U.S. marks 7th anniversary of 9/11 attacks

Family members, guests and officials marked the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks Thursday morning at Ground Zero in New York City, in Shanksville, Pa., and at a new memorial at the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C.

In New York, where four moments of silence were planned to commemorate the precise times that hijacked jetliners crashed into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and in Shanksville, family members bearing bouquets of flowers, wreaths and photographs of loved ones gathered for the ceremony.

People began arriving at a small park across the street from the World Trade Center site nearly two hours before the events began.

Mayor Michael BloombergMichael Bloomberg opened the ceremony by telling the tearful audience "Today marks the seventh anniversary of the day our world was broken."

President BushPresident Bush dedicated the new memorial at the Pentagon at 10:15 a.m.

"Here we remember those who died and here on this solemn anniversary we dedicate a memorial that will enshrine their memory for all time," Bush said.

"The day will come when most Americans have no living memory of the events of Sept 11," he said. "When they visit this memorial, they will learn that the 21st Century began with a great struggle between the forces of freedom and the forces of terror. They will learn that this generation of Americans met its duty. We did not tire, we did not falter and we did not fail. They will learn that freedom prevailed because the desire for liberty lives in the heart of every man, woman and child on Earth."

Guests lined up at the Pentagon before dark as they waited to go through security checks outside the memorial site.

Huge stadium lights lit the area where grandstands had been erected for the ceremony.

American flags flew everywhere, including a huge American flag that hung off the side of the Pentagon building in the same place where rescuers unfurled one shortly after the attack.

At least 16,000 people were expected to attend the ceremony.

Under a gray sky, the names of the 184 killed at the Pentagon were read one by one as their picture flashed on a large video screen.

A Navy sailor rung a bell after each name was read. The reading paused at 8:46 a.m., the moment the first plane hit the World Trade Center and the nation observed a moment of silence.

"This day is the worst. Every day you wake up and think of him and when you go to bed you think of him, but this day is the worst," said Tom Acquaviva, who was at the ceremony in New York. His son, Paul, worked for Cantor Fitzgerald and died on the 103rd floor of the North Tower when the plane crashed into the building.

"But we come every year and as long as we can walk or drive we're going to be here," Acquaviva said.

Presidential candidates John McCainJohn McCain and Barack ObamaBarack Obama were to pay silent respects at Ground Zero Thursday afternoon and later attend a city forum on public service. McCain also was scheduled to attend a memorial service in Shanksville, Pa., for the 40 people killed aboard United Airlines Flight 93.

Family members and students representing more than 90 countries that lost citizens on Sept. 11, 2001, were to read the names of the more than 2,700 people killed in New York.

"We've kept it alive, and perhaps kept it alive too long," said Charles Wolf, whose wife, Katherine, was killed at the World Trade Center. "How many times do you reopen the wounds?"

Wolf, who lives in downtown Manhattan, attends the ceremony every year but said it has become more painful, especially to stand in silence for the moment that the plane crashed into the tower where his wife worked. "It's one thing to remember," he said, "but it's another to relive it."

Other victims' relatives worry that Sept. 11 will revert to being just another date on the calendar.

"The remembrances have to continue; for how long, I can't say," said Barbara Minervino of Middletown, N.J., whose husband, Louis, died in the twin towers. "But we have to memorialize the fact that this day happened in the history of the United States and the history of the world. The day we forget, then why are we living?"

Minervino planned to attend a noon Mass in her husband's memory after listening to the names being read during the memorial service in New York.

That service moved to a park just east of ground zero last year because of construction at the trade center site. But family members are allowed to descend seven stories below ground and touch the spot where their loved ones died.

Nick Chiarchiaro, 65,of Vernon, N.J., lost his wife, Dorothy, and niece, Delores, Costa on the 93rd floor of North Tower. He comes to Ground Zero every year.

"I think the whole burhahaha about what this memorial should be is not sensible," he said. "It should be as simple as the wall for the Vietnam memorial, a fountain and then let it be."

In Arlington, Va., Defense Secretary Robert GatesDefense Secretary Robert Gates and others spoke at the Pentagon ceremony. The new 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. Thursday morning each bench was sheathed in a blue cloth, reminiscent of a coffin covering.

Members of all branches of the military at one point filed in and stood by each of the benches, which have nameplates of the victims who ranged in age from Dana Falkenberg, 3, to John D. Yamnicky, 71. A small reflecting pool is beneath each bench.

In a dramatic moment after Bush spoke, each soldier swept the blue cloth off the bench.

Bush arrived at the ceremony after an emotional rendition of Amazing Grace by a solitary bagpipper who marched from amid the benches out the memorial plaza.

Bush and first lady Laura BushLaura Bush marked the anniversary during a moment of silence on the South Lawn of the White House.

In Shanksville, 200 people gathered for a ceremony. Bells were to toll and victims' names read in a reclaimed minefield where Flight 93 crashed after passengers reportedly stormed the cockpit to thwart terrorists' plans to use that plane as a weapon like the others.

Memorials are years away from being built in Pennsylvania and New York.

The stalled, complex rebuilding of office towers, a transit station and memorial at Ground Zero led New York Gov. David PatersonDavid Paterson to order a reevaluation of budgets and schedules for all projects.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the agency that owns the site, has said the planned 8-acre memorial might not completed by the 10th anniversary of the attacks.