morning in lower manhattan. today the city will mark the dedication of the national 9/11 memorial museum. we'll hear from families of the victims, survivors of the towers. president obama will be among the speakers, as well. we'll also get a view inside the museum, all that coming up live in just minutes. but we begin with a critical hearing on capitol hill any moment now. va secretary eric shin successy will testify before the veterans affairs. he is personally angered by any adverse consequence that any veteran might experience while in or as a result of our care, and he will point to an independent investigation looking into allegations of cover-ups and secret wait lists. a whistle-blower in phoenix says that list may have led to 40 vets dying while waiting for are care. nbc's luke russert covers capitol hill and what do we expect to hear from eric shinseki today? >> eric shinseki will say he

will call for a nationwide access review of the va to investigate all aspects of the department and look into this matter specifically in phoenix as to whether around there is a secret list pertaining to delay times and it ended up in essence essentially leading to the premature deaths, we believe of those 40 or so veterans. chris, though, from a political standpoint, expect this to be a contentious hearing. a lot of people have called for eric shinseki to resign. the group has called upon him to do the same and this is the first time he's answered difficult questions. the obama administration is cognizant of that. they appointed rob neighbors to assist general shin success seke overview of the department. he has to show two things. he has to show contrition and ownership of the issue. this has become a political

problem for the administration and if they are not in charge of an important issue of this country. veterans affairs. you have the iraq and afghanistan wars and they're getting older and if it is becoming a pattern to get sub-standard care to where you have officials hiding documents and covering things up, that looks bad for all parties involved. >> with how they'll deal with this on a larger level. there is an appointment of rob nabors to the va. >> he is becoming the eyes and ears into what's becoming a problematic issue for them. there have always been problems at the va. it's something that's been going through multiple administration, but when it got to the level of american legion calling on general shin sek toe resign, general shinseki, himself at one

point a respected military official with these groups and they decided this was becoming a problem they needed to take control of and that's why you have rob nabors withthis this group and we'll see if he shows contrition and if he apologizes here in his prepared remarks and no outward apology, chris. i found that interesting. >> luke russert, thank you very much. >> now back to lower manhattan where the solemn ceremony is just about to get started officially dedicating the september 11th memorial museum. we will hear shortly from president obama, from former new york city mayors michael bloomberg and rudy giuliani, but significantly, from the people who were there that day, the workers, the rescuers, and the families of those who died. this is the new york children's chorus. the dedication comes more than 12 years after the terror attacks. the building and the museum have not been without controversy. there have been delays, debates over how to capture the

magnitude of events and describe the terrorives while building on such a sacred place. those who have seen it, however, describe it as deeply moving, often in ways they never expected, and while devastating, also a testament to heroism and resilience. nbc's ron allen joins us live from lower manhattan. ron, tell us about today's program. >> reporter: good morning, chris. you're right. we expect to hear from president obama shortly. we will also hear from former mayor rudy giuliani. we hear from mayor michael bloomberg, the mayor here who is the chairman of the committee that runs the memorial and the museum and was instrumental in pulling a lot of the parties together to make this happen. you're right. it has been a very emotional, contentious process throughout. how could it not be given what happened here almost 13 years ago. i expect this to be a solemn occasion and a very difficult occasion for some of the survivors who will be there as well as rescue workers. you're right, the museum is meant primarily to pay tribute

to those who are lost and it's meant to be inspiring. when you walk through this place. i have the privilege of doing it a couple of days ago. it is an overwhelming experience. it is deep below ground. seven stories down right in the bedrock, underneath what was the twin towers. so you are right where these events took place and you feel that. it is a huge space, but at times it is a very intimate space when you walk into an individual gal willry. there are literally tens of thousands of artifacts, photographs, testimonials from everyone who was involved that day. you hear and see things as well. this is the 21st century. you hear voice mails that were left by passengers aboard the planes. you hear relatives. you hear 911 calls. when you are here in this space, in this place your senses can be overwhelmed by the experience of it all. i would suspect that some people won't go there or some people

will spend a short period of time there. it's one of the few museums where you will find that there are exit doors throughout it so that people can leave the exhibit if they feel uncomfortable or they feel they need to take a break from it. it's a place the organizers say they expect people to spend a couple of hours in. i can tell you from my own experience i could have spent hours upon hours there and maybe just a couple of hours in one place. what is so powerful about this place is it's not what you see so much as what you know and what you learn. the individual stories. this is a museum mostly about stories, of survivors, of victims, of rescuers and to hear and experience that day and the days after with these individuals is just very powerful. you also learn a lot. this museum is meant to explain why this happened and also to hopefully play a role in preventing anything like this from ever happening again. chris? >> nbc's ron allen who is down

