Remembering 9/11 Victim From Arlington 20 Years Later

ARLINGTON, VA — Anyone older than 25 in Arlington likely remembers where they were on 9/11.

Americans felt a collective trauma as first one and then another plane flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. As the truth dawned on people watching from their TVs that America was under attack, another plane took aim at the Pentagon. A fourth was brought down in a field in Pennsylvania in a final act of heroism by passengers who realized their flight had been hijacked.

Nearly 3,000 Americans, including an Arlington man, were killed in the suicide attacks carried out by 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaida.

On the 20th anniversary of the attacks, Arlington remembers and mourns 26-year-old Brady Kay Howell of Arlington, who was assigned to a civilian post with the chief of naval intelligence in 2001, according to The New York Times.

All 9/11 victims will be remembered at memorial services planned across the nation on Sept. 11 to mark the 20th anniversary of the attacks.

Arlington County Fire Department will be commemorating the 20th anniversary of 9/11 with a wreath laying ceremony on Saturday at Fire Station 5. Chief David Povlitz will be in attendance along with 200 first responders, many of whom responded to the attack at the Pentagon.

The ceremony, which will begin at 11 a.m., will be closed to the public. However, the entire ceremony will be streamed live on the County website, YouTube channel,  Facebook Page. The public can also view the ceremony on the country's cable channels (Comcast channel 1085 or Verizon channel 39).

At the 9/11 memorial in Lower Manhattan, New York — an area known for years after the attacks as “Ground Zero” — the names of the fallen will be read aloud.

“Throughout the ceremony, we will observe six moments of silence, acknowledging when each of the World Trade Center towers was struck and fell and the times corresponding to the attack on the Pentagon and the crash of Flight 93,” the 9/11 Memorial & Museum wrote on its website.

The annual “Tribute of Light,” which are lights pointed to the sky in the shape of the Twin Towers, will go on that night.

Most 9/11 victims were from either New York or New Jersey, where many who lived across the Hudson River from the World Trade Center recall the horror of watching the twin towers collapse from their homes in Hoboken and Jersey City.

The Pentagon Memorial, which honors the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon, recently finished renovations, according to the Department of Defense.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark A. Milley are planning to host an observance ceremony at the Pentagon Memorial at 9 a.m. on Saturday to honor the memory of those who died on 9/11, according to ABCNews7.

More than 2,700 people died at the World Trade Center alone on 9/11, including the passengers of American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175. Another 184 were killed when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into The Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and 44 died on United Airlines Flight 93 near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.