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Sept. 11 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump participated in memorial ceremonies at the Pentagon on Monday, honoring those who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "We mourn them, we honor them, and we pledge to never, ever forget them," Trump said in his remarks.
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The Trumps led a moment of silence at 9:37 a.m., the moment 16 years ago a hijacked plane struck the Pentagon, killing 184 people. It was Trump's first Sept. 11 commemoration as president.
"In that hour of darkness we ... came together with renewed purpose our differences never looked so small, our common bonds never felt so strong," he said. "The sacificed grounds on which we stand today are a monument to our national unity and to our strength. For more than seven decades the Pentagon has stood as a global symbol of American might."
He said the victims at the Pentagon died as they lived, "as heroes."
Trump was joined by Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford.
At the Pentagon, Trump will receive "a comprehensive picture of the terrorist threat environment and what we're doing to counter it from his senior officials on 9/11," Homeland Security adviser Tom Bossert said on Friday.
Prior to arriving at the Pentagon, President and Mrs. Trump led a moment of silence on the White House South Lawn at 8:46 a.m., marking the moment the first airplane struck the Work Trade Center in New York City.
Vice President Mike Pence led a ceremony at the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, Pa., where a hijacked plane bound for Washington crashed.
"Today, we pause as a nation not so much to remember tragedy, as to celebrate heroism and patriotism," Pence said.
He recalled the frantic action in the U.S. Capitol on that morning, when Pence was a first-term member of Congress, and described his early morning hours on Sept. 11, 2001.
"I will always remember the scenes of that day, watching the Capitol complex being evacuated. It was as though the building was literally hemorrhaging with people running in every direction, Pence said. Later, with House and Senate leaders at the Capitol Police headquarters, "The chief of police set the phone back down and informed the leaders gathered there that there was a plane inbound for the Capitol, and he said it was 12 minutes out... So we waited. It was the longest 12 minutes of my life. But it turned to 13 minutes, then 14, and then we were informed that the plane had gone down in a field in Pennsylvania."
The commemoration in New York City included several moments of silence on Monday morning and a recitation of the names of those who died in the collapse of the towers. Later in the day, an art installation named "Tribute in Light" will shine two beams of light upward from the Memorial Plaza of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.
