By SARA KUGLER, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK - With quavering voices, parents and grandparents of those killed at the World Trade Center read the names of the victims in a solemn recitation early Saturday to mark the third anniversary of the terror attacks.
Moments of silence were observed at 8:46 and 9:03 a.m., the times two planes slammed into the trade center towers on Sept. 11, 2001. Similar moments were to be observed to mark the times of the towers’ collapse.
The president and first lady presided over a moment of silence on the White House’s South Lawn as the nation began a day of remembrance. At Arlington National Cemetery, there was a moment of silence at 9:37, the time that another hijacked plane hit the Pentagon where 184 people died.
On the west edge of the trade center site in lower Manhattan, parents and grandparents stood in pairs at two podiums, reading the list of the 2,749 people killed there — a recitation expected to last more than two hours.
They read slowly and precisely, and added poignant dedications when they reached the names of their own loved ones. “We miss you, Chris,” said Patricia Allingham, who lost her son.
Gov. George Pataki quoted former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, describing losses of World War II: “There’s no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.”
At sundown, light beams that evoke the twin towers will be projected upward from a lot near the site, to remain on through the night. The memorial lights were first seen on March 11, 2002, to mark six months since the attack, with a plan to light them each year for the anniversary.
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