The Morris County Board of County Commissioners is inviting residents to join the county’s 25th anniversary 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony on Sunday, September 13, 2026, at 7:30 p.m. at the Morris County 9/11 Memorial, located at 460 West Hanover Avenue in Parsippany-Troy Hills. This year’s ceremony marks a genuinely significant milestone, a full quarter century since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks claimed nearly 3,000 lives after four commercial airliners were hijacked, two of which struck the Twin Towers in New York City, one which struck the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a fourth which crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers aboard fought to regain control of the aircraft from the hijackers.
This year’s remembrance carries a genuinely meaningful keynote speaker in Dennis Letts, a retired United States Secret Service executive and Tunnel to Towers Foundation ambassador who was present at the World Trade Center when the attacks unfolded. On the morning of September 11, 2001, Letts, then a Secret Service special agent, was exiting the North Tower when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the building directly above him. Rather than continuing to safety himself, he immediately returned to assist with evacuating thousands of occupants still inside the tower, and later helped support the emergency evacuation of civilians from Lower Manhattan after both towers collapsed. For that extraordinary courage and leadership during the attacks, Letts was awarded the United States Secret Service Medal of Valor, and his firsthand account of that morning gives this year’s ceremony a genuinely direct connection to the events being commemorated.
Notably, this year’s ceremony will begin after sundown, running more than an hour later than in previous years specifically to accommodate residents observing Rosh Hashanah, a scheduling adjustment that reflects the county’s effort to make this solemn commemoration genuinely accessible to the full breadth of its community.
The evening’s program will include a candlelight vigil, musical tributes, an invocation, and the reading of the names of the 64 Morris County residents who lost their lives in the attacks, a moment that remains at the emotional center of the county’s remembrance each year. The ceremony will also include a formal procession of firefighters, law enforcement officers, emergency medical personnel, veterans, and other dignitaries, honoring both those lost in the attacks themselves and the first responders whose service that day and in the years since continues to be remembered alongside the victims.
For residents planning to attend in person, organizers are encouraging attendees to bring their own lawn chairs, since seating at the memorial itself remains limited given the scale of attendance the ceremony typically draws. Parking will be available at the Morris County Department of Human Services offices at 340 West Hanover Avenue in Morris Township, with shuttle service running to and from the memorial throughout the event. Police, fire, and rescue departments interested in participating in the ceremony’s procession may send one apparatus per agency, with participating units asked to assemble by 6 p.m. at the Morris County Public Safety Training Academy at 500 West Hanover Avenue.
For anyone unable to attend in person, the ceremony will also be livestreamed on Facebook, giving residents throughout Morris County and beyond the opportunity to take part in this milestone remembrance regardless of their ability to travel to the memorial itself. As the county marks 25 years since that September morning, this year’s ceremony offers a genuinely fitting way to honor both the Morris County residents lost in the attacks and the extraordinary courage shown by first responders like Dennis Letts, whose direct account of that day continues to carry the weight and immediacy of a story that remains central to how the county chooses to remember.