near ground zero for us, thank you very much. i am joined now by michael daily, special correspondent for "the daily beast." thank you for joining us. did you find your experience to be similar to what ron's was? >> yes. particularly, and it starts even before you realize it because the ramp is inspired by the ramp they used to lead down to the pit when they were digging for people and it's the same angle and if you were ever going down when they were doing the search and recovery, that same feeling in the back of your legs and it started from there and with that became a kind of unreality and you go seven stories down and it's this underworld of partly all this loss that you wish had never been lost and also all that will never be forgotten. it's a remarkable place. >> this is very personal for you. you were down there that day.

you lost friends that day. >> i did. in the clip you saw with the president and michael bloomberg standing by ladder 3 truck. larry brown who was the captain on that. he was last heard on the 33rd floor saying we're heading up. and to look at that charred and battered rig. i saw it right after the tower came down, i saw that rig down and to see it down in the middle of this museum is remarkable. the drummer that you saw leading the procession, it's a kid names james. his father was killed at the trade center and he's now a firefighter. >> everyone who was alive that day has a story where they were, what they thought, how it impacted them, and i mentioned at the top that this is about the loss, and it's also about resilience. it's about heroism. we're going hear now from former new york city mayor michael

bloomberg as the ceremony gets under way. we'll be back with more. >> rises out of the bedrock of our city, our history and our hearts. in the years to come the 9/11 memorial museum will take its place alongside the fields of gettysburg, of pearl harbor and the vietnam veterans memorial as a sacred marker of our past and as a solemn gathering place. a place we come to remember those who died and to honor acts of courage and compassion that saved lives and lifted spirits. the outstretched hands that rushed forward that day and in the hard weeks and months that followed. in the streets of new york, on the grounds of the pentagon, in the fields near shanksville, pennsylvania, from all across america and the world kindness poured forth on a colossal scale. for on a day when terrorists

refused to see our common humanity, we saw only the humanity in one another. this museum built on the site of rubble and ruins is now filled with the faces, the stories and the memories of our common grief and our common hope. it is a witness to tragedy. it is an affirmation of human life, it is a reminder to us and to all future generations that freedom carries heavy responsibilities and it is a reflection of our belief that the true hope of humanity resides in our compassion and kindness for one another. walking through this museum can be difficult at times, but it is impossible to leave without feeling inspired. each story here beats with a human heart which, it if we allow it it, touches our own. the stories are the proof that what we do and the choices we

make affect each other's lives and the course of human history. this morning we'd like to share just a few of these stories, the museum tells, ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to introduce the president of the united states of america barack obama. [ applause ] >> thank you. please be seated. mayor bloomberg, governor cuomo, honored guests, families of the fall fallen, in those awful moments

after the south tower was hit some of the injured huddled in the wreckage of the 78th floor. the fires were spreading and the air was filled with smoke. it was dark and they could barely see. it seemed as if there was no way out and then there came a voice, clear, calm, saying he had found the stairs. a young man in his 20s, strong, emerged from the smoke and over his nose and his mouth he wore a red handkerchief. he called for fire extinguishers to fight back the flames. he tended to the wounded.

he led those survivors down the stairs to safety and carried a woman on his shoulders down 17 flights and then he went back, back up all those flights and back down again, bringing more wounded to safety. until that moment when the tower fell. they didn't know his name. they didn't know where he came from, but they knew their lives had been saved by the man in the red bandanna. again, mayor bloomberg, distinguished guests, governors christie and cuomo and the families and survivors of that day, to all those who responded

with such courage, on behalf of michelle and myself and the american people, it is an honor for us to join in your memories to recall and to reflect, but above all to reaffirm the true spirit of 9/11. love, compassion, sacrifice and to enshrine it forever in the heart of our nation. michelle and i just had the opportunity to join with others on a visit with some of the survivors and families, men and women who inspire us all and we had a chance to visit some of the exhibits, and i think all who come here will find it to be

a profound and moving experience. i want to express our deep gratitude to everybody who was involved in this great undertaking for bringing us to this day, for giving us this sacred place of healing and of hope. here that the memorial, this museum, we come together. we stand in the footprints of two mighty towers graced by the rush of eternal waters. we look into the faces of nearly 3,000 innocent souls, men and women and children of every race, every creed, from every corner of the world and we can touch names and hear their

