WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is slated to visit Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, for an unprecedented, live, worldwide televised troop talk with service members on the 14th anniversary of 9/11, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said.
The president, Cook said, will open with words of appreciation for the service and sacrifice of troops and their families before taking questions both from service members present at the event, and online via Facebook, Twitter and Skype and satellite.
The event occurs on the heels of the viral success of Defense Media Activity’s Worldwide Troop Talk, Sept. 1, 2015, featuring Defense Secretary Ash Carter.
“[The President] very much values face time with troops -- listening, asking, and answering questions, and he looks forward to taking time on the anniversary of 9/11 to engage directly with service members,” Cook said.
Those who want to ask a question should go to the Defense Department Facebook page at facebook.com/deptofdefense and leave a comment or visit Twitter using the hashtag #AskPOTUS.
Commemorations were planned Friday throughout the nation and the Department of Defense to honor those who died in and after the terrorist strikes of Sept. 11, 2001.
In 2009, Congress designated Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service and Remembrance under bipartisan federal law, and charged the
Corporation for National and Community Service with helping to support this effort across the country.
For the anniversary, CNCS is working with MyGoodDeed and numerous other organizations to implement one of the largest days of charitable service in U.S. history.
The website 9/11day.org released a video campaign featuring some of the 3,000 children who were born on Sept. 11, 2001. They ask us to stop fostering hateful thoughts, and instead do at least one good deed on Sept. 11 to honor the victims and responders on the 14th anniversary of the attack.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Air Force Gen. Paul Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were conducting a private remembrance ceremony at the Pentagon Memorial to honor the memory of those killed in the 9/11 terrorist attack. The ceremony was attended by family members who lost loved ones.
Contributing: The National Guard Bureau