Seventeen years ago today, our world changed. Nearly 3,000 people, from all walks of life, perished in the worst terrorist attack in American history. Tens of thousands more lost a mother, a father, a sister, a brother, a best friend.

To every family with an empty chair at the dinner table tonight, we will never forget you. The stories of courage, of heroism, of selflessness from that day are forever ingrained into the American spirit.

We stand with our fellow Americans in honoring those we lost. We mourn, but we rise – because that’s just what Americans do: