The US, its forces on high alert at home and abroad, yesterday solemnly and tearfully remembered the traumatic day exactly one year ago when 19 young Arabs launched a carefully planned assault that killed 3,025 people.
On the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, virtually every town and city across the nation, every school and college, churches, synagogues and mosques as well as many factories and offices held ceremonies and observed a moment of silence for victims, young and old, from dozens of different nations.
President George W. Bush, speaking at the Pentagon, said the victims did not die in vain and would be avenged.
"The enemies who struck us are determined and they are resourceful. They will not be stopped by a sense of decency or a hint of conscience. But they will be stopped," he declared.
Four aircraft hijacked by extremists motivated by an extreme offshoot of Islam and hatred of America destroyed the World Trade Center, smashed a crater in the Pentagon and inspired an act of self-sacrifice in the skies over Pennsylvania when passengers fought back knowing they faced certain death.
On a glorious sunny day eerily like the lovely morning of a year ago, bereaved family members, many clutching pictures of their loved ones, gathered with dignitaries, police officers marching in formation and carrying flags, troops wearing combat fatigues, fire fighters, religious leaders and survivors at the strangely sterile hole in bustling lower Manhattan which used to be the site of the tallest skyscrapers in New York City.
Bagpipers played a dirge and then fell silent and came to attention at 8:46am -- the moment the first plane hit the north tower of the World Trade Center, turning a late summer morning into an inferno, trapping thousands of people in a burning tomb from which there would be no escape.
A banner draped over the site read: "We will never forget." Accompanied by cellist Yo-Yo Ma playing a Bach partita, former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani began a reading of the names of each of the 2,801 victims of the World Trade Center.
The reading was interrupted by the tolling of bells at 9:03am, marking the moment when the second plane struck the south tower.
Less than an hour later just outside Washington, ceremonies began at the Pentagon where 189 people died. Another solemn remembrance soon followed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where a bell tolled 45 times for each person who died after refusing to allow hijackers to steer the plane they had commandeered to its presumed target in the capital.
Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, who was governor of Pennsylvania at the time, said the victims were true heroes who had probably saved many lives by their action.
The ceremonies were choreographed to echo the horrific unfolding of events a year ago. Bells tolled again in New York at 9:59am, marking the moment when the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed, sending a massive cloud of smoke, ash spiraling high into the sky, blanketing most of Manhattan in a choking fog of destruction. The north tower collapsed exactly half an hour later.
The US was on its second highest state of alert in response to intelligence that suggested new attacks were possible, especially in the Middle East and South Asia.
Late in the day, Bush was to address the nation from New York after making pilgrimages to the four crash sites, a stark contrast to the meandering route he took one year ago because of fears for his safety.
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