Eleven Lives

No one knew what to call it at first, so the numbers became the name. On this 9/11 there will be bells and bagpipes and a rolling requiem of choirs singing Mozart from time zone to time zone, circling the globe with love and lament. But for the 11 people TIME has followed this year, it may be just another day: for a girl in New Jersey without her dad, a day of avoiding the news; for a girl in Pakistan with divided loyalties, a day of avoiding her friends. For a commando in Afghanistan and a Customs inspector in Detroit, it's a day of weighing fears and threats. It may be a day of argument for the attorney who is defending a suspected terrorist by suing the President of the U.S., and it will most certainly be a day of planning for a President at war on many fronts. These 11 lives teach 11 lessons, in courage and conflict and grace.