Sept. 11 marked with mourning and a spirit of service

NEW YORK (AP) — With familiar rituals of grief and a new purpose to honor those who rushed into danger to help, the nation marked eight years since the Sept. 11 terror attacks Friday, with volunteers reading the names of the World Trade Center lost.

Memorials in New York, at the Pentagon and at the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania all took place under gray skies, and those reading names at ground zero spoke under tents to protect against rain.

"We miss you. Life will never be the same without you," said Vladimir Boyarsky, whose son, Gennady Boyarsky, was killed. "This is not the rain. This is the tears."

President Barack Obama, observing his first Sept. 11 as president, had signed an order declaring it a day of service. He had first lady Michelle Obama marked a moment of silence outside the White House as a bugler played taps.

The president said the nation came together after the attacks, "united not only in our grief but in our resolve to stand up for the country we love."

In Shanksville, Pa., bells tolled for the 40 victims of the fourth hijacked jetliner that crashed there eight years ago.

At the trade center site, volunteers — from soup kitchens, advocacy groups, the Red Cross, the United Way — joined relatives of the lost to read the names of those killed in the twin towers.

"I ask that you honor my son and all those who perished eight years ago ... by volunteering, by making some kind of act of kindness in their memory," said Gloria Russin, whose son, Steven Harris Russin, was killed on 9/11.

Around the country, Americans packed up care packages for soldiers, planted gardens for low-income families and painted abandoned, boarded-up homes. The anniversary was declared a day of service for the first time this year to honor the spirit of those who rushed to the burning towers to save lives.

Renewing what has become a poignant tradition, the relatives called out greetings and messages of remembrances when they reached the names of their own loved ones.

"We love you, Dad, and we miss you," said Philip Hayes Jr., whose father, long retired from the Fire Department, rushed to the site that 2001 morning and ultimately gave his life.

Umbrellas bloomed and whipped inside-out at ground zero, where moments of silence were observed at 8:46, 9:03, 9:59 and 10:29 a.m. — the precise times that jetliners struck the north and south towers of the trade center and that each tower fell.