Remembering 9/11: 'You will always be my hero'

NEW YORK?? The names of the Sept. 11 dead, some called out by children barely old enough to remember their fallen mothers and fathers, echoed across ground zero Sunday in a haunting but hopeful tribute on the 10th anniversary of the terror attack. "God is our refuge and strength," President Barack Obama said, quoting the Bible.

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Weeping relatives of the victims streamed into a newly opened memorial and placed pictures and flowers beside names etched in bronze. Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush, bowed their heads and touched the inscriptions.

Obama, standing behind bulletproof glass and before the white oak trees of the memorial, read the Bible passage after a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m. (1246 GMT), when the first jetliner slammed into the north tower 10 years ago.

The president, quoting Psalm 46, invoked the presence of God as an inspiration to endure. "Therefore, we will not fear, even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea."

The New York ceremony, which ended with the playing of taps in the early afternoon, was the centerpiece of a day of remembrance across the country. It was a chance to reflect on a decade that changed American life, including two wars and the overhaul of everyday security at airports and in big cities.

In a tribute at the Pentagon, Vice President Joe Biden invoked a "9/11 generation of warriors."

Story: World pauses to remember 9/11

"Never before in our history has America asked so much over such a sustained period of an all-volunteer force," he said. "So I can say without fear of contradiction or being accused of exaggeration, the 9/11 generation ranks among the greatest our nation has ever produced, and it was born ? it was born ? it was born right here on 9/11."

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta observed a moment of silence at 9:37 a.m., marking the time a jet struck the center of the nation's military. He paid tribute to 6,200 members of the U.S. military who have died in the Iraq and Afghan wars.

Video: Obama: 'Our way of life' depends on soldiers' courage (on this page)

In Shanksville, Pa., a choir sang at the Flight 93 National Memorial, and a crowd of 5,000 listened to a reading of the names of 40 passengers and crew killed aboard the plane a decade ago. Obama and his wife traveled to the Pennsylvania town after their visit to New York and placed a wreath at the memorial.

During the president's visit, members of the crowd chanted, "USA! USA!" One man called out: "Thanks for getting bin Laden!" This is the first anniversary observance since Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan.

The day's events took place under higher security than usual. In New York and Washington especially, authorities were on alert. Ahead of the anniversary, the federal government had warned those cities of a tip about a possible car-bomb plot. Police searched trucks in New York, and streets near the trade center were blocked. To walk within blocks of the site, people had to go through checkpoints.

In New York, family members began reading the names of 2,983 victims ? 2,977 killed in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, and six killed in the first terror attack on the trade center, a truck bomb in 1993.

"You will always be my hero," Patricia Smith, 12, said of her mother.

Nicholas Gorki remembered his father, "who I never met because I was in my mother's belly. I love you, Father. You gave me the gift of life, and I wish you could be here to enjoy it with me."

See the memorial to Trade Center victims

Peter Negron, 21, whose father worked on the 88th floor of the north tower, said that in the decade since the attack, he had tried to teach his younger brother lessons he had learned from their father.

"I decided to become a forensic scientist," Negron said. "I hope that I can make my father proud of the young men my brother and I have become. I miss you so much, Dad."

Bush quoted a letter from President Abraham Lincoln to a mother who lost all five of her sons in the Civil War.

"I pray that our heavenly father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement," Bush said.

Obama and Bush were joined by their wives as they walked up to one of the two reflecting pools built over the towers' footprints, part of a Sept. 11 memorial that was opened for relatives of the victims.

Video: Bush adviser: Dropped to my knees, prayed

Some family members held children on their backs who were not yet born when the towers were attacked.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, opening the ceremony of remembrance, said: "Although we can never un-see what happened here, we can also see that children who lost their parents have grown into young adults. ... Good works have taken root in public service."

As the sun rose, an American flag fluttered over six stories of the rising 1 World Trade Center. The sky was clear blue with scattered white clouds and a light breeze, not unlike the Tuesday morning 10 years ago.

The site looked utterly different than it had for any other Sept. 11 anniversary: Along with the names in bronze, there were two manmade waterfalls directly on the footprints of the towers, surrounded by dozens of white oak trees.

Elijah Portillo, 17, whose father was killed in the attack, said he had never wanted to attend the anniversary because he thought he would feel angry. But this time was different, he said.

"Time to be a big boy," Elijah said. "Time to not let things hold you back. Time to just step out into the world and see how things are."

