America marks 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 terror attacks

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP - President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, former President George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush bow their heads during a moment of silence at the Sept. 11 10th Anniversary Commemoration Ceremony at Ground Zero in New York

By David Nakamura, Updated: Sunday, September 11, 9:45 PM

A moment of silence at the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan. The reading of names in a grassy western Pennsylvania field. A visit, by President Obama, to the Arlington National Cemetery graves of 60 U.S. service members killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
With these solemn moments, Americans across the world began marking the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the Pentagon in Virginia and World Trade Center in New York.

Under sunny skies, reminiscent of the clear blue morning 10 years ago when hijackers crashed four jetliners, killing nearly 3,000, ceremonies began Sunday morning at Ground Zero. Obama and former president George W. Bush, along with their wives, walked slowly along the North Memorial Pool, where the north Trade Center tower fell.
Obama touched a wall etched with the names of those who perished.
“Ten years have passed since a perfect blue sky morning turned into the blackest of nights,” New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said in opening the ceremony. “Since then, we’ve lived in sunshine and in shadows.”
Obama then read from Psalm 46: “The nations raged, the kingdoms were moved. He uttered his voice. The earth melted. The Lord of Hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. Come behold the works of the Lord who has made desolations in the Earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the Earth.”
Bells chimed at 8:46 a.m., the moment 10 years ago when the first jetliner struck the north tower, and the crowd observed a moment of silence. Family members began reciting the names of those killed. They stood near the construction site of a new tower, called 1 World Trade Center, a $3.2 billion 1,776-foot building that has reached the 80th of its planned 104 floors.
The bells chimed again at 9:03 a.m., marking the impact of the second plane flying into the south tower, and Bush read a quotation from Abraham Lincoln.
At the Pentagon Sunday morning, Vice President Biden paid tribute to the “9/11 generation” of 2.8 million service members who signed up to fight wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and be deployed in other dangerous regions, in the wake of the terror attacks.
“They relentlessly took the fight to al-Qaeda,” Biden said. “They were prepared to take the fight to find [Osama] bin Laden to the gates of hell and back and they got him. We will not stop.”
Ceremonies marking the worst terrorist assault on U.S. soil will continue Sunday when Obama lays commemorative wreaths in Shanksville, Pa., where United Airlines Flight 93 went down in a grassy field, and then at the Pentagon in the afternoon.
A “Concert of Hope” staged by the Washington National Cathedral at the Kennedy Center, featuring performances by mezzo soprano Denyce Graves, country star Alan Jackson, and R&B legend Patti LaBelle, will wrap up the day.
Obama boarded Air Force One to New York early Sunday, along with First Lady Michelle Obama, White House Chief of Staff William Daley and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon. The president and his wife were both dressed in black.