Photos and stories: 10 years later

Seventy-seven minutes.

That's the time it took to kill nearly 3,000 people during terrorist attacks on the United States Sept. 11, 2001.

Ten years later, Tucsonans remembered the people killed in New York's World Trade Center towers, at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and in a field in Shanksville, Pa.

Sunday's memorial began downtown at Tucson Fire Central. As members of the Tucson Fire Pipes and Drums performed "Amazing Grace," firefighters and law enforcement officers clad in black dress uniforms stood at attention, many saluting. The bagpipers, followed by the color guard and almost 150 fire, police and military personnel, led a procession east on Cushing Street. Nearly 250 spectators joined in the short walk to the Tucson Police Department's headquarters on Stone Avenue.

After brief remarks and a 21-gun salute, dozens of emergency vehicles, lights flashing, drove to Reid Park for an hour-long memorial.

Michelle and Victor Cruz were at police headquarters with their 10-year-old twin sons, Vincent and Victor. The boys were only months old on Sept. 11, 2001. Their parents want the twins to understand the events of 9/11 and the courage witnessed that day.

"It's important, as a parent, to remind these guys of the sacrifices people made and the bravery they showed," Michelle Cruz said.

Still, said her husband, "I wish we didn't have to remember things like this."

After the TPD ceremony, the family headed to the memorial at Reid Park where the Cruzes' 17-year-old daughter, Amanda, a Tucson Fire Department cadet, was volunteering.

Brett McAteer and his 3-year-old son, Liam, were among the several hundred people at the Reid Park memorial. McAteer saw the emotional aftermath of 9/11 when he traveled to New York City from Tucson to provide grief counseling to the children of firefighters who died when the Twin Towers collapsed.

"We can't become complacent," he said. "We need to remember that this can happen."

Sisters Beth Macnow-Marsh and Sherri Macnow attended the Reid Park memorial in honor of their late mother. Harriett Macnow grew up in the Big Apple and, though she'd been a Tucsonan for 30 years, she was still a New Yorker at heart, her daughters said. She died a year ago on Sept. 11.

"She was devastated when New York was attacked," said Sherri Macnow. "She would have been here today giving hugs to everybody. She had more love than anyone I know."

Sunday had dual meaning for John Green, father of Christina-Taylor, who would have celebrated her 10th birthday on Sept. 11. He spoke of his civic-minded daughter at the memorial. Christina-Taylor was one of six people killed Jan. 8 when a gunman opened fire at a community event hosted by U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

"My little girl, Christina-Taylor Green, was born on that day. She was able to show us all what is really important in this world," he said. "We remember her for her big smile and ambitious goals. She taught us to not only dream big, but do so while helping others.

"It's painful to remember our loved ones who are no longer with us," Green said. "Let's do them the honor of making this a better world to live in."

On StarNet: See photos from anniversary ceremonies in Tucson and across the country at azstarnet.com/gallery

Contact reporter Kimberly Matas at kmatas@azstarnet.com or at 573-4191.

Composer Stephen Paulus had decided from the start that his 9/11 commemorative oratorio, "Prayers and Remembrances," would be about much more than the anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 10 years ago.

It would be a work to commemorate life and death, whether it was one person dying or 100, death by natural causes or natural disasters.

"This is a work of healing, hope and humility," he told the audience half-filling Centennial Hall Sunday afternoon for the Tucson Chamber Artists and Tucson Symphony Orchestra's world premiere performance.

Moments into the seven-movement work, conducted by TCA Music Director Eric Holtan, it was clear that Paulus had succeeded. "Prayers and Remembrances" played like a heartfelt promise of hope even in the backdrop of unfathomable heartache. It was easy to envision scenes from that fateful day. Yet the overall mood and message also could apply at the passing of a favorite uncle.

Paulus opened the oratorio with shimmering cymbals and slow rumbling percussion to set the ominous tone of Henry Vaughn's poem "They Are All Gone." Just after the choir sings the soul-heavy words - "They are all gone into the world of light! / And I alone sit lingering here" - an angelic harp and crystalline flute peep in like a brilliant rainbow.

