For students born after Sept. 11, 2001, the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on Wednesday might very well feel like their 9/11, said Trinity board member Greg Wolf during a 9/11 remembrance event Thursday at Trinity Classical Academy in Valencia.
Wolf opened the Christian school’s annual ceremony to reflect on the tragedies that occurred 24 years ago when Islamic terrorists hijacked planes and crashed them into buildings in New York City and Washington, D.C., and in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. But he also shared sentiments about current events.
“Yesterday, Sept. 10, 2025,” Wolf said to a crowd of about 40 people on the patio in front of the school, “an unspeakable act of religious and political violence took place on the campus of Utah Valley University. Charlie Kirk, a courageous defender of freedom and of life, a voice of logic and reason and biblical truth and compassion, was brutally assassinated.”
Wolf spoke about how the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. galvanized his generation. With Wednesday’s tragedy still fresh, he said it was with that same sober resolve that he and others gathered to commemorate the events of Sept. 11, 2001.
After an opening prayer, Trinity student and chairman of the Young Americans for Freedom Matthew Piazza led the ceremony with words about the 2003 YAF-created “9/11 Never Forget Memorial Project” as an annual remembrance of those who died on Sept. 11, 2001.
“Today, we honor those who died on that fateful day and their families,” he said. “We also honor all who have continued to serve our nation and fight for freedom and liberty in the years following these unprecedented attacks on America.”
Piazza recounted the key events of that morning 24 years ago, when terrorists hijacked four planes in a coordinated attack: Two struck the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in New York City, one hit the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and another crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers fought back against the hijackers. The attacks, Piazza said, killed nearly 3,000 people, including first responders, and it left a lasting impact on the nation.
Trinity student Austin Cruz shared a quote from then-President George W. Bush.
“A great people,” Cruz read, “has been moved to defend a great nation. Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.”
Cruz added that Bush’s words prompted the nation to respond forcefully, and for the 20 years to follow, America fought bravely to “defend her people and her homeland.” He drew a parallel between the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and the Benghazi, Libya, terrorist attacks on the same day 11 years later that targeted Americans again. Cruz highlighted the bravery of American security personnel.
Joshua Morton, another Trinity student, spoke of the acts of terrorism and military conflict four years ago on Aug. 26, and of injuries that occurred during America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. Morton took a moment for his classmates to place 17 small flags in the lawn near where the ceremony was taking place at Trinity to honor the special operators, military contractors and service members lost in Benghazi and Afghanistan at the time.
Piazza returned to the podium to share that, additionally, the 3,005 small flags placed in front of the Trinity campus were to remember and never forget each life lost on Sept. 11, 2001, Sept. 11, 2012, and Aug. 26, 2021.
Trinity student Bryce Stimson played “Taps” on his trumpet.
Then Cruz recognized military veterans and first responders in the audience, inviting them to the podium to receive American flag pins in honor of their service.
Trinity fine arts director Tom Brown sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and Piazza concluded the morning’s ceremony with an invitation to those in attendance to visit the flags and the Honor Court at the school to honor local fallen heroes.
