US military and political leaders on Sunday paid solemn tribute to the victims of the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon and to troops who have waged a war of ‘vengeance’ in the decade since.
"Lives ended in this place. Dreams were shattered. Futures were instantly altered. Hopes were tragically dashed," Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a ceremony marking the day a hijacked airliner slammed into the US military headquarters ten years ago.
Mullen, joined by Vice President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, said the attack inspired a new generation to join the armed forces as the country sought retribution against Al-Qaeda militants.
"From this place of wrath and tears, America's military ventured forth as the long arm and clenched fist of an angry nation at war. And we have remained at war ever since, visiting upon our enemies the vengeance they were due and providing for the American people the common defense they demand," Mullen said.
As survivors and victims' families sat under a blistering sun, a Navy chorus sang "Amazing Grace" before troops from every branch of the military laid a wreath one-by-one at each marker for those killed in the attack.
Ceremony starts at attack time
The ceremony opened at about the same time American Airlines Flight 77, a hijacked Boeing 757, struck the Pentagon at 9:37 am on the morning of September 11, 2001.
The attack, which caused a section of the western wing of the building to collapse in a cloud of black smoke, killed all 59 people aboard the plane and 125 people working at the Pentagon, along with the five hijackers.
President Barack Obama and his wife also visited the Pentagon memorial on Sunday to lay a wreath and speak to victims' families, after paying his respects at memorials at Ground Zero in New York and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where United Airlines Flight 93 went down.
The Pentagon ceremony came a day after a suicide bombing in Afghanistan that underscored the dangers of the grinding ten-year-old war there, where nearly 100,000 US troops remain deployed.