We still feel a great deal of emotion as we watch the remembrance ceremony from Ground Zero as it is televised every September 11.
This was the ninth year since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, the Pentagon building in Arlington, VA and Flight 93, which was crashed near Shanksville in rural Pennsylvania to keep it from its planned target of Washington D.C.
Nearly 3,000 innocent Americans lost their lives that Tuesday morning in 2001 and their families’ pain and loss ring as loud and clear now as it did the first year at Ground Zero.
We are, however, a nation that buries our dead, remembers them with memorials, parades, museums, monuments, long distance runs, essay contests, candle light vigils and interactive cemetery exhibits, speeches, tears, flowers and photographs — and moves on.
The damage to the Pentagon was cleaned up and the edifice was repaired within a year. The Pentagon Memorial is adjacent to the building.
Ground was broken for the Flight 93 National Memorial in November of 2009 and the first phase of construction should be ready for the 10th anniversary.
The rebuilding process is underway at Ground Zero and a new office tower was completed on the site of 7 World Trade Center. The new 1 World Trade Center is underway and stands at 1,776 feet high upon completion in 2013.
We are proud of the many organizations, civic groups, cemeteries which hold special remembrance services for the fallen. St. Michael’s Cemetery in East Elmhurst held one on Friday September 10 in honor of the fallen Firefighters, Police Officers and Port Authority Police.
A great number of our local elected officials attended these tributes, services, candle lit vigils all over the borough as we pause to remember those who gave their lives that day that America would emerge the proud nation that is it today.
Retired Fire Department Chief Al Santora, whose 23-year old son Christopher died on 9/11 after two months on the force, said at St. Michael’ Cemetery that the memorials give him and his family hope and comfort.
“I’m glad to see everyone here has not forgotten. What is important is that almost 3,000 people died and we have to keep them in our hearts,” said Chief Santora.
We keep them in our hearts too.
