While the names of the Sept. 11 dead, some called out by children barely old enough to remember their fallen mothers and fathers, echoed across ground zero Sunday in a haunting but hopeful tribute on the 10th anniversary of the terror attack, there was also a brief memorial service at he Kansas State Fair. It started at noon Sunday with the Hutchinson Fire Department using two of their trucks and then running their siren as noon hour struck.
Then the Hutchinson Fire Department also presented the flags while Hutchinson’s own Robert Calhoun sand the National Anthem.
Speaking at the event was Bones Ney, Associated Pastor of Mid-America Nazerine Church in Hutchinson. You watch his comments below with Richard Shank introducing him.
Calhoun also sang, “God Bless America.” You can watch and listen to the below.
In New York, weeping relatives of the victims streamed into a newly opened memorial at the spot where the World Trade Center stood. They placed pictures and flowers beside names etched in bronze, and traced them with pencil and paper. President Barack Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush, bowed their heads and touched the inscriptions.
Obama, standing behind bulletproof glass and before the white oak trees of the memorial, read a Bible passage after a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m., when the first jetliner slammed into the north tower 10 years ago.
The president, quoting Psalm 46, invoked the presence of God as an inspiration to endure: “Therefore, we will not fear, even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.”
In a ceremony at the Pentagon, Vice President Joe Biden paid tribute to “the 9/11 generation of warriors.”
“Never before in our history has America asked so much over such a sustained period of an all-volunteer force,” he said. “So I can say without fear of contradiction or being accused of exaggeration, the 9/11 generation ranks among the greatest our nation has ever produced, and it was born — it was born — it was born right here on 9/11.”
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta observed a moment of silence at 9:37 a.m., marking the time a jet struck the center of the nation’s military. He paid tribute to 6,200 members of the U.S. military who have died in the Iraq and Afghan wars.
In Shanksville, Pa., a choir sang at the Flight 93 National Memorial, and a crowd of 5,000 listened to a reading of the names of 40 passengers and crew killed aboard the plane a decade ago. Obama and his wife traveled to the Pennsylvania town after their visit to New York and placed a wreath at the memorial.
During the president’s visit, members of the crowd chanted, “USA! USA!” One man called out: “Thanks for getting bin Laden!” This is the first anniversary observance since Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan.
*The Associated Press contributed to this report.