Remembering 9/11: "We must never forget that day"

NEW YORK -- During years of going to ground zero every Sept. 11, Tom Acquaviva has seen crowds diminish at the ceremonies commemorating the terror attacks. But his determination to participate hasn't.

"As long as I'm breathing, I'll be here," Acquaviva, 81, said Friday as he arrived to pay tribute to his late son, Paul.

More than 1,000 victims' relatives, survivors and recovery workers marked the 14th anniversary at ground zero with grief, gratitude and appeals to keep the toll front of mind as years pass. "It's a hard day. But it's an important day. I'll come every year that I can," recovery worker Robert Matticola said.

But if the private ceremony is smaller than in its early years, the date also has become an occasion for the public to revisit ground zero, where the memorial plaza now opens to everyone on the anniversary.

This year's anniversary comes in the wake of a Florida man being charged with plotting to set off an explosion at a 9/11 event in Kansas City.

The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested 20-year-old Joshua Ryne Goldberg Thursday in Florida. Prosecutors say he told an online informant how to make the bomb he wanted, CBS News correspondent Jeff Pegues reports.

Investigators said he was communicating online with someone he thought was sympathetic to his cause but who was actually an FBI informant, and the online conversations were being monitored.

Around the country, the date was marked with what has become a tradition of lowered flags, wreath-laying, bell-tolling and, in New York, reading the names of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the terror strikes at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. One woman at ground zero collapsed during the ceremony, apparently overcome by grief; bystanders helped her to her feet.

Family members praised first responders, thanked the armed forces and prayed for unity and security. They also sent personal messages to their lost loved ones.

"You are the reason that I wear this uniform and stand here today," Air Force Technical Sgt. Sparkle Thompson said of her uncle, Louie Anthony Williams.

In Washington, President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama stepped out of the White House for a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m., when the first of four hijacked planes hit on Sept. 11, 2001, striking the World Trade Center's north tower. Later Friday, the president told troops at Fort Meade in Maryland that he hoped Sept. 11 would inspire thoughts of what binds the country together, while Vice President Joe Biden praised New Yorkers' resilience in remarks to bikers and police officers taking part in a 9/11 memorial motorcycle ride.

The Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville marked the completion of its $26 million visitor center, which opened to the public Thursday. At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Ash Carter and other officials joined in remembrances for victims' relatives and Pentagon employees.

Sacramento, California, commemorated 9/11 in conjunction with a parade honoring three friends who tackled a heavily armed gunman on a Paris-bound high-speed train last month. Two tunnels in Idaho Springs, Colorado, were renamed the Veterans Memorial Tunnels, and a cross-shaped steel sculpture taken from the rubble of the World Trade Center went on display at Dallas Love Field airport.

Some Americans honored the anniversary in their own ways.

"I don't go to the memorial. I don't watch it on TV. But I make sure, every year, I observe a moment of silence at 8:46," electrician Jeff Doran said as he stood across the street from the trade center, where the signature, 1,776-foot One World Trade Center tower has opened since last Sept. 11.

The memorial plaza opened in 2011 but was closed to the public on the anniversary until last year, when an estimated 20,000 people flocked there to pay respects in the evening. Moved by the influx, organizers decided to open it more quickly after the ceremony this year.

Some victims' relatives welcome the sense of openness at the site, where construction fences that once limited access came down last year. "It's a little more comfortable for people to be here," said Alexandria Perez, who attends the anniversary ceremony annually in memory of her aunt, Ana Centeno.

But to Erick Jimenez, a brother of 9/11 victim Eliezer Jimenez Jr., "every year, it's a little less personal. ... But it's still nice to come and share with other people who lost loved ones."

This year's anniversary comes as Congress is weighing whether to start providing financing for the memorial plaza and whether to extend programs that promised billions of dollars in compensation and medical care to Sept. 11 responders and survivors. They're set to expire next year.

Army Sgt. Edwin Morales had those responders in mind as he attended the ground zero ceremony in remembrance of his cousin, firefighter Ruben "Dave" Correa.

"We must never forget that day. People are still dying because of what happened," both on battlefields and from illnesses that some who responded to the attacks have developed after exposure to toxic dust, Morales said.

Jyothi Shah read names of victims in memory of her husband, Jayesh Shantitlal Shah, then paused with a message for the public.

"My kids and I would like to humbly thank everyone who has helped us, through the last 14 years, to be able to gently go through the sorrows, the suffering, the pain," she said. "Thank you all very much - the city, the nation, the friends, the family."