voices and glimpse the small items that speak to the beauty of their lives, a wedding ring, a dusty helmet, a shining badge. here we tell their story so that generations yet unborn will never forget. of coworkers who led others to safety. passengers who stormed the cockpit, our men and women in uniform who rushed into an inferno, our first responders who charged up those stairs, a generation of service members, our 9/11 generation, who served with honor and more than a decade of war, a nation that stands tall and united and

unafraid because no act of terror can match the strength or the character of our country. like the great wall and bedrock that embraces today, nothing can ever break us. nothing can change who we are as american americans. on that september morning, allison crather lost her son wells. months later she was reading the newspaper, an article about those final minutes in the towers, survivors recounted how a young man wearing a red handkerchief had led them to

safety and in that moment allison knew. ever since he was a boy her son had always carried a red handkerchief. her son wells was the man in the red bandanna. ♪ ♪ >> wells was just 24 years old with a broad smile and a bright future. he worked in the south tower on the 104th floor. he had a big laugh, a joy of life and dreams of seeing the world. he worked in finance, but he'd also been a volunteer firefighter and after the planes hit he put on that bandanna and spent his final moments saving others. three years ago this month after

our s.e.a.l.s made sure that justice was done i came to ground zero and among the families here that day was allison crather, and she told me about wells and his fearless spirit and she showed me a handkerchief like the one he wore that morning and today as we saw on our tour, one of his red handkerchiefs is on display in this museum and from this day forward all those who come here will have a chance to know the sacrifice of a young man who, like so many gave his life so others might live. ♪ >> those we lost live on in us, in the families who love them still, in the friends who

remember them always, and in a nation that will honor them now and forever, and today it is my honor to introduce two women forever bound by that day, united in their determination to keep alive the true spirit of 9/11, wells crac s crather's mo and one of those he saved. lynn young. [ applause ] okay.

my name is lynn young. i am here today because of wells, a man i did not get a chance to thank. it was very hard for me to come here today, but i wanted to do so so i could say thank you to his parents and my new friend jeff and allison. >> thank you. i am wells krouther's morgue. allison krouther. my husband jefferson and i could not be more proud of our son. for us, he lives on in the people he helped and in the memory of what he chose to do that tuesday in september. wells believed that we are all connected as one human family, that we are here to look out for and to care for one another. this is life's most precious

meaning. it is our greatest hope that when people come here and see wells' red bandanna they will will remember how people helped each other that day and we hope that they will be inspired to do the same in ways both big and small. this is the true legacy of september 11th. ♪ [ applause ] >> i didn't realize what happened until that afternoon. had no idea that our son todd was on an airplane. i thought he was in italy. i was off by a day. we kind of define our history now, don't we, as pre-9/11 and post-9/11. well, here are some bits of a

wrist watch and its function is supposed to be to tell time and it was a good watch. it did its job very well, but it doesn't tell what time it is anymore. ♪ >> but what it does tell is what time it was. it says it's the 11th and so this -- this marks the time that the successful counterattack on flight 93 ended. >> we are all grateful today to the memorial board, the staff and the families for creating

this really magnificent memorial. why don't we give them a round of applause? [ applause ] >> todd beamer's watch was recovered at the site of the crash of flight 93 near shanksville, pennsylvania. it was given to this museum by his loving family. we are honored to have his father david with us here today. todd was one of 40 men and women aboard that plane. strangers all bound for san francisco. they would decide to take fate into their own hands at the probable, if not certain risk of their own lives. when the hijackers took control of their plane people began calling family and friends who told them about the other

hijacked planes. none of the passengers had been trained for this kind of scenario let alone even considered such a nightmare and yet, after talking over what they had learned they joined with members of the crew to storm the cockpit, and in doing so, they changed the course of history. it was later shown that their actions prevented the plane from reaching the hijackers' intended target, washington, d.c., a mere 20 minutes away. in giving their lives, how many lives had they saved? one of the first calls made from the plane had been from mark bingham who later helped form the plan they followed. he had called his mother alice and alice later left him this

message. ♪ >> mark, this is your mom. apparently it's terrorists and they're hell-bent on crashing the aircraft. there's one flight that they say is headed toward san francisco, it might be yours, so if you can, group some people and perhaps do everything you can to overpower them. try to call me back if you can. i love you, sweetie. good luck. bye-bye. ♪ ♪ ♪

