NEW YORK, Sept. 11 (UPI) -- Sad and tearful, America remembered the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks Wednesday as people across the nation marked the solemn occasion with a moment of silence.
At Ground Zero, tears filled mourners' eyes as former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and others read out the names of all 2,800 killed when hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center a year ago.
A clear blue sky canopied the mourners while a bright sun shone on them, exactly like a year ago when thousands of workers were hurrying down to the World Trade Center unaware of the calamity that was about to hit them.
Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Jewish names followed each other as a reminder that the terrorists were friends to no nation or religious group -- their victims came from 90 nations from across the globe.
"My stepfather was among those who died here ... Today I will give anything to be with him ... to tell him how much I loved him ... but like the moonlight, you cannot touch those who have gone away," said Marianne Marshal, a New York resident who addressed fellow mourners at Ground Zero.
People had started gathering at the site -- where once the twin towers of the World Trade Center proudly stood -- at dawn. Some had come all the way from California to share in the grief.
"Absolutely, I could not be anywhere else. I had to come," said Stephen Foster, who had come San Francisco to tell the New Yorkers "we are with you."
Bands in military and police uniforms walked into the center of Ground Zero, called the Pit, from a special ramp built for them, playing "Amazing Grace" and holding high the American flag.
"Those dead shall not have died in vain," declared New York Gov. George Pataki. The state built "for the people, of the people and by the people shall not perish from the earth."
The commemoration at Ground Zero began exactly at 8:46 a.m. EDT, the moment when hijackers flew the first hijacked plane into the north tower of the WTC. Another key moment, 9:03 a.m., when the second plane hit the south tower, rolled by as people read out the names of the victims.
Bells were rung twice during the name reading, exactly at the moments when each of the two towers fell.
Elsewhere in the city, churches had started ringing their bells earlier. The first to do so were the churches in Jackson Heights where many of the WTC victims lived.
"Again today we are a nation that mourns ... with our minds full of those who fell we join President George W. Bush and the rest of the nation in a moment of silence," said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The moment stretched longer as many in the audience broke into sobs. Some cried silently, tears rolling down their cheeks.
"We have to dedicate a portion of the field to those who died," said Pataki, while the rest, he said, has to be rebuilt "in the spirit of those who died" at their work places.
As he and others spoke, the bands -- standing around a circle built Tuesday evening to "mark the footprints of the two towers" as pointed out by Bloomberg -- played in the background.
Many in the crowd broke down when a New York teenager, Whitney Clark, whose father also died in the WTC, read a moving poem. "I am with you still, I don't sleep ... I am the star that shines at night," she said.
Unprecedented security was witnessed throughout the city where authorities had declared an "orange alert" to be on watch for possible terrorist attacks. Vehicles entering Manhattan were searched. Authorities randomly frisked people. Troops, FBI agents and other security agencies joined 40,000 police deployed in America's largest city for the first anniversary of the tragedy.
All New York schools were open Wednesday to allow the students to "seek comfort from each other on this sad occasion," as a teacher from Public School 238 said. The school was turned into a command center after the terrorist attacks.
"The anniversary has opened our wounds," said the teacher while lighting little candles along with her students in the memory of the fallen heroes of Sept. 11.
