A ceremony and dedication marking the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks was held at a downtown memorial Thursday.
A slab of limestone from the Pentagon is being added to the 9-11 memorial on the canal in downtown Indianapolis.
Greg Hess was part of Indiana Task Force One, one of the first teams to arrive at ground zero and he spearheaded the effort to create the memorial that also includes two steel beams from the World Trade Center.
Hess says 13 years later, Americans must not be complacent about the possibility of terror on U.S. soil.
"I think the world’s actually gotten worse since then," says Hess. "We're under threat even more than I think people know. I've always been a proponent that you can't let your guard down. They'll do this again. Someone will do something again."
On the eve of the 9-11 anniversary, President Barack Obama announced plans to increase military action in Iraq and Syria, stepping up intervention in a region where he had vowed to end U.S. wars.
Navy veteran Joe Dutra, says the president’s plan doesn’t go far enough.
"I try to be cautiously optimistic to think that they we won't get hit again, but we're talking about ISIS, the Islamic State. This isn't a video game. We're talking about human lives," says Dutra.
Other visitors to the memorial, including a group of kids who were only toddlers when the towers fell, spent a few minutes remembering the tragedy that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Memorial organizers also hope to add something from Shanksville, Pa. where Washington D.C. bound Flight 93 crashed after passengers overpowered the highjackers.