By Grant McCool
Additional reporting by Patrick Rizzo and Nick Olivari
jetliners, the roar of falling steel and the deaths of thousands ended on Thursday
in a silence broken only by the solemn tolling of bells, the wail of bagpipes and the
sobs of those mourning the loved ones they lost.
With an empty stretcher bearing a folded American flag, New York marked the
end of the mammoth recovery of human remains and the ruins of the WTC with
a brief ceremony, nearly nine months after two hijacked planes slammed into the
twin towers, destroying them and killing 2,823 people.
The empty stretcher symbolized those killed but whose remains were never found.
More than 19,000 body parts were recovered but 1,800 victims have yet to be identified.
There were no speeches by politicians, no prayers by the clergy. At 10:29 a.m.,
the moment on Sept. 11 the second of the 110-story buildings collapsed in a pile of
mangled and broken steel, concrete and glass, a firefighter tolled a bell in four sets
of five chimes, the traditional code for a fallen comrade.
MOMENT THE SECOND TOWER FELL
Police and fire department pipers and drummers marched behind the stretcher.
A flatbed truck slowly rolled out the last 36-foot long, 58-ton steel girder to be
removed from the site. The beam, the last standing piece of the North Tower removed
in a separate ceremony on Tuesday night, was wrapped in black muslin adorned
with a bouquet of flowers and U.S. flag.
The procession paused at the top of the ramp, buglers from the uniformed services
played "Taps" and five New York Police Department helicopters flew in V formation
overhead. The pipes and drums unit of police and fire officers played
"America the Beautiful" and the crowd applauded for a full five minutes for a
procession of civilians and uniformed personnel.
PATRIOTISM
The procession traveled 15 blocks north along the West Side Highway,
which was lined with white gloved, uniformed police officers and thousands of
spectators, many of them relatives of the dead and many dressed in patriotic
red, white and blue.
"All Gave Some, Some Gave All, 9-11-01,"
was the slogan on the back of many a T-shirt.
 |