good morning. when you walk through this museum what strikes you is how your emotions can feel sad at one moment and the very next moment you feel utterly astonished and grateful at how people from all over the world responded. it was as if the entire world came knocking on our door, cried with us, and asked what they could do. people from over 90 countries died on september 11th and so the world understood that while this happened on our soil it happened to all of us. letters arrived from australia and jordan, gifts from india, ireland and kenya and people from all walks of life and speaking every language came to help us dig out from under and

bandaged our wounds. the world felt like a f tightly-knit xhumity, a smart, more caring place. this is how good will begins. and the understanding that we are underneath all our many differences, fellow men and women with a love and a sanctity for human life. here in this museum we are reminded to pause and remember how many came to help us and that the true gift of friendship and fellowship can be borne out of theity in for which we all remain eternally grateful. >> i dedicate this song to my late husband calvin joseph gooding.

♪ amazing grace how sweet the sound ♪ ♪ that saved a wretch like me ♪ i once was lost ♪ but now i'm found ♪ ♪ was blind, but now i see ♪ 'twas grace that taught my

heart to fear ♪ ♪ and grace, my fears relieved ♪ how precious was that grace appeared ♪ ♪ the hour i first believed ♪ amazing grace ♪ how sweet the sound that saved

a wretch like me ♪ ♪ i once was lost, but now i'm found ♪ ♪ was blind, but now i see [ applause ] >> my name is florence jones. i went to work on september

11th. i did not plan on walking down 77 flights of stairs. i wasn't dressed for it nor did i expect my boss to have to carry my shoes. i was one of the last of the 25 people to come out of the south tower. my number is 18. i had taken my shoes off on the 60th floor, and i walked in my stockings the rest of the way. after that i still walked in my stockinged feet 50 more blocks to get to a friend's office barely in one piece. when i heard that the museum was looking for artifacts, i thought about my shoes. i had put them in a plastic container and when i took them out they still had the smell on them from that awful day, and i knew i would never wear them again. so i decided to donate them here. i wanted my nieces and my nephew

and every person that asked what happened to see them and maybe understand a little bit better what if felt like to be us on that day. [ applause ] >> a simple pair of shoes. what could they possibly tell us about 9/11? about the choices and close calls, about the quarter-mile climb down a staircase filled with falling ceilings, crowded with colleagues and confusion, about making it out or not. ordinary, everyday objects that we find here in the museum, a wallet, a ring, an i.d. card, a

telephone are unlikely, but powerful keepsakes which help us understand the events of that day in human terms. each piece carries with it another story. one that might have been our own for don't we all own a pair of shoes we wear to work that could have been the ones we wore that day. for some, the last 38 steps they walked to freedom and to life where down a narrow, outdoor staircase that led to the street. these stairs were also the last aboveground remnant found at the world trade center site. they became both a symbol of that terrible day and the months of painstaking recovery. workers removed the 56-ton staircase from its concrete base

as carefully as one would a sacred object from an archaeological site so that it could be placed in its new home inside the museum. today, when you walk down the museum's last set of stairs that lead to bedrock, whether you walk slowly down the wide, elegant staircase or stand comfortably on the moving escalator, you will travel right beside the easy street staircase, and as you do, imagine for a moment that these hard, concrete stairs were once for hundreds of people the last and long-sought path to survival. >> my name is kale berj ron.

i worked in the north tower for four years. that day everyone on our floor, people who knew each other and who didn't started walking down 68 flights of stairs together. it was orderly and calm and for every step we took down, the firefighters and police were climbing up. when we got to the sixth floor, it felt as if the whole world started to shake. it turned out that the south tower had collapsed. suddenly there was confusion, we were climbing over wires and desk, port authority policemen helped us find our way through, but my friend patty and i got separated from everyone and we were long thinking there's no way out, then we are heard a

bullhorn that said that if we could hear the sound, follow the light. we went this way and that way and after what seemed like forever we got to the outdoor of easy staircase. i'd walked those stairs a hundred times to go to the train, stop at the post office and never giving them a second thought, but now they were all that separated us from the devastation behind us and life in front of us. today when i think about those stairs, what they represent to me is resiliency of the people there that day trying to help each other and later the resiliency of our country. those 38 steps mean everything.

