Twenty-five years after a generation promised to «Never Forget,» that pledge now relies on education for the more than 100 million Americans with no memory of 9/11.

The Pentagon is preparing to help address that challenge by breaking ground this weekend on a long-awaited Visitor Education Center at the only one of the three 9/11 attack sites still without a dedicated museum or education center.

The new center is intended to fill the gap that has grown more pronounced with each passing year by helping Americans who never experienced the attacks understand not only what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, but why it continues to matter. 

Joseph Kornhoff, executive director of the Pentagon Memorial Fund, told Fox News Digital that nearly one-third of the country was either not alive that day or has no recollection of it and therefore lacks the «personal connection» shared by those who watched the attacks unfold.

NEW 9/11 MUSEUM EXHIBIT AIMS TO CONNECT YOUNGER AMERICANS TO THE ATTACKS THROUGH POWERFUL ARTIFACTS

«That’s what we’re trying to provide with the visitor education center experience,» Kornhoff said in an interview with Fox News Digital, explaining that the goal is to give visitors a personal connection that allows them to «start to understand the gravity of that day.»

Flowers lay on a bench at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial, adjacent to the Pentagon, ahead of the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, in Washington, DC, on September 9, 2026.  (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP via Getty Images)

Nearly 230 miles north, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York is confronting the same generational divide.

Beth Hillman, president and CEO of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, said the passage of time has only made the annual vow to «Never Forget» more important as the number of Americans with firsthand memories of the attacks declines.

«Many in my generation remember exactly where we were on that horrific day,» Hillman said during an Aug. 31 press preview outlining the museum’s plans for the 25th anniversary. «Yet, 100 million Americans were not even born or are too young to remember that day for themselves today.»

BROOKLYN TEACHERS WHO WITNESSED 9/11 AS CHILDREN REVEAL WHAT THEY WANT THE NEXT GENERATION TO REMEMBER

Noah Rauch, the museum’s senior vice president for education and public programs, said he has watched that transition unfold firsthand through the museum’s work with students and teachers. «I’ve seen this line creeping up between memory and history, between those who remembered the attacks and those who didn’t,» Rauch said during the Aug. 31 press event.

The United States is marking the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when a group of al-Qaeda hijackers flew airplanes into the World Trade Center, Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people. (Jeenah Moon – Pool/Getty Images)

That transition from memory to history also raises a more modern challenge. Americans too young to remember the attacks are increasingly learning about an event they never experienced firsthand, while conspiracy theories and false narratives about 9/11 run rampant online.

Kornhoff said that makes factual education increasingly important, pointing specifically to conspiracy theories surrounding the attack on the Pentagon and narratives suggesting that America «deserved 9/11.»

«That’s the need for the education center,» Kornhoff told Fox News Digital. «As a nation, we need to really take a step back, look at how we’re educating our young children to make sure that we’re providing them with the facts of the situation … and not these conspiracy theories and entertaining wild ideas that just simply are not true.»

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: 9/11 IS JUST A HISTORY CHAPTER FOR A NEW GENERATION OF AMERICANS

Flowers and American flags rest beside inscribed names at a reflecting pool at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum on Sept. 11, 2026, in New York City, as the nation commemorated the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. (Jeenah Moon – Pool/Getty Images)

The Pentagon center will include 10 exhibits telling the human stories of the attack, including the 184 people killed at the Pentagon and aboard American Airlines Flight 77, the first responders who rushed to the scene and the military and civilian personnel who aided the wounded.

«We are going to address the facts of the day,» Kornhoff said. «We are going to address the entire Pentagon story.»

The renewed focus on 9/11 education has also reached Capitol Hill. Reps. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., introduced bipartisan legislation ahead of the 25-year anniversary, which aims to direct the Department of Education to examine how 9/11 is taught in schools nationwide and identify gaps in instruction.

Kornhoff praised the effort during his interview with Fox News Digital, saying the legislation reflects a growing recognition of the need to educate generations with no firsthand connection to the attacks.

Stainless-steel benches dedicated to victims are seen at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial in Washington, DC, on September 10, 2026, ahead of the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.  ((Photo by Alex WROBLEWSKI / AFP via Getty Images))

The Pentagon 9/11 Memorial Visitor Education Center is expected to open by the end of 2029 near the existing Pentagon 9/11 Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.

