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Victims' relatives mark 9/11
Events also held at Pentagon, Shanksville, Pa.; park used for NYC ceremony
The Associated Press
Updated: 10:06 a.m. CT Sept 11, 2007
NEW YORK - Relatives of World Trade Center victims bowed their heads in silence at a small park Tuesday to mark the moment exactly six years earlier when the first hijacked plane struck the towers. The dreary, gray skies created a grim backdrop, and a sharp contrast to the clear blue of that morning in 2001.
“That day we felt isolated, but not for long and not from each other,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said as the ceremony began. “Six years have passed, and our place is still by your side.”
Construction equipment now fills the vast city block where the World Trade Center once stood, and work is under way for four new towers, forcing the ceremony to be moved away from the twin towers’ footprints for the first time.
Kathleen Mullen, whose niece Kathleen Casey died in the attacks, said the park across the street was close enough.
“Just so long as we continue to do something special every year, so you don’t wake up and say, ‘Oh, it’s 9/11,’” she said.
Presidential politics and the health of ground zero workers loomed over the sixth anniversary of the terrorist attacks this year, perhaps more than any other Sept. 11.
The firefighters and first responders who helped rescue thousands that day in 2001 and later recovered the dead read the victims’ names for the first time. Many of those rescuers are now ill with respiratory problems and cancers themselves, and they blame the illnesses on exposure to the fallen towers’ toxic dust.
Lung disease victim added
Also for the first time, the name of a victim who survived that towers’ collapse but died five months later of lung disease blamed on the dust she inhaled was added to the official roll.
Felicia Dunn-Jones, an attorney, was working a block from the World Trade Center. She became the 2,974th victim linked to the four attack sites where hijacked airliners hit the two towers, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pa., where federal investigators say the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 fought the hijackers on the rallying cry “Let’s roll!”
A memorial honoring Flight 93’s 40 passengers and crew began at 9:45 a.m. ET, shortly before the time the airliner nosedived into the empty field.
“As American citizens we’re all looking at our heroes,” said Kay Roy, whose sister Colleen Fraser, of Elizabeth, N.J., died when the plane went down.
Bells tolled, and the names of the passengers and crew were read at the site of a temporary memorial at the crash site.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff also spoke to the mourners, telling them: “You have my promise that we will continue to work every single day to protect the people of this country, all in the name of those who perished heroically on Flight 93.”
In Boston, where two of the hijacked airplanes took off that morning, church bells rang to the tunes of Amazing Grace and America the Beautiful.
In New York, firefighters shared the stage with former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who many victims’ families and firefighters said should not speak because he is running for president.
Giuliani, who is running for president, has made his performance after the 2001 terrorist attacks the cornerstone of his campaign, but he has said his desire to be there Tuesday was entirely personal.
“It was a day with no answers, but with an unending line of people who came forward to help one another,” he told those gathered.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, seeking the Democratic Party presidential nomination, also attended the ceremonies.
Republican Mitt Romney, another presidential contender, issued a statement describing the attacks as the day "radical Islamists brought terror to our shores" and paying tribute to U.S. troops sent to Afghanistan and Iraq in the aftermath.
‘Safer but we’re not safe’
President Bush, with the first lady at his side, earlier held a moment of silence on the South Lawn of the White House.
At the main U.S. base at Afghanistan, a memorial ceremony was also held.
At the Pentagon, Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke at the wall where the plane crashed and told the victims’ families that their loved ones will be remembered.
“I do not know the proper words to tell you what’s in my heart, what is in our hearts, what your fellow citizens are thinking today. We certainly hope that somehow these observances will help lessen your pain,” he said.
Pace also spoke of the military, calling the anniversary “a day of recommitment.”
National intelligence director Mike McConnell said Tuesday that U.S. authorities remain vigilant and concerned about “sleeper cells” of would-be terrorists inside the United States.
“We’re safer but we’re not safe,” McConnell said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
As in past years, moments of silence marked each crash and the collapse of each tower in New York.
In addition to the firefighters and first responders reading victims’ names during the ceremony, city workers who participated in the cleanup, construction workers, volunteers, and medical examiner’s officials who recovered remains were involved.
Even though the World Trade Center ceremony gathering was in the park, thousands of family members were still allowed to descend briefly below street level to lay flowers at a spot near the twin towers’ footprints. Family members upset that they might not be allowed in at all pressured the city to at least allow the short visits to the dusty bedrock.
Among the first family members down the ramp was Marjorie Miller, whose late husband Joel worked at Marsh & McLennan. She said the rain was almost welcome after five consecutive years of Sept. 11 sunshine.
“A lot of tears coming down from up there,” she said, gesturing toward the sky, “and a lot of tears down here.”
In all, 2,974 victims were killed by the Sept. 11 attacks: 2,750 at the World Trade Center, 40 in Pennsylvania and 184 at the Pentagon. Those numbers do not include the 19 hijackers.
