Ground zero echoes to the sound of silence

THEY could find no words of their own to encapsulate the magnitude of what had taken place, and so reached for those of others: the Bible, William Shakespeare and Abraham Lincoln. Yet it was not the presidents and politicians who best captured the emotion of the day but Paul Simon, in a blue 9/11 baseball cap. He simply played an acoustic guitar and sang The Sound of Silence.

Yesterday, on the tenth anniversary of the attacks of 11 September, 2001, the silence echoed around the world. There were six separate moments of stillness: one each for the striking of the first and second planes, one each for the collapse of the south and north towers of the World Trade Centre, and one each for the impact into the Pentagon and the crash of United 93 into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Into each silence was poured the memories of 2,977 innocent men, women and children who perished in the deadliest terrorist atrocity the United States has ever seen. Yet remembered too were the thousands of soldiers, both British and American, who died in the wars that followed in its wake.

For Robert Peraza, pictured, it was a day when he could once again kiss his son, Robert David Peraza, who died in the north tower and whose name, like all those lost, is etched out of brass in the new memorial, unveiled for the first time on the site of Ground Zero.

The international day of remembrance yesterday began in the US embassy in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, where the flag was lowered to half-mast, and under whose pole lies buried a fragment of the twin towers – a fitting memorial in the land where the destruction was plotted by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

In London the families of the 67 British victims gathered for a service in Grosvenor Chapel.

In Malaysia, a mother wished her dead son “good morning”. For Pathmawathy Navaratnam, her world ended with that of her son, Vijayashanker, a financial analyst. “I am still living, but I am dead inside,” she said.

In Manipur, in north-east India, 100 friends of Jupiter Yambem gathered in memory of the manager of the Windows on the World restaurant, which sat atop the north tower. In Japan, relatives of the 23 employees of the Fuji Bank who died prayed for their spirits.

Yet the eyes of the world, as they were that fateful day a decade ago, were on New York and Ground Zero, where at 8:46am, the precise moment Flight 11 struck the north tower, the Bell of Hope was struck, bringing a moment’s hush to the thousands gathered at the new memorial.

The ceremony was simple, with no speeches but plenty of words laden with emotion. President Barack Obama, who joined former president George W Bush behind a screen of bulletproof glass – insisted on by the Secret Service following a credible terrorist threat – was among the first to speak.

He read from Psalm 46: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, even though the Earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.”

As if wishing to underline his statement the previous evening about bringing American troops home from Afghanistan, he spoke the lines: “Come behold the works of the Lord, who has made desolations in the Earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the Earth. He breaks the bough and cuts the spear in two. He burns the chariot in fire.”

The mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, said: “Ten years have passed since a perfect blue sky morning turned into the blackest of nights.”

He then introduced the central part of the service, the reading out of the names of every person killed, a long litany of loss and love, with words from Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “Let us not measure our sorrow by their worth, for then it will have no end.”

Then the first of 167 pairs of people, relatives of those killed, began to read alphabetically through the list of the lost.

As the names filled the air around Groud Zero, the relatives were allowed in to seek out the names carved in the new bronze memorial that fills the footprints where the twin towers once stood.

Elderly fathers knelt by the names and wept; wives showed the names of a late husband to their children; and many took brass rubbings home as a further memorial.

For Mr Bush the day was particularly emotional. The man who a decade ago stood on the rubble and, with a loudhailer handed to him by a nearby firefighter, declared that he heard the American people and that the perpetrators would soon hear them.

After ten years, two wars and the deaths of almost 6,000 American soldiers as well as the traumatic wounds inflicted on tens of thousands more, Mr Bush’s words were intended for an audience wider than the relatives of those who perished.

He quoted from a letter that Abraham Lincoln wrote to a mother whose five sons had been killed in the American Civil War.

He read: “I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming, but I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that can be found in the thanks of a republic which they died to save.

“I pray that our heavenly father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.”

Later, when Rudy Guiliani, who was mayor of New York when the attacks took place, rose to speak, he chose his words from the Book of Ecclesiastes.

He said: “To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die.”

He went on to say that there was a time to kill, but ended: “A time of war and a time of peace.” He then said: “God Bless every soul that we lost. And God guide us to our reunion in Heaven. And God bless the United States of America.”

At the Pentagon, where 184 people were killed when a hijacked plane ploughed into the side of the headquarters of the defence department, Mr Bush had earlier left a wreath of white flowers by the memorial stone embedded in the wall at the spot where the plane struck. The naval choir sang Amazing Grace ending with the lines: “I was blind, but now I see.”

Former president Bill Clinton and vice-president Joe Biden attended a ceremony at the “wall of names” at the field near Shanksville in Pennsylvania, where America’s fightback against al-Qaeda is now viewed to have started when the passengers and crew attacked the hijackers of United Airlines 93, foiling their plan to attack Washington.

One of the readers, who read out the names of those involved in the fight onboard Flight 93, said: “Thank you for your courage, Todd M Beamer.”

She then said the last words Mr Beamer was heard to speak as passengers prepared to tackle the hijackers: “Let’s roll.”

Yesterday America, watched by the world, put another milestone behind her, and rolled on.

Yet for the families of those who lost loved ones, the words of Paul Simon’s song was, perhaps, more pertinent: “Hello Darkness, my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again.”