By: Jerry Schwartz
Associated Press
Silence fell on ground zero Wednesday morning,
precisely a year from the moment when a terrorist
guided jetliner sliced through a crystal blue sky
and murdered thousands.
Quiet spread across New York - a city still in mourning
a year after the obliteration of its tallest buildings, the
World Trade Center, to the South Lawn of the
White House to other observances across the nation
and around the world.
Gov. George Pataki followed with a reading of
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. And then Rudolph Guiliani,
the former mayor who guided the city with quiet strength
in the days after last Sept. 11, began a reading of the
names of the 2,801 souls who lost their lives where the
trade center once stood.
"Gordon M. Aamoth," he intoned.
"Edelmiro Abad. Maria Rose Abad. Andrew Anthony Abate"
The time was 8:46 a.m. EDT, the instant when
American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the north tower
of the gargantuan complex.
The lower Manhattan ceremony was the first of three
tableaux at the sites of last year's attacks. Next would
come ceremonies at the Pentagon, where 184 men and
women died, and at a field in southwestern Pennsylvania,
where 40 passengers and crewmembers lost their lives in
the crash of United Airlines Flight 93.
But the day's memorials were hardly limited
to those sad places.
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" alert and warned that
terrorists who struck last Sept. 11 might strike again.
The moment of the first attack was commemorated around
the globe, starting in New Zealand, with the first line of the
Requiem that Mozart wrote 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.
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 special Mass for firefighters was held at 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 and
drummers assembled for a relay - from the five boroughs,
two at a time, to ground zero.
But while the focus is 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 on Wednesday. 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 Flight 93 crashed.
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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