The anniversary arrived with security officials in New York and Washington on alert. Ahead of the anniversary, the federal government had warned local authorities of a tip about a possible car-bomb plot linked to al-Qaida.

Remembrances around the nation and world marked a decade of longing for loved ones lost in the attack.

The anniversary revived memories of a September morning when terrorists crashed hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and a fourth plane crashed into a field in rural western Pennsylvania. Of heroism and Samaritans and unthinkable fear. And of nearly 3,000 killed at the hands of a global terror network led by Osama bin Laden, himself now dead.

"Ten years have passed since a perfect blue sky morning turned into the blackest of nights," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said during the ceremony.

"Since then, we've lived in sunshine and in shadow, and although we can never unsee what happened here, we can also see that children who lost their parents have grown into young adults, grandchildren have been born and good works and public service have taken root to honor those we loved and lost."

Police in New York and Washington were on high alert against a "credible but unconfirmed" threat of an al-Qaida plot to attack the United States again on the 10th anniversary.

Security was especially tight in Manhattan, where police set up vehicle checks on city streets as well as bridges and tunnels coming into the city. There was an unprecedented show of force in Manhattan from roadblocks on Times Square in midtown to the area around Ground Zero farther to the south.

"It was our Pearl Harbor," said John McGillicuddy, 33, a teacher from Yonkers, New York, getting coffee and carrying two American flags on his way to the World Trade Center, referring to the Japanese attack that led America to join World War Two.

"Every year, September is always rough," he said, as he prepared to grieve his uncle, Lieutenant Joseph Leavey, a New York firefighter who died in the south tower on Sept. 11.

But much of the weight of this year's ceremonies lies in what will largely go unspoken. There's the anniversary's role in prompting Americans to consider how the attacks affected them and the larger world and the continuing struggle to understand 9/11's place in the lore of the nation.

People across America planned to gather to pray at cathedrals in their greatest cities and to lay roses before fire stations in their smallest towns. Around the world, many others planned to do something similar.

On Saturday in rural western Pennsylvania, more than 4,000 people began to tell the story again.

At the dedication of the Flight 93 National Memorial near the town of Shanksville, Bush and former President Bill Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden joined the families of the 40 passengers and crew aboard the jet who fought back against their hijackers.

"The moment America's democracy was under attack our citizens defied their captors by holding a vote," Bush said. Their choice cost them their lives.

Video: Preserving stories, voices of 9/11 forever (on this page)

The passengers and crew gave "the entire country an incalculable gift: They saved the Capitol from attack," an untold amount of lives and denied al-Qaida the symbolic victory of "smashing the center of American government," Clinton said.

They were "ordinary people given no time at all to decide and they did the right thing," he said.

"And 2,500 years from now, I hope and pray to God that people will still remember this."

The Pennsylvania memorial park is years from completion. But the dedication and a service to mark the 10th anniversary of the attacks are critical milestones, said Sally Ware, one of the volunteer "ambassadors" who has worked as a guide at the site since the disaster.

As the anniversary arrived around the world, people paid tribute in formal ceremonies and quiet moments.

See the memorial to the Pentagon victims

In Japan, they gathered Sunday to lay flowers before a glass case containing a small section of trade center steel, and remembered 23 employees of Fuji Bank who never made it out of the towers.

A village in the Philippines offered roses, balloons and prayers for an American victim whose widower built 50 brightly colored homes there, fulfilling his late wife's wish to help the Filipino poor.

In Malaysia, Pathmawathy Navaratnam woke up and, as she has done every morning for 10 years, wished "good morning" to her son, a 23-year-old financial analyst who was killed in New York.

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"He is my sunshine. He has lived life to the fullest, but I can't accept that he is not here anymore," said Navaratnam. "I am still living, but I am dead inside."

In a reminder of the war that started in the wake of the attacks, 77 American soldiers were wounded when a Taliban suicide bomber detonated a truck bomb outside the gates of a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan. Two Afghans were also killed.

See the memorial to the Flight 93 victims

On Sunday, the focus turned to ceremonies at the Pentagon, just outside Washington, D.C., and in lower Manhattan. Obama planned to attend events at the sites and was to speak at a Sunday evening service at the Kennedy Center.

The hundreds of ceremonies across the country and around the globe included memorial Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York and a ceremony featuring nine-stories-tall replicas of the twin towers on a plaza in Paris.

___

Associated Press writer Joe Mandak in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44474533/ns/us_news-9_11_ten_years_later/

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