SAN DIEGO - The eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorism attacks were marked at somber ceremonies around San Diego Friday.
The University of San Diego paid tribute to the nearly 3,000 people killed during the terrorist attacks with moments of prayer and reflection. A Mass was held at 12:15 p.m.
Aboard the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier Museum, officials read the names of the victims of the attack. The event featured a 21-gun salute and a San Diego Fire-Rescue Department helicopter flyover.
Hundreds marched through San Diego's Balboa Park during the third annual "Freedom Walk" to reflect on the lives lost during the terrorist strikes, which claimed about 600 more lives than the number of people killed in the surprise Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
The "Freedom Walk event, sponsored by Operation Homefront, began at 3:30 p.m. with a ceremony at the Veterans Memorial Garden. Retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Len Herring was the guest speaker at the event.
On Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers slammed two airliners into the World Trade Center in New York. Both buildings later collapsed with hundreds trapped inside. A third plane slammed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a fourth crashed in a Pennsylvania field after passengers acted to thwart the terrorists' plans to crash it into a Washington, D.C., landmark, believed to have been the Capitol or the White House.
