Nation remembers WTC attack’s 7th anniversary

The nation paused Thursday morning to mark the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks with heartfelt remembrances at the World Trade Center site, the dedication of a memorial at the Pentagon and a planned visit to ground zero by the presidential candidates.

Relatives of the 2,751 victims killed at the World Trade Center gathered in a park in lower Manhattan for readings from dignitaries and a recitation of the names of the dead.

“Today marks the seventh anniversary of the day our world was broken,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at the start of the ceremony, calling Sept. 11, 2001, a “day that began like any other and ended as none ever has.”

Services were also held to remember the victims of hijacked planes in Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon, where a new memorial was dedicated at a ceremony attended by President Bush.

The ritual in New York included moments of silence at 8:46, 9:03, and 9:59 and 10:29 – the times when two hijacked jets slammed into the trade center buildings and the twin towers fell.

Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama planned to visit the site after the ceremony ended. The candidates agreed weeks ago to pull their campaign ads for the day and were appearing together Thursday night at a forum on volunteerism and service.

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani spoke at the ceremony – as he has every year in New York – drawing applause from some in the crowd. As the names were being read, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine and New York Gov. David Paterson walked down a ramp to lay flowers in the pit where the towers stood.

Some families questioned whether the visit by McCain and Obama was necessary.
“It’s probably going to be more commercial. This really should be a day for the people who lived and worked down here,” said Jane Wixted, who lost her police officer son Glen Pettit on Sept. 11.

But Pettit’s former colleague, Chris DeAngelo, was glad they were coming.
“One of them is going to lead this nation,” he said. “And for that reason, both should come here to see what happened.”

At the Pentagon, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld mourned the airline passengers and those who “one morning kissed their loved ones goodbye, went off to work and never came home.”

The Pentagon memorial is the first of three major Sept. 11 memorials to be completed. The 2-acre park, located at the spot where American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon’s west wall, consists primarily of 184 cantilevered benches, each bearing a victim’s name.

Memorials are years away from being built in Pennsylvania and New York. As in past years, two bright blue beams of light will shine at night on the New York City skyline, in memory of the fallen towers.