the Clintons, the president toured the exhibits before the event, stopping to stare at photographs of victims mounted on a wall, examining a battered New York Fire Department ladder truck and passing a wall engraved by a Virgil quote: "No Day Shall Erase You From the Memory of Time."
He called it "a profound and moving experience," and he noted that one of the items on display was a red bandanna that once belonged to Crowther.
"And from this day forward," Obama said, "all those who come here will have a chance to know the sacrifice of a young man who, like so many, gave his life so others might live."
A Section on 05/16/2014