Nation united in mourning

AMERICA paused yesterday to remember the unforgettable — with the tolling of bells, recitations of the names of the dead, and above all, with silence. “Today, we remember each life,” said President Bush.

In New York and in Washington, at a field in southwestern Pennsylvania and in myriad places around the world the end of a convulsive year that began on September 11, 2001, was marked with solemnity.

The stillness started in New York, with a moment of silence at ground zero, the massive hole where the World Trade Center once stood, until terrorist-guided jetliners cut through a crystal blue sky a year ago and obliterated its towers.

The 2,801 names on the city's list of the dead were read, one by one. On a gusty day, their loved ones cried and dropped roses in a "circle of honour."

"They were our neighbours, our husbands, our children, our sisters, our brothers and our wives. They were our countrymen and our friends. They were us," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Governor George Pataki followed the moment of silence with a reading of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. And then Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor who guided the city with quiet strength in the days after last September 11, began the reading of the names.

"Gordon M Aamoth Jr," he intoned. "Edelmiro Abad. Maria Rose Abad. Andrew Anthony Abate ..."

The time was 8.46am EDT, the instant when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North tower of the gargantuan complex.

To the mournful tones of a string-quartet, family members of the dead and notables such as New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State Colin Powell and actor Robert De Niro picked up the list where Giuliani left off.

At 9.03am, the moment the second tower was struck, the ringing of a bell interrupted the recitation of names. The city's church bells tolled to mark the moment when the second tower fell. The reading of the names ended at 11.20am; a bugler played taps.

The chain of remembrance extended from New York to Washington, where a moment of silence marked the time when American Airlines Flight 77 smashed into the Pentagon, killing 184. President Bush helped unfurl a giant flag, and pledged to press the fight against terrorism.

"One year ago, men and women and children were killed here because they were Americans and because this place is a symbol to the world of our country's might and resolve," he said.

And the mourning extended to southwestern Pennsylvania, where thousands gathered in a field to remember the 40 passengers and crew who perished in the crash of United Flight 93 heroes, authorities believe, who fought their attackers.

It was a day of jitters and heightened security. Officials issued a "code orange" the second-highest level of alert and warned that terrorists might strike again.

While the focus in America was on the places that suffered the most, ceremonies marking September 11 were everywhere.

On the sprawling statehouse lawn in Columbus, Ohio, 2,999 American flags and one Ohio flag were arranged to depict the twin towers. In San Francisco's Washington Square, more than 3,000 flags flew, including those of 14 other countries whose citizens were among the victims.

At Boston's Logan International Airport, where the two planes that struck the trade centre took off, all ground operations stopped at 8.46am.

At the Atlantis Casino Resort in Reno, Nevada, dealers held their cards and security guards stood silent, their hands folded. Cocktail servers paused, drinks on their trays.

At Nashville's Country Music Hall of Fame, "The Star-Spangled Banner" was played on a steel guitar and Connie Smith sang "Amazing Grace" after a moment of silence and a colour guard presentation by police officers and firefighters.

In Phoenix, 100 people joined hands before sunrise and stood near a downtown intersection, facing east. They listened on a cell phone to New Yorkers singing "God Bless America."

In Montgomery, Alabama, at E.D. Nixon Elementary School, sixth-grade students 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."

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 yesterday.

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 travellers avoided the skies yesterday.

For the loved ones of those who died on September 11, it was almost more than they could bear. In New York, 17-year-old Marianne Keane took a moment during the recitation of names to say a few words about her stepfather, Franco Lalama, an engineer for New York's Port Authority who died at the trade centre.

"I would give anything to go back to the morning of September 11 and tell him how much I appreciated everything he's done for me," she said. "But I think he knows that now. In my eyes he died a hero. And how much more could you ask for?"

But other survivors kept their distance. Barbara Minervino of Middletown, New Jersey, 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 yesterday. She would do the laundry, go to the beach with her two daughters, make dinner her husband's favourite, lasagna. She wanted to honour 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."