URL: Victims' relatives mark 9/11 - 9/11: Six Years Later - MSNBC.com
Events also held at Pentagon, Shanksville, Pa.; park used for NYC ceremony
The Associated Press
Updated: 10:06 a.m. CT Sept 11, 2007
NEW YORK - Relatives of World Trade Center victims bowed their heads in silence at a small park Tuesday to mark the moment exactly six years earlier when the first hijacked plane struck the towers. The dreary, gray skies created a grim backdrop, and a sharp contrast to the clear blue of that morning in 2001.
“That day we felt isolated, but not for long and not from each other,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said as the ceremony began. “Six years have passed, and our place is still by your side.”
Construction equipment now fills the vast city block where the World Trade Center once stood, and work is under way for four new towers, forcing the ceremony to be moved away from the twin towers’ footprints for the first time.
Kathleen Mullen, whose niece Kathleen Casey died in the attacks, said the park across the street was close enough.
“Just so long as we continue to do something special every year, so you don’t wake up and say, ‘Oh, it’s 9/11,’” she said.
Presidential politics and the health of ground zero workers loomed over the sixth anniversary of the terrorist attacks this year, perhaps more than any other Sept. 11.
The firefighters and first responders who helped rescue thousands that day in 2001 and later recovered the dead read the victims’ names for the first time. Many of those rescuers are now ill with respiratory problems and cancers themselves, and they blame the illnesses on exposure to the fallen towers’ toxic dust.
Lung disease victim added
Also for the first time, the name of a victim who survived that towers’ collapse but died five months later of lung disease blamed on the dust she inhaled was added to the official roll.
Felicia Dunn-Jones, an attorney, was working a block from the World Trade Center. She became the 2,974th victim linked to the four attack sites where hijacked airliners hit the two towers, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pa., where federal investigators say the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 fought the hijackers on the rallying cry “Let’s roll!”
A memorial honoring Flight 93’s 40 passengers and crew began at 9:45 a.m. ET, shortly before the time the airliner nosedived into the empty field.
“As American citizens we’re all looking at our heroes,” said Kay Roy, whose sister Colleen Fraser, of Elizabeth, N.J., died when the plane went down.
Bells tolled, and the names of the passengers and crew were read at the site of a temporary memorial at the crash site.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff also spoke to the mourners, telling them: “You have my promise that we will continue to work every single day to protect the people of this country, all in the name of those who perished heroically on Flight 93.”
In Boston, where two of the hijacked airplanes took off that morning, church bells rang to the tunes of Amazing Grace and America the Beautiful.
In New York, firefighters shared the stage with former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who many victims’ families and firefighters said should not speak because he is running for president.
Giuliani, who is running for president, has made his performance after the 2001 terrorist attacks the cornerstone of his campaign, but he has said his desire to be there Tuesday was entirely personal.
“It was a day with no answers, but with an unending line of people who came forward to help one another,” he told those gathered.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, seeking the Democratic Party presidential nomination, also attended the ceremonies.
Republican Mitt Romney, another presidential contender, issued a statement describing the attacks as the day "radical Islamists brought terror to our shores" and paying tribute to U.S. troops sent to Afghanistan and Iraq in the aftermath.
‘Safer but we’re not safe’
President Bush, with the first lady at his side, earlier held a moment of silence on the South Lawn of the White House.
At the main U.S. base at Afghanistan, a memorial ceremony was also held.
At the Pentagon, Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke at the wall where the plane crashed and told the victims’ families that their loved ones will be remembered.
“I do not know the proper words to tell you what’s in my heart, what is in our hearts, what your fellow citizens are thinking today. We certainly hope that somehow these observances will help lessen your pain,” he said.
Pace also spoke of the military, calling the anniversary “a day of recommitment.”
National intelligence director Mike McConnell said Tuesday that U.S. authorities remain vigilant and concerned about “sleeper cells” of would-be terrorists inside the United States.
“We’re safer but we’re not safe,” McConnell said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
As in past years, moments of silence marked each crash and the collapse of each tower in New York.
In addition to the firefighters and first responders reading victims’ names during the ceremony, city workers who participated in the cleanup, construction workers, volunteers, and medical examiner’s officials who recovered remains were involved.
Even though the World Trade Center ceremony gathering was in the park, thousands of family members were still allowed to descend briefly below street level to lay flowers at a spot near the twin towers’ footprints. Family members upset that they might not be allowed in at all pressured the city to at least allow the short visits to the dusty bedrock.
Among the first family members down the ramp was Marjorie Miller, whose late husband Joel worked at Marsh & McLennan. She said the rain was almost welcome after five consecutive years of Sept. 11 sunshine.
“A lot of tears coming down from up there,” she said, gesturing toward the sky, “and a lot of tears down here.”
In all, 2,974 victims were killed by the Sept. 11 attacks: 2,750 at the World Trade Center, 40 in Pennsylvania and 184 at the Pentagon. Those numbers do not include the 19 hijackers.
URL: Victims' relatives mark 9/11 - 9/11: Six Years Later - MSNBC.com
