Hawai'i pays tribute to victims of Sept. 11
By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer
One year later, on the eleventh day of September 2002, dawn broke amid a tropical downpour on the streets of Honolulu. It was a hard cleansing from the heavens as the sun rose on the last corner of a grieving nation.
Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser
A cross draped with an American flag sits fronting the congregation at Kawaiaha’o Church during the singing of Mozart’s Requiem this morning.
The weight of a tragedy came with this day, the first anniversary of terrorist attacks that at one time felt very far away.
But not today. Not ever again.
All across the state this morning, the people of Hawai'i took stock of their lives and remembered the thousands of victims who died when hijacked airliners plowed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.
In churches and schools, at military installations brimming with security, during patriotic speeches by politicians, they mourned for people they didn't know.
And at 10:05 a.m. many of them stopped everything they were doing for a statewide moment of silence.
In the minute that followed, the message to those who died was clear and simple: We love you. We miss you. Your lives did not vanish into a pile of rubble.
Even before sunrise, people gathered in Hilo, at the rotunda of the Wailoa State Center. More than 60 Big Island residents — bleary-eyed and dressed in red, white and blue — held candles at 2:48 a.m. to mark the moment that the first hijacked plane found its target, the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
"This tragedy is still being digested in every home and every school, this unbelievable thing that took place, like something from hell," said Yasuf Tamimi, a retired agricultural professor.
Tony Long, an interior designer, spoke of family — of 'ohana.
"As we stand here as one big 'ohana, let us blow aloha around the world," Long said.
Flags throughout the state flew at half-staff. At Hickam Air Force Base, several hundred people gathered just before 7 a.m. to salute the raising of the U.S. flag and its lowering to half-staff.
Chief Master Sgt. Normia Carter sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," her voice rising in the fresh morning air. She was followed by Col. Al Riggle, base commander.
"We remember the innocent lives that were lost in a terrible cascade of smoke and flames and twisted metal," Riggle said. "Think back to that morning when our lives were changed forever. When our purpose was clearly defined for us. When the world paused to watch us, first in shock and then in awe of our response."
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
Employees from Architects Hawaii huddle under an umbrella outside of their office building at Pacific Tower, Bishop Square, to observe a moment of silence. Tugar Nadai, far right, is a relative of Michael L. Collins, a victim of the New York attack while an employee with Cantor Fitzgerald.
Rita Lee, a former New York resident now living in Florida, had come to Hickam with her husband so the two of them could visit their son, Air Force Maj. Kurt Lee. The ceremony left her in tears.
"I thought about all the people that died," she said. "You want to keep on thinking about what happened, not forget."
Students at the University of Hawai'i Campus Center in Manoa, joined by the staff of radio station Star 101.9, read the names of the victims. They started at 7 a.m.
As a microphone was passed from student to student and each name was read, a station staff member pulled the clapper of a heavy brass ship's bell. Corine Armstrong, an 18-year-old freshman whose father is in the military, wiped away tears as she read from the list and then passed the microphone to Nicole Kunihisa.
"You don't actually think of who the people are until you read their names," Armstrong said.
"That was kind of special," Kunahisa said.
The solemn event continued through the morning drawing an ever growing crowd to the steps, called by the mournful tolling of the bell.
"We wanted to do something that would touch a lot of people," said Jose Figueras, the radio station's 24-year-old senior account executive. "We're going to go until we're done."
In the first three hours 1,500 names were read.
The feeling of loss and remembrace was similar at Kaiser High School, where students, teachers and staff gathered for a 10-minute service before school to remember one of their own, Maile Hale, a 1993 graduate.
"Maile Hale was one of the gentlest, most caring people," said Diane Ueki, school librarian. "It just seems unfair that something like this would happen to her."
That's how Charlotte Keane felt, too, as she sat in the back pew of Kawaiaha'o Church, where hundreds of people had gathered to hear Mozart's Requiem as part of a worldwide performance.
Keane struggled with exhaustion. She had been up late trying to hear her brother's name read during a televised presentation of services at the World Trade Center.
She never did.
Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser
Honolulu Fire Department Honor Guard member Keola Ahuna from Engine 23 bows his head during a moment of silence during ceremonies held outside Honolulu Hale.
But at the historic church, she could still remember her brother, Richard Keane, an insurance executive at Marsh & McLennan who died in the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
Overpowered at times by the strains of Mozart, she'd glance down at his photograph, which she carried with her, and dried her eyes with tissue. Her brother was a music lover.
"He didn't have any talent, but he'd sing," she said. "Not anything you'd want to hear."
After the Requiem, she walked out to King Street to listen as churches across town marked the anniversary by ringing bells just before the statewide moment of silence.
That moment of silence was timed to match those being held in each county across Hawai'i. It was followed by a second moment of silence at 10:28 a.m. that was observed by the mayors of each county.
Both of these moments were chosen to mark the times when each of the World Trade Center towers collapsed.
Carla Estimba, a Hawaiian Airlines flight attendant, was one of nearly 1,000 people who gathered at the steps of Honolulu Hale. She was there to pay her respects "for everything we lost that day."
Her mood was somber and haunted by memories of the attack, by the deaths of strangers.
"Not one day goes by that I don't think of the day they perished," Estimba said.
Across the street in the state Capitol rotunda, 500 people bowed their heads for the first moment. Some held hands. Sam Callejo, chief of staff for Gov. Ben Cayetano, rang the Liberty Bell at 10:05.
"It was very moving," said Christine Higa, a graphic designer for Studio Ignition in downtown, after the moment of silence. Higa wore a T-shirt designed with the American flag, something she picked out for today.
She prayed during the stillness of the ceremony.
"I was just praying for our leaders and for our country," she said.
For Jeannette Koijane, who runs a Dying with Dignity project with the state Office on Aging, the attacks a year ago reminded Americans to appreciate loved ones.
One year later, the message still rings true.
"I encourage people to take stock in what they have," she said. "To be thankful for what we do have."
The four-man crew on duty at the Central Fire Station on Beretania Street observed the moments by standing at attention beside a gleaming, polished engine.
Several dozen Hawaii Pacific University students also paused, gathering beneath an awning as they stared at the firefighters through a light drizzle.
It was a moment to remember. A moment they wouldn't forget.
Advertiser staff writers Hugh Clark, William Cole, Suzanne Roig, Treena Shapiro, Mary Kaye Ritz, Lynda Arakawa, Bev Creamer and Kevin Dayton contributed to this report.