Paulus balances the piece with similar seesawing emotions. Church bells toll against the soft strains of a harp, but before the mood gets too solemn or holy, he introduces quivering percussion, chimes from a marimba and bright and sweeping string passages that brighten the tempo.

Holtan, who with TCA patron Dorothy Vanek commissioned Paulus to write the piece, was true to Paulus' vision. He never let the choir, which was in spectacular voice Sunday, wallow in the texts - seven excerpts from sacred and secular works including the uplifting "Lord Make Me an Instrument" from St. Francis of Assisi, an inspiring passage from the traditional Navajo prayer "In Beauty It Walks" and the combined words of Mohammed and Hebrew text to emphasize loving thy neighbor.

Holtan interpreted the music with a similar light hand, bringing out the sorrow on equal footing with the joy. There was never a sense of untempered urgency from Holtan or the orchestra, which played with remarkable warmth and passion. Holtan performed with the comfortable command of someone who had been living with the piece for years, not weeks.

The concert's first half was devoted to Mozart. The enormously talented Kingfisher String Quartet - violinists Ellen Chamberlain and Benjamin Nisbet, violist Emma Noel Votapek and cellist Anne Gratz - opened with "Ave verum corpus." The orchestra and choir followed with a breathtaking performance of "Requiem."

Review

"Remembrance & Renewal: A Concert to Commemorate the Tenth Anniversary of September 11," with the Tucson Chamber Artists featuring the Tucson Symphony Orchestra and Kingfisher String Quartet at Centennial Hall Sunday. UApresents also collaborated.

Contact reporter Cathalena E. Burch at cburch@azstarnet.com or 573-4642.

NEW YORK - Determined never to forget but perhaps ready to move on, the nation gently handed Sept. 11 over to history Sunday and etched its memory on a new generation. A stark memorial took its place where twin towers once stood, and the names of the lost resounded from children too young to remember terror from a decade ago.

In New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, across the United States and the world, people carried out rituals now as familiar as they are heartbreaking: American flags unfurled at the new World Trade Center tower and the Eiffel Tower, and tears were shed at the base of the Pentagon and a base in Iraq.

President Obama quoted the Bible and spoke of finding strength in fear. George W. Bush, still new to the presidency that day, invoked the national sacrifice of the Civil War. Vice President Joe Biden said hope must grow from tragedy.

And Jessica Rhodes talked about her niece, Kathryn L. LaBorie, the lead flight attendant on the plane that hit the south tower. She remembered a radiant smile and infinite compassion, and suggested that now, 10 years later, it is time to turn a corner.

"Although she may not ever be found, she will never ever be lost to her family and her friends," Rhodes said after she read a segment of the list of the dead at ground zero. "Today we honor her by letting go of the sadness over losing her and embracing the joy of having known her."

It was the 10th time the nation has paused to remember a defining day. In doing so, it closed a decade that produced two wars, deep changes in national security, shifts in everyday life - and, months before it ended, the death at American hands of the elusive terrorist who masterminded the attack.

The anniversary took place under heightened security. In New York and Washington especially, authorities were on alert. Ahead of the anniversary, the federal government warned those cities of a tip about a possible car-bomb plot. Police searched trucks in New York, and streets near the trade center were blocked. To walk within blocks of the site, people had to go through checkpoints.

The names of the fallen - 2,983 of them, including all the victims from the three Sept. 11 attack sites and six people who died when terrorists set off a truck bomb under the towers in 1993 - echoed across a place utterly transformed.

At memorial services, people talked of grief and loss and war and justice. But they also talked of moving forward.

Obama, standing behind bulletproof glass and in front of 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."

Obama and Bush, joined by their wives, walked up to one of the pools and put their hands to some of the names. Bush later read from a letter that President Abraham Lincoln wrote to a mother believed to have lost five sons in the Civil War: "I pray that our heavenly father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement."

In a ceremony at the Pentagon, 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."

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 fourth jetliner hijacked that day a decade ago. Obama and his wife traveled to the Pennsylvania town.

During the president's visit, members of the crowd chanted, "USA! USA!" One man called out: "Thanks for getting bin Laden!" Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan in May.

"Therefore, we will not fear, even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea."

President Obama, quoting Psalm 46 at the National September 11 Memorial in New York