FBI Director Christopher Wray addressed the newest class of FBI agent and intelligence analyst trainees at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City on Saturday, March 9. They are the first class to visit the museum as part of their Basic Field Training Course, and it was an addition Wray felt was important as the years stretch away from that terrible day.

The youngest members of the current class at the FBI Training Academy in Quantico, Virginia, were in elementary school when the towers fell. Many of these soon-to-be agents and analysts and those who follow them will learn about the events through history lessons. Wray stressed that the visit will help ensure that fateful day does not become a “mere historical footnote for the people of the Bureau.”

“After that terrible day, we had one purpose—to make sure something like that never, ever happened again,” he told the 180 new agents and 20 analysts, FBI leadership, and guests gathered at the memorial. “That sense of resolve carried us through the difficult days and weeks that followed as we pieced together what happened.”