President Obama visits Ground Zero after bin Laden deathGround Zero after bin Laden deathGround Zero after bin Laden deathGround Zero after bin Laden

President Obama visits Ground Zero to meet with families of 9-11 victims and first responders in addition to participating in a wreath laying ceremony. Prior to his visit to the World Trade Center site, Obama will stop at a firehouse on Manhattan's west side which lost 15 firefighters in the terror attacks.
On a clear warm day full of blue skies, not unlike the crystalline day of September 11, 2001, President Barack Obama came to Ground Zero this afternoon and laid a large flowery wreath on a small wooden stand in remembrance of the nearly 3,000 victims of 9/11. Just several days before, he had ordered the killing of the radical Muslim terrorist who had masterminded the attacks, Osama bin Laden.
The president walked to the wooden stand and somberly placed the wreath – which was made of white and light-blue flowers dotted with red roses – and then bowed his head and appeared to pray for nearly a minute.

Moments later, Obama walked over to the Rumson mother and her daughters, leaning over to embrace one of the young girls, before soon greeting the mother warmly and hugging her for several seconds. Diane Wall’s late husband, Glen, had perished on 9/11 while working high in the World Trade Center at Cantor Fitzgerald. The Walls stood alongside one other girl from Rumson, 14-year-old Madison Robertson, who also lost her father on 9/11.

A Port Authority official later explained that Payton Wall had recently written a letter to Obama in which she talked about the painful loss of her father. The White House invited Payton, along with her mother, sister and Madison Robertson, to today’s ceremony, the official said.
After the ceremony, Giordano called being at the wreath laying and talking with Obama “very surreal.” She said when he walked over to her, she told him a favorite saying of her late father’s: “I told him a quote that my father always used to say, that he was kind of known for: ‘The world always thinks that it’s okay to accept less than perfect, and it’s simply not.’” She said the president responded by saying, “Wow.”

Then, she said, her eyes gleaming, “The president never gave up and he was perfect in executing this mission.”

Of the Navy SEALs’ finding Bin Laden, she said, “I’m glad they caught him – I was always hoping that they would catch him.”

But “nothing will ever bring back my father,” she said.
Clearly the president was not of a celebratory mind,” Malloy said, “but he did say, ‘Americans never forget.’”