Survivors at three gatherings talk of heroism, loss and love

0 Comments | USA TODAY, September, 2006 | by Rick Hampson; Charisse Jones; Tom Vanden Brook; Laura Parker

From Ground Zero to the Pentagon and a remote field in western Pennsylvania, Monday's fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks prompted Americans to measure the day's meaning through the words and tears of the victims' survivors. Memorials, dedications and religious services marked the day when Muslim extremists turned jetliners into weapons and ushered in what has come to seem like the age of terrorism.

"It surely cannot be easy to come to this site and speak out loud the name of the person you had thought would always be next to you," New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg told thousands at Ground Zero, where 2,749 died when the World Trade Center towers collapsed. "We stand by your side, yet who can know what is in your hearts?" He soon got an answer. After...