By: Jerry Schwartz
Associated Press
America and the world remembered the
unforgettable on Wednesday.
A cascade of memorial events around the globe
marked a moment whose echoes still resound
from New York to Afghanistan, and everywhere
in between, a moment that even a year later left
many transfixed by the horror, burdened by sadness,
plagued by fears.
"A day of tears," said President Bush, "and a day
of prayer, and a day of national resolve.
It also needs to be a day in which we confirm the
values which make us unique and great."
It was a day, too, of jitters and heightened security.
Officials issued a "code orange" - the second-highest
level of alert, and warned that terrorists who struck
last Sept. 11 might strike again.
The anniversary of the attacks that leveled the WTC,
cratered the Pentagon and brought death to the Penn.
countryside began far away from those places, in
New Zealand, with the first line of the Requiem that
Mozart finished in his dying days.
"Requiem aeternam dona ets, Domine, et lux perpetua
luceat ets," sang the Orlando Singers Chamber Choir at
St. Luke's Presbyterian Church in Rumuera: "Grant them
eternal rest, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine on them."
Choirs in 20 time zones around the world were to sing those
words, each of them beginning at 8:46 a.m. local time - the
instant when American Airlines Flight 11, its controls taken by
murderers, sliced through a crystalline blue sky to demolish
the trade center's north tower.
At points around the globe, the anniversary of the attacks was
marked with public events and private reflection. In Australia,
3,000 people in red-white-and-blue clothes assembled on a
beach to make a human flag. In Paris, two powerful beams
of light were projected into the sky.
A Mass for firefighters was held in a Rome basilica, and
Pope John Paul II dedicated his weekly audience to the attacks.
"No situation of hurt, no philosophy or religion can ever justify
such a grave offense on human life and dignity," he said.
In the days after the towers fell, New Yorkers grew accustomed
to the wail of bagpipes at hundreds of funerals for firefighters
and police. Early Wednesday, bagpipers began marching from
the five boroughs to ground zero.
Hundreds of spectators applauded after bagpipers began their
journey in Queens. They held up American flags and ran alongside
to take photographs as the procession made its way along a
boulevard illuminated by the lights of emergency vehicles.
Later in the day, there were to be moments of silence at the hole
where the twin towers once stood - at 8:46, and at 10:28 a.m.,
when the second building fell. In New York and in Washington,
readings of the rolls of the dead, 3,025 in all, were scheduled.
President Bush planned stops in Washington, Pennsylvania and
New York, finishing the day with a 9 p.m. speech to the nation
from Ellis Island.
But while the focus was on the places that suffered the most,
ceremonies marking Sept. 11 - prayer, the tolling of bells, candlelight
vigils, releases of doves and balloons, riderless horses, flags at
half-staff, moments of silence and others of music - were everywhere.
There were homier demonstrations, as well. In Montgomery, Ala.,
at E.D. Nixon Elementary School, sixth-graders and their teachers
baked cookies to bring to their local firefighters. It was their idea,
said principal Terese Goodson: "They just wanted to do something."
And yes, Goodson replied to their pleading, they could add a touch
of red to their white-blue-and-khaki uniforms on Sept. 11.
Fifteen percent of American businesses planned to give their
employees red-white-and-blue ribbons or pins for the day,
according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource
Management; about a third said they would observe a moment
of silence. Just 4 percent said they would give their workers
the day off with pay.
The stock exchanges delayed their openings until after 11 a.m.
Telemarketers hung up their phones. Said Perry Young,
head of a calling center in Omaha: "If I received a call at
home on that day from somebody trying to sell me something,
I would be personally offended." As they did a year ago,
television networks struck everything else from their schedules.
Some airlines - still struggling to regain passenger traffic they
lost a year ago - scaled back their schedules, as travelers
avoided the skies on this day.
A year ago, it is believed passengers and crew members on
United Flight 93 fought desperately with the hijackers who
had commandeered their plane. All 40 died, but the plane
never reached its target - the Capitol? the White House?,
and their heroism became legend.
On Tuesday, 500 of their friends and relatives went to the
spot in Shanksville, Pa., where their lives ended.
Clutching flowers and flags, they walked the field
where the plane crashed.
But other survivors kept their distance from an
anniversary of heartache.
Barbara Minervino of Middletown, N.J., planned to
attend a private Mass along with others from that town,
which lost dozens of its people at the World Trade Center.
Louis Minervino was at his 98th-floor office in Tower One
when the first jet hit.
But she had no intention of going to lower Manhattan
on Wednesday. She would do the laundry, go to the
beach with her two daughters, make dinner, her husband's
favorite, lasagna. She wanted to honor his life, not his death.
"We are in our new normalcy," she said. "It's not the
normalcy we had before. We're without our loved ones.
It certainly will never be the normalcy we had on Sept. 10."
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