Strength Amid Sadness

San Francisco: People hold hands and sing songs. Candles are lit, and some melt wax onto the hands of the holder.  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

Nevada: At the Circus Circus casino in Reno, workers stop to talk about the terrorist attacks. Rob Kendall flashes a peace sign.  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

Utah: John Maycock holds a homemade sign and weeps during the national anthem at the Capitol Building in Salt Lake City.  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

Utah: In Salt Lake City, the Skyline Eagles play the Kearns Cougars in one of the only high school football games in the state on this day. Here, the Eagles raise their arms on the sidelines.  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

Utah: Truckers along Interstate 80, near the Wyoming border, proudly fly their American flags. This one hangs from a truck’s exhaust pipe.  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

Wyoming: Ron Hawkins lives on the 5,000-acre Walker 91 Ranch in Centennial. “We are so far away ... that I felt the guilt of not being able to be a part of the solution.”  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

Colorado: Gene Martin, left, and Mike Bashor enjoy fishing in Poudre Canyon. “It’s nice to be away from the news ... not that it’s not in the back of your head all the time,” Bashor says.  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

Kansas: Students salute at St. John’s Military School in Salina. Captain E.A. Alexander says he told the boys, “The world has changed from under us.”  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

Kansas: Steve Hoover stands on his farm outside Abilene. “When I saw that second plane hit that tower on television and the tower crumbled ... I felt for them.”  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

Kansas: More than 5,000 people form a human flag in a Shawnee Mission park in Shawnee. Everyone brings a change of clothes in case they need to shift colors.  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

Missouri: Carter Blumeyer bows his head after returning to Columbia from New York with the Missouri Task Force 1 Urban Search and Rescue team.  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

Missouri: Columbia welcomes home its 62-member search and rescue team. Sophie Spicci, 3, and her mother, Amy, hold a sign for Tony Spicci.  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

Missouri: Search and rescue team member Chuck Doss hugs his mother, Gayla Latham, upon arriving home from New York to a hero’s welcome in Columbia.  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

Indiana: On a sunny Saturday morning after the attacks, Gary and Shane Martin, 6 and 5, play in the window of their mother’s Kirby Vacuum Co. distributing business in Evansville.  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

Indiana: Firefighter Sam Scmitt and his son Clay each pay $1 to sign a giant flag in Evansville. The money will go to families of NYC firefighters. The collection averages $17,000 a day.  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

Kentucky: At the Quinn Chapel A.M.E. Church in Lexington, Destiny Parker, 8, hugs her grandmother. The day’s sermon topic: “What do you do when you run out of cheeks?”  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

Pennsylvania: A giant American flag at Jennerstown Speedway will be the centerpiece of a vigil for victims of United Flight 93 in Jennerstown. Flight 93 crashed several miles away in Shanksville.  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

Pennsylvania: A cross overlooks the once peaceful valley in Shanksville where United Flight 93 crashed. Power lines and paved roads were installed for investigators.  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

Pennsylvania: Memorials dot the farmland around the crash site of United Flight 93 in Shanksville. Locals visit regularly to express their grief and gratitude with flowers.  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

Washington, D.C.: While tourists snap photos of the White House from Pennsylvania Avenue, snipers stand guard on the roof. Pennsylvania Avenue is closed to traffic.  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

Virginia: An honor guard carries the coffin of Navy Cmdr. Vince Tolbert at Arlington National Cemetery. Tolbert was killed when American Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

New York: Matt Hand, 23, views the destruction at the World Trade Center site as people climb scaffolding to get a better view. Hand worked at the American Stock exchange.  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

New York: Tourists and locals on the Staten Island Ferry note how different the Manhattan skyline looks without the twin towers. The World Trade Center used to be just above the woman’s finger.  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

New York: A girl joins a salute for fallen firefighter Michael Thomas Quilty at St. Teresa’s Church on Staten Island. Sixteen funerals and memorial services for firefighters are held this day.  (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)