He could never leave me behind…and I

Had chosen to remain close to his side

-- Beowulf

heroes…

As the sole corporate chef for Fiduciary Trust on the South Tower's 96th floor. Clark urged hundreds of people to head down the stairs…

Benjamin “Keefe”

Clark

Avery arrived in New York just more than a week after September 11 to serve as volunteer coordinator at St. Paul's Chapel, an Episcopal church- turned relief center just yards from Ground Zero.

Katherine Avery

Tom Burnett Jr. made four phone calls to his wife Deena from United Airlines Flight 93 after learning of the attacks on New York and Washington and pledged to "do something."

Thomas Burnett Jr.

An equities trader on the South Tower's 104th floor, Crowther helped dozens of people to safety on September 11.

Welles Crowther

A Pentagon police officer, Ho'opi'i ran back-and-forth from the burning building, carrying eight people to safety. On one of his last trips in, he yelled, "If you can hear me, head toward my voice."

Isaac Ho'opi'i

A graduate student, Jones was driving to school when he spotted smoke over the Pentagon. He pulled into the building's parking lot and began rescuing people from the debris.

Eric Jones

Lim, a Port Authority K-9 officer, was in the South Tower when American Flight 11 slammed into the North Tower. He ran up to the North Tower's 44th floor before heading down.

David Lim

Schulman arrived shortly after both towers had been hit,and she twice narrowly skirted death when the buildings fell.

One of just a handful of women in the 11,000+ strong New York City fire department, Schulman spent many hours at Ground Zero working alongside her colleagues -- two of whom are her brothers.

Maureen Schulman

A New York City 911 operator for the last 21 years,

Yvette Washington-Montagne talked to distraught

family members and others injured in the terrorist

attacks. She stayed on the job for 16 hours.

Yvette Washington-Montagne

Lim, a Port Authority K-9 officer, was in the South Tower when American Flight 11 slammed into the North Tower. He ran up to the North Tower's 44th floor before heading down.

David Lim

On September 9, 2003, two days ago, - a coffin holding a vial of Michael Ragusa's blood was carried by firetruck Monday to his funeral, where the 29-year-old became the last of the 343 firefighters killed in the attack on the World Trade Center to be memorialized.

Many a treasure fetched from far was freighted with him. No ship have I known so nobly fitted with breastplate and blade: on his bosom lay a heaped hoard that hence should go far o'er the flood with him floating away. No less these loaded the lordly gifts, thanes' huge treasure, than those had done who in former time forth had sent him sole on the seas, a suckling child. High o'er his head they hoist the standard, a gold-wove banner; let billows take him, gave him to ocean. from Beowulf

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a small piece of dirt is washed away by the sea, our continent is the less… any man's death diminishes us, because we are involved in mankind… and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.” -- John Donne