NEW YORK (Reuters) – Children yearned for lost parents and grown men and women sobbed in grief over the hard stone that bore the names of nearly 3,000 dead as America on Sunday commemorated the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
The name of every person killed in al Qaeda's hijacked plane attacks was read in the hours-long centerpiece of a heart-wrenching ceremony.
"May your soul finally rest in peace. Your son Nathan and I, as the years go by, grow strong. Goodbye, my dear friend, my teacher and my hero," said Candy Glazer at the Ground Zero commemoration where the World Trade Center twin towers stood.
Glazer's husband, Edmund Glazer, cheerfully called his wife on September 11 from the first-class cabin of Flight 11 from Boston to tell her he made his flight to Los Angeles. He died when the plane hit the World Trade Center's north tower -- the first in a series of horrific events on that sunny Tuesday morning.
Thousands gathered at the site on a clear morning to grieve. With security tight and no traffic, there was an eerie silence where a decade ago the 110-storey skyscrapers collapsed, sending a noxious cloud over lower Manhattan.
"God is our refuge and strength," President Barack Obama said, reading from Psalm 46, in New York.
The ceremony -- with bagpipes, youthful voices singing the national anthem and firefighters holding aloft a tattered American flag retrieved from Ground Zero -- drew tears. Family members wore T-shirts with the faces of the dead, carried photos, flowers and flags in an outpouring of emotion.
For the first time, relatives saw the just-finished memorial and touched the stone where the names of their dead loved ones were etched. Some left flowers, others small teddy bears. Some used pencils to scratch the names on paper, some took pictures, others leaned against the stone and cried.
Many wept as the names of the dead were read by wives and husbands, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers and children, some choked with emotion at their personal loss.
"I haven't stopped missing my Dad. He was awesome," said Peter Negron, who was just a child when his father, Pete, was killed in one of the stricken towers. "I wish my Dad had been there to teach me how to drive, ask a girl out on a date and see me graduate from high school and a hundred other things I can't even begin to name."
The September 11, 2001, attacks claimed the lives of people from more than 90 countries. They were followed by al Qaeda bombing assaults in London, Madrid and elsewhere and brought an international campaign aimed at ferreting out their members.
The attacks are now such a part of American life that they are included in the school curriculum. This was the first anniversary that included a U.S. president.
Obama was set to visit all three attack sites: New York, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
At the Pentagon, Vice President Joe Biden said, "Al Qaeda and bin Laden never imagined that the 3,000 people who lost their lives that day would inspire 3 million to put on the uniform, and harden the resolve of 300 million Americans."
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
The New York memorial includes two plazas in the shape of the footprints of the twin towers with cascading 30 foot waterfalls. Around the perimeters of pools in the center of each plaza are the names of the victims of the September 11 attacks and an earlier 1993 attack at the trade center.
"Ten years have passed since a perfect blue sky morning turned into the blackest of nights," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said during the ceremony.
"Since then, we've lived in sunshine and in shadow, and although we can never unsee what happened here, we can also see that children who lost their parents have grown into young adults, grandchildren have been born and good works and public service have taken root to honor those we loved and lost."
Obama visited the North Memorial Pool, which sits in the footprint of the north tower. He walked around the pool hand-in-hand with first lady Michelle Obama, former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura.
The president touched the etched names of the dead before he greeted some family members.
SECURITY ALERT
Police in New York and Washington were on high alert against a "credible but unconfirmed" threat of an al Qaeda plot to attack the United States again on the 10th anniversary.
Security was especially tight in Manhattan. Police set up vehicle checks on city streets as well as bridges and tunnels. There was an unprecedented show of force from Times Square in midtown to the area around Ground Zero farther to the south.
"It was our Pearl Harbor," said John McGillicuddy, 33, a teacher from Yonkers, New York, referring to the Japanese attack that led America to join World War Two.
"Every year, September is always rough," he said, as he prepared to grieve his uncle, Lieutenant Joseph Leavey, a New York firefighter who died in the south tower on September 11.
Pope Benedict prayed for September 11 victims and appealed to those with grievances to "always reject violence."
In the September 11 attacks, 19 men from the Islamic militant group al Qaeda hijacked airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon outside Washington and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Just weeks after the attacks, U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan to topple that country's Taliban rulers who had harbored al Qaeda leaders.
In May, nearly a decade after September 11, U.S. forces killed al Qaeda leader and the mastermind of the attacks Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. [ID:nN1E78119Q] The attacks prompted wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the Pentagon still has a large number of troops and where violence persists. [ID:nL3E7KB03N]
"The 9/11 attacks were the beginning of a long winter in world history," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in Brussels. "But events in the Middle East have renewed our faith that although the desire for freedom can be repressed, it can never be extinguished. The Arab spring is a new season of hope for us all."
Sunday's Ground Zero ceremony had moments of silence marking when the planes hit the twin towers as well as when they collapsed. Other moments of silence marked when a plane hit the Pentagon and another crashed in Shanksville after passengers fought back against the hijackers.
Paul Simon gave a low-key acoustic rendition of his song "The Sound of Silence," which begins with the line "Hello darkness, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again."
After a faltering start, there are signs of rebuilding progress at the World Trade Center. The new One World Trade Center rises more than 80 stories above the ground as it inches to its planned 1,776 foot height -- symbolic of the year of America's independence from Britain.
For many, Sunday was the closest they came to a funeral for loved ones. With the memorial complete, it offered for the first time something resembling a final resting place and a formal place to mourn.
"When we came out here 10 years ago there was a hole in the earth and that's how we felt," said Dakota Hale, 25, of Denver, who lost his stepfather, flight attendant Alfred Marchand.
"Now, 10 years later there is grass and water, and it feels kind of like a new beginning."
(Writing by Mark Egan, additional reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst, editing by Eric Beech, Vicki Allen, Doina Chiacu)