[ applause ] >> we will never understand why one person escaped and another didn't. how random it all seems and how powerless it takes us all feel, but what this museum does is allow us to see is that we absolutely can affect each other's lives by what we do at a time of crisis. how we are strengthened by what was done that day. september 11th brought out the largest emergency response in new york city history. 1,000 firefighters, 2,000 police officers and 100 city and volunteer ambulances rushed into

action. when both towers fell logic says no one could have survived and lived to tell the tale. the south tower fell and no one survived. in the meantime, the men from the new york city fire department and port authority police were still inside the north tower attempting to rescue the remaining civilians, but when they reached the third floor the 107 floor of the north tower fell on top of them. lieutenant mickey cross remembered that he heard a huge roar ask then everything went dark and totally silent. buried in debris he tried to protect himself by making himself so small that he might be able to climb into his hel t helmet.

when he heard faint voices calling out, he realized he wasn't alone. he sent may day signals hoping someone might hear them. hours passed. outside, was there nothing, but piles of fiery wreckage. not only could rescuers not locate the north tower, they didn't even know where to begin and yet they kept digging and digging and digging. ♪ ♪ >> it's my honor to introduce to you to mickey cross and 11 members of the new york city fire department and port authority police department. all of them had been trapped together. god bless them and god bless

america. [ applause ] [ applause ] >> thank you. >> we were trapped way down inside a dark hole, and after a while we saw the small beam of light about 30 feet above us.

it was sun light and it had broken through the the smoke and even though it only lasted for a little while it was enough to let us know it was an opening. it turned out the rescue workers could see it, too. they finally came towards us, they couldn't believe we had survived and we'd walk out on our own. we continued to look for other survivors. there was 14 of us trapped in a stairwell trying to stay alive and searching for a way out. miraculously, we survived. once we got out we saw complete devastation. the whole trade center was gone. all you could see were huge pieces of twisted steel and fires everywhere, and work withers never giving up on finding people. after our rescue, many of us joined the rescue and recovery teams at ground zero to do for others what had been done for

us. we had to. we had come together at ground zero to help each other out. there was a real sense of caring for one another. this is something we should never forget and never stop doing. thank you. [ applause ] >> i am manuel rodriguez, and i am a member of teamsters local 282. i worked at ground zero in heavy construction for nine months. >> my name is pia hoffman. i'm a crane operator, and i worked at ground zero for eight months. >> my name is phony favara.

i'm a detective in the new york city police department emergency service unit. i worked at ground zero for nine months. >> my name is steve butler. i'm a lieutenant with the port authority police emergency service unit. i worked down at ground zero for nine months performing rescue and recovery. after learning losing my brother tommy, a firefighter with squad company number 1 i was the first person to put his picture on this piece of steel which we call the last column. after that many others followed with pictures and signatures. [ bells ] >> the last column was part of the last area that was searched -- >> that really tells the they

stories of the clean up, the destruction and effort. >> as the site was cleared and the beem came to stand alone, people that were working at the site or family members began affixing the photos. >> people were putting notes on the column. we had a flag on the top of it and it was an icon on the site. the sheer size of it, the number of signatures, farewells not only to lost loved ones and also to this new family that developed on ground zero. >> we all became this family that worked together to try to make other families feel better. >> we were never going to fill in a hole, but if we made it a little smaller then that was all we could do. >> whether they signed a column or not, that column means something to us. we completed our job and we did a job well done. >> i think that last beam symbolizes the best of what humanity can do.

[ bell tolls ] of all the heartbreaking things we had to learn how to do after september 11th, the most necessary was -- and the most difficult, was finding a way to honor every single person who was on those four planes, in the pentagon and the world trade center towers and those who died trying to save them. to give their families and us a place to come and remember them. now near where we are now there is such a place filled with the photos, keepsakes and stories of

those we lost. these are our book of memory. in the area called memorial hall there stands a three-story high wall connecting the footprints of the once mighty north and south towers. on it are written ten simple words by the great poet virgil that expressed what this museum is all about. no day shall erase you from the memory of time. from there you walk through to the wall of faces lined from floor to ceiling with smiling fathers, daughters, brothers, nieces, family and loved ones. in the same way we have photos in our own homes. these pictures are alive with the memories of the birthdays and weddings, barbecues and baseball games of those we lost.

what you will be looking at are the pages of the chapter in our history we call september 11th. >> where? >> that's a good picture. >> it is. >> you would be so proud of your daughter. she's amazing just like you. >> all these faces. all of the people. ♪ >> there he is. wow! >> this is ana. this is you. this was a couple of weeks before 9/11 actually happened. this was our last family picture. >> i love this one. >> yeah. that's him. that's you. that's your smile.

that mustache. that's you. you act just like him, right? mannerisms, everything. you're just like your father. you look like him. and you act like him and sound like him. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> so many, right? there she is. i love that picture. you were 3 and you were 2. over the the years, i know all these names now, you know? >> marian, although she wanted to take care of herself and wanted to look as pretty as possible she was never above putting on a silly hat.

