Trust me, he’s already forgotten.

NEW YORK (AP) — Marking Osama bin Laden’s death where the terrorist inflicted his greatest damage, President Barack Obama soberly laid a wreath Thursday at New York’s ground zero and declared to the city and the world, “When we say we will never forget, we mean what we say.”

The president closed his eyes and clasped his hands at the outdoor memorial where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once dominated the Manhattan skyline. He shook hands with 9/11 family members and others dressed in black at the site where the skyscrapers were brought down by planes commandeered by bin Laden’s followers. Nearly 3,000 people were killed.

The president met privately at the memorial site with about 60 family members from various 9/11 organizations.

Earlier, the president visited the firefighters and police officers whose response to the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, turned them into heroes and symbols of national resolve, but also cost them heavy casualties on that horrific day.

“This is a symbolic site of the extraordinary sacrifice that was made on that terrible day,” the president said Thursday at Engine 54, Ladder 4, Battalion 9. The firehouse in New York’s theater district lost 15 firefighters on Sept. 11, 2001.

At the First Precinct police station in lower Manhattan, the first on the scene on Sept. 11, Obama alluded to bin Laden’s killing and said of those who died in the Sept. 11 attacks, “We keep them in our hearts. We haven’t forgotten.”