The project received $12 million in federal funding this year, along with $1 million from Virginia and additional private donations raised by the Pentagon Memorial Fund. Once completed, the center is expected to include interactive exhibits, historic artifacts and firsthand accounts from survivors and victims’ families while providing visitors with additional context about the attack and its aftermath.

A Bahamian national who arrived in the U.S. during President Gerald Ford’s administration and was living with a green card while racking up a violent rap sheet before investigators found he voted illegally in the 2020 election, sparking the deportation process, officials say.

The case of Anthony Tyrone Higgs is only the latest in a slew of arrests connected to illegal votes cast in recent elections, as the Trump administration engages in a broader crackdown on election integrity-related crimes.

«This alien was a guest in our country who forfeited his right to be in the U.S. when he committed these violent crimes and voted in the 2020 election,» White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis exclusively told Fox News Digital on Friday.

ICE ARRESTS PERUVIAN NATIONAL ACCUSED OF ILLEGALLY VOTING IN 2024 ELECTION AS DHS CITES SIMILAR CASES

«Any non-citizens who vote illegally in our elections will be arrested and removed. American elections are only for Americans.»

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a division of DHS, confirmed in a statement that Higgs had illegally voted in the 2020 election.

FORMER KANSAS MAYOR WHO PLEADED GUILTY TO ILLEGAL VOTING TURNS HIMSELF IN TO ICE

HSI’s Atlanta office arrested Higgs in Decatur, Georgia on September 3, and he is currently in the custody of ERO, the ICE subdivision that handles migrant removal operations.

Higgs was admitted into the U.S. in October 1976 as a Lawful Permanent Resident – commonly dubbed a Green Card holder. The Trump DHS has since placed him in proceedings to revoke his immigration status due to his lengthy rap sheet.

TRUMP DOJ UNLEASHES LARGEST DENATURALIZATION EFFORT IN DEPARTMENT HISTORY — AND SAYS IT’S ‘ONLY THE BEGINNING’

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., speaks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, March 5, 2026. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

«This criminal alien from the Bahamas has a rap sheet for multiple violent crimes, including armed robbery, domestic violence, and assault on a police officer,» DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said.

«On top of all of that, he illegally voted in the 2020 election,» he added.

MORE THAN A QUARTER-MILLION NONCITIZENS MAY BE REGISTERED TO VOTE IN 4 KEY STATES, DHS ALLEGES

A Homeland Security Investigations logo is displayed ahead of Super Bowl LIX security operations in New Orleans on Feb. 5, 2025. An HSI special agent has since been indicted on multiple felony charges in Alabama. (Aaron M. Sprecher/Getty Images)

Higgs’ record also includes resisting arrest, two counts of grand larceny and two counts of possession of a weapon during a violent crime.

Of the voting-related charge, Mullin said that just one noncitizen casting a ballot is enough to cancel out an American citizen’s vote.

«Thanks to the hard work of the men and women of ICE, this criminal will be removed from our country and can never interfere in our elections again,» he continued.

DHS also provided several other recent cases of illegal immigrants or ineligible voters committing or being charged with election-related crimes.

In August, Colombian illegal immigrant Carlos Jaramillo-Grajales was sentenced to three years in prison following an ICE investigation that led to a guilty plea in a case where he was found to have committed identity theft to illegally vote in elections for more than 20 years, according to the agency.

«Federal immigration laws serve to safeguard our nation’s borders and protect the integrity of our government,» said Gregory Kehoe, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida.

«Those who seek to circumvent, exploit, or break these laws will be prosecuted fully,» he said in an August statement.

In New Jersey, a Slovakian national was found to have illegally voted in the 2022 midterms, according to HSI – which also cited the case of an Australian national accused of illegally casting ballots in both 2022 and 2024 in Louisiana.

Mauritanian national Mahady Sacko was busted by an ICE and FBI partnership in Democrat-run Philadelphia, and charged with voter fraud.

SIGN UP TO GET THE POLITICS NEWSLETTER

Sacko allegedly voted illegally multiple times going back to 2008. He was already under an order of removal, DHS said in a statement, stating that he «exhausted all appeals» and an immigration board upheld his removal order as of 2002 but he remained in the country.

Returning to the case of Higgs, Mullin added in a statement: «Thanks to the hard work of the men and women of ICE, this criminal will be removed from our country and can never interfere in our elections again.»