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A passenger plane flies over the Pentagon today. The flag marks the point of impact of American Airlines Flight 77 on 9/11 a decade ago. Photo: Toby Harnden

The memorial ceremonies each year at Ground Zero tend to focus principally on the innocents who died. That's certainly part of the remembrances at the Pentagon. But because?the Pentagon is?the nerve centre of the United States?military,?there is also a strong element of raw anger that the enemy could strike such a cowardly blow ? turning a passenger plane carrying?civilians into a missile ? at this iconic centre of American power.

Along with this anger, still visceral a decade on, comes a rather Old Testament view of the righteousness of the?American retribution that followed. This was apparent today in a stirring speech by Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff,and America's most senior military officer. He said:

They could bring down the walls, but they could not bring down America. They could kill our citizens, but they could not kill our citizenship.??And in that spirit and with that pride, a whole new generation has been inspired to serve, many of them in uniform.

Indeed, 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, who will retire shortly, is a mild-mannered man. And he also said in his short speech that "sometimes in war it isn't the enemy lives you take that matter most, but rather the innocent lives you save". But his talk of vengeance was a striking reminder of how America felt on 9/11 ? and to some extent still feels.

For me, it brought echoes of what Lieutenant Colonel Brian?Birdwell, very badly burned in the Pentagon on 9/11, told me nine years ago about how to deal with the organisation that carried out the attacks:

We need to cut it down, tear it up by the roots and destroy it, anywhere it exists on the face of the Earth. As for Osama bin Laden, I'd have nothing to say to him. I'd just like to look him in the eye, smile and slowly squeeze my trigger.

Bin Laden, of course, is ? finally -?dead. The US Navy SEAL who killed him probably didn't have the chance to look him in the eye and smile. But squeeze the trigger he did.??Birwell is now a state senator in Texas.

Meeting relatives of victims today was emotional and humbling. I talked to Donn Marshall, who lost his wife Shelley, then 37, at the Pentagon. With his?arms around his son Drake, 13, and daughter Chandler, 11, he paused at a marble tablet marked with 184 names,?recalling his wife and their mother.

Shelley Marshall, 37, a Defence Intelligence Agency analyst, died instantly when Flight 77 hit the Pentagon. Marshall arrived at the Pentagon to help with the rescue and look for his family.

Symbols of remembrance on Donn Marshall's lapel. Photo: Toby Harnden

He told me that when he found his children at an evacuation ?it was the happiest moment of my life and then it became the worst?. He?was also in the DIA and working at a facility two miles away in Crystal City. He had talked to his wife about 20 minutes before the plane hit, two intelligence analysts comparing notes on the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York. What he saw when he got to the building was hellish:

I remember the smell of the fire and the fuel and walking across pieces of airplane. When I got here the gash of the building was right where the flag is there. Shelley's office was at the other end of this facade 100 yards away. I knew something wrong because Shelley was not at the daycare to get the kids.

That evening he had to face??the hardest decision I ever had to make? ? whether to keep looking for his wife or go to look after his children. ?I thought,? 'They're wondering where their parents and I don?t know if Shelley's in there or in hospital.? I thought the kids needed a parent and Shelley would want me to go to them.?

It wasn't for another three days that she was confirmed as having died instantly.

Obviously the odds were pretty slim by then. But this was a woman who seven hours of nthe wrost kind of labour because she didn't want the doctor to use forceps to remove Drake. So if she could do that, I knew she hang in there as long as it took. I wasn't going to give up on her. I didn't give up until I got the phone call at 7 o'clock that night.

We spent the time, her brothers and I, calling whoever we could reach trying to guide them to her area of the Pentagon to make sure that the rescuers got there. She was an amazing woman.

There's the grief that doesn't go away. But I also appreciate the time I had with her even more. Next year's going to be harder for me because I knew Shelley for 11 years and after next year the clock starts going inthe other direction. She'll be gone longer than I knew her.??

He had to explain to Drake what had happened. "Drake was three," he said. "He was old enough to know that something was wrong. I remember talking to him afterwards and telling them that his mother wasn't coming home, that God needed another angel.?

In the decade since 9/11,?Marshall said, he felt that America had lost something it gained:

I look at where we were after 9/11, the way we helped each other out. I remember at one point coming up to a four-way stop and I think we were there for five minutes with people saying, 'No, after you', 'After you'. We were polite to each other. We were kind to each other. We took longer vacations with our families. We sat down to dinner with each other.

And now, 10 years later there's discord. We were a unified nation and now it looks like we're warring tribes. That bothers me.?You watch the news and we just can't get anythig done. It's not just the politicans any more. It's the rest of us. We won't compromise. It's single-mindedness like that that flies planes into buildings in the end.

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A memorial to those who died at the Pentagon on 9/11. Shelley Marshall's name it at the top of the fifth column from the left. Photo: Toby Harnden

Lisa Dolan, 50,?was wearing the Annapolis Naval Academy class ring of her husband Captain Robert Dolan on a chain around her neck. ?It was actually found a few days after the Pentagon collapsed, in the rubble, by an FBI agent," she said. "This was the only personal effect that I received back.?

A survivor had been able to tell her what her husband was doing when he died, a source of immense pride and comfort. ?At the time of impact he was in the Navy Command Centre where they were already gearing up and planning. Obviously, we were already at war.?