>> all of her friends were in their 30s and she was in her 50s. remember she had gone to the biker bar the night before? that it was embarrassing and now we're doing the same stuff. >> when he heard the call on the radio he told his partners we have to go and he just held a cab and he went straight to those buildings and he did what he had to do. he had to go help people. >> he used to do things so spontaneous. he would get up and -- come on, get up. we're going here. let's do something different today. he felt life was too short to plan thing, and i think i learned that on that day. >> robert chin. right there. that's uncle robert. >> that's robert. >> mama adopted you and named

you -- >> roberta hope chin. >> because i was the new hope for the family. >> and i am his niece and namesake. >> yes, you are uncle robert's niece and namesake. ♪ ♪ >> this is a place where thousands of stories converge, where wey can touch the face of history. our history and yet while we come here to remember the past it is the future, too, that stands with us in this hall. to truly honor that day we must promise both to keep our memories of it alive and to search for ways to build something positive in the names of those we lost. they were the pride of their

families and the pride of their countries. their stories, their spirit and their examples can live on as our guides and our beacons by making their names and their lives stand for something meaningful in our world. what greater legacy can there be for the lives cut short than to live in the good works created in their names? >> my name is ada rosario dulch and my sister wendy worked in tower 1 of the world trade center. i worked two blocks away as the principal of a high school that encouraged leadership and public service. that morning it was my job to protect our 600-plus students, but i couldn't protect my

sister. my whole life has been about educating children. after wendy died i was with trends and said imagine if we went to afghanistan and we built a school there. what a kick in the head to osama bin laden. kathy allerton and countless others joined forces and four years after 9/11 a school was opened in my sister's memory in the province of herat, afghanistan. [ applause ] >> about 200 boys and girls came to study and since then many, many more. all of them entrusted with education and their country's future. there can be beauty out of the ashes. it's hard work, but it can be done. >> my name is jim laychat.

my younger brother dave was at his desk at the pentagon on that september 11th. he was a civilian working for the department of the army. after the attack many wondered how will we remember those we lost? as family members, we needed to find a way to honor and remember them and in the process maybe find a way to heal ourselves. working together with friends, colleagues, families, supporters from around the world, we opened the pentagon memorial on september 11, 2008. it is a place we remember 184 men, women and children, a place to provide solace and healing surrounded by the beauty of life. my brother dave and i had been young together and we expected to grow old together, play a lot of golf and argue about who had the better-looking grandchildren. now there will be children born after 9/11 who only read about that day in books. some of them might even think

the people it happened to weren't real, but we are here to help them know that they were. my hope now is to create an educational center at the pentagon memorial where schoolchildren can come and spend some time getting to know their country's story and the very real people who lived it. [ applause ] >> we'd like to end our dedication ceremony on a note of hope that all the visitors to this museum, those who lived through the tragedy and those young enough to be learning about it for the first time will come away with a sense not of the worst of humanity, but of the best. there are hard lessons -- hard history lessons to be learned here, but also light that can

illuminate our day ahead. to all those who worked so tirelessly to bring its museum and ideals to life, we owe you our deepest gratitude and appreciation and special thanks to joe daniels, president of alice greenwald director of the 9/11 memorial museum. [ applause ] >> this museum is a testament to the resilience, the courage and the compassion of the human spirit that lies within each and every human being. so i think it's only fitting then that we bring our ceremony to a close with one of aaron copeland's most enduring and life-affirming pieces. "fanfare for the common man."

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♪ [ applause ] >> good morning, everyone. i'm tamron hall. we were just listening to the musicians of the new york philharmonic performing "fanfare for the common man." for the past hour we watched the unveiling of the 9/11 museum on hand, president obama, president bill and hillary clinton and rudy giuliani along with former mayor michael bloomberg and governs andrew cuomo as well as chris christie. during his address the president paid tribute to the nearly 3,000 victims lost that day. >> here at this memorial, this museum, we come together. we stand in the footprints of two mighty towers graced by the o