Never forget, and give peace a chance.
A gutsy Brooklyn teen, after recalling a heroic uncle killed on 9/11 in the World Trade Center, called on the White House to spare U.S. troops from any further armed conflicts.
“I was only 3 when you were taken from us, and we miss you very much,” said Brittney Cofresi, addressing her uncle Salvatore Papasso. “And President Obama, please do not bring us to another war.”
Brittney, 15, made her plea Wednesday at the 12th anniversary commemoration of the terrorist attacks that killed 2,753 innocent people in lower Manhattan.
Her Lennon-esque call for peace came after her part in the annual recitation of the 9/11 victims’ names. Her uncle, a tax investigator who worked on the 86th floor, died while helping evacuate others from 2 World Trade Center.
“I’m just a girl from Brooklyn,” the freshman from Bath Beach told the Daily News. “I wasn’t sure if the President would get my emails or letters. I felt like the only way to get my voice heard was to say this on TV.”
Brittney said she was moved to speak after watching Obama’s primetime speech on Syria the night before.
She was joined by hundreds of 9/11 mourners for the sad but familiar anniversary ritual: The moments of silence, the ringing of bells, the echoing of the victims’ names.
Among the visitors was a first-timer: A dozen years after her husband’s death, Daphne Davis finally made the trip to Ground Zero.
“I’m happy to be here,” said Davis, 49, whose spouse, Clinton Davis Sr., was a Port Authority cop. “I feel him around me. I know he’s laughing now because I made it here.”
Tears flowed down other faces standing where the twin towers once rose 110 stories into the sky. The somber ceremony at the National September 11 Memorial plaza began with a chorus singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
“Nobody understands the pain we go through,” said Denise Matuza, 46, of Staten Island whose husband, Walter Matuza, was killed. “It doesn’t make us feel good to stay home and do nothing. Coming down here takes away the pain more.”
Her three sons were 9, 6 and 3 when their dad died on the 92nd floor of 1 World Trade Center. The family joined more than 50 other Staten Island family members on a bus ride to the service.
“We’re all united,” said Matuza. “We’re all one.”
Nick Chiarchiaro, 72, lost his wife and his niece on the 93rd floor of 1 World Trade Center. He echoed Brittney Cofresi’s call for nonconfrontation.
“These things are caused by people like our President, who want to bomb Syria because of what they’re doing in their own country,” he said. “You bomb us. We bomb you back. But why should we start it?”
Joining the relatives once again was Mayor Bloomberg, who presided over each of the dozen 9/11 anniversary events since his election two months after the terrorist strike.
Neither the mayor nor any other politicians spoke at the event. He was joined by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, ex-New York Gov. George Pataki and mayoral hopefuls Bill de Blasio, Bill Thompson and Joe Lhota.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, joined by Grammy-winning Long Island singer Billy Joel, led a convoy of motorcycles riding to Ground Zero.
NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly and FDNY Commissioner Salvatore Cassano were also in attendance. The city lost 343 firefighters and 23 NYPD officers in the 9/11 carnage.
All at the hallowed ground paused for the four moments of silence: The first two, at 8:46 a.m. and 9:02 a.m., coincided with the times the hijacked planes hit the skyscrapers.
The latter pair, at 9:59 a.m. and 10:28 a.m., commemorated when each tower collapsed.
President Obama, joined by First Lady Michelle, Vice President Biden and his wife, Jill, observed the first moment of silence on the South Lawn of the White House.
Bruce Kane, 78, came across the Hudson River from Englewood, N.J., to remember his son Howard — the one-time controller at the Windows on the World restaurant on the 107th floor.
He wore a picture of his lost son around his neck, and carried one of his boy’s yellowing business cards. Kane was disturbed by the shrinking crowd as the memorial stretched into its second decade.
“It’s hard to see it get smaller and smaller, size-wise,” said Kane. “I guess people go on with their lives, move away.”
Once the Ground Zero ceremony was complete, the stage was set in lower Manhattan for the annual “Tribute in Light” — twin beams sent into the sky from the site of the twin towers.
The lights were flipped on at sunset and burned until sunrise Thursday.
Bloomberg spoke later at a Port Authority ceremony honoring the bistate agency’s 84 lost employees, including 37 police officers.
“The events of 9/11 have not made our city weaker, as our attackers intended, but rather far stronger,” said the departing three-term mayor. “That only becomes clearer and clearer with every passing year.”
The day also marked the first anniversary of the terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, where the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed. A powerful car bomb exploded in the heart of the coastal city on Wednesday, blowing out a wall of the Libyan foreign ministry — but causing no fatalities.
There were changes for this year’s anniversary in Shanksville, Pa., where doomed United Flight 93 crashed after passengers tried to overwhelm the terrorist hijackers. Construction began on a new visitors’ center at the site, where family and friends of the heroic fliers gathered in their memory.
At Ground Zero, the 11-year-old daughter of 9/11 victim Noell Maerz served as a living illustration of the time that’s passed since that September morning.
The girl, born after her dad’s death, was among those enlisted to read from the list of names. It was only her second visit to the site where her father perished.
“That’s what makes this year special,” said her grandfather, Ralph Maerz, 68. “She’s excited about it.”
With Joe Kemp and Mara Gay
On a mobile device? Click here to watch video of teen’s plea.
