From Military.com:
“Bells Toll as the US Marks 22 Years Since 9/11, From Ground
Zero to Alaska”
Bells tolled at ground zero and solemn tributes unfolded
around the country as Americans looked back Monday on the horror and legacy of
9/11. People gathered at memorials, firehouses, city halls, campuses and
elsewhere to observe the 22nd anniversary of the deadliest terror attack on
U.S. soil. Nearly 3,000 people were killed when hijacked planes crashed at New
York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and the
attack reshaped American foreign policy and domestic fears.
“For those of us who lost people on that day, that day is
still happening. Everybody else moves on. And you find a way to go forward, but
that day is always happening for you,” Edward Edelman said as he arrived at
ground zero to honor his slain brother-in-law, Daniel McGinley.
President Joe Biden is due at a ceremony on a military base
in Anchorage. His visit, en route to Washington, D.C., from a trip to India and
Vietnam, is a reminder that the impact of 9/11 was felt in every corner of the
nation, however remote. The hijacked plane attacks claimed nearly 3,000 lives
and reshaped American foreign policy and domestic fears. On that day, “we were
one country, one nation, one people, just like it should be. That was the
feeling — that everyone came together and did what we could, where we were at,
to try to help," said Eddie Ferguson, the fire-rescue chief in Virginia’s Goochland
County.
It's more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the Pentagon
and more than three times as far from New York. But a sense of connection is
enshrined in a local memorial incorporating steel from the World Trade Center’s
destroyed twin towers. The predominantly rural county of 25,000 people holds
not just one but two anniversary commemorations: a morning service focused on
first responders and an evening ceremony honoring all the victims.
Other communities across the country pay tribute with moments
of silence, tolling bells, candlelight vigils and other activities. In
Columbus, Indiana, 911 dispatchers broadcast a remembrance message to police,
fire and EMS radios throughout the 50,000-person city, which also holds a
public memorial ceremony. Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts raise and lower the flag
at a commemoration in Fenton, Missouri, where a “Heroes Memorial” includes a
piece of World Trade Center steel and a plaque honoring 9/11 victim Jessica
Leigh Sachs. Some of her relatives live in the St. Louis suburb of 4,000
residents. “We’re just a little bitty community,” said Mayor Joe Maurath, but
“it’s important for us to continue to remember these events. Not just 9/11, but
all of the events that make us free.”
New Jersey's Monmouth County, which was home to some 9/11
victims, made Sept. 11 a holiday this year for county employees so they could
attend commemorations.
As another way of marking the anniversary, many Americans do
volunteer work on what Congress has designated both Patriot Day and a National
Day of Service and Remembrance. At ground zero, Vice President Kamala Harris is
due to join the ceremony on the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum plaza.
The event will not feature remarks from political figures, instead giving the
podium to victims’ relatives for an hourslong reading of the names of the dead.
James Giaccone signed up to read again this year in memory of his brother,
Joseph Giaccone, 43. The family attends the ceremony every year to hear
Joseph's name. "If their name is spoken out loud, they don’t disappear,”
James Giaccone said in a recent interview. The commemoration is crucial to him.
“I hope I never see the day when they minimize this,” he said. “It's a day that
changed history.”
Biden, a Democrat, will be the first president to commemorate
Sept. 11 in Alaska, or anywhere in the western U.S. He and his predecessors
have gone to one or another of the attack sites in most years, though
Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama each marked the anniversary
on the White House lawn at times. Obama followed one of those observances by
recognizing the military with a visit to Fort Meade in Maryland.
First lady Jill Biden is due to lay a wreath at the 9/11
memorial at the Pentagon. In Pennsylvania, where one of the hijacked jets
crashed after passengers tried to storm the cockpit, a remembrance and
wreath-laying is scheduled at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Stoystown
operated by the National Park Service. Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, is
expected to attend the ceremony. The memorial site will offer a new educational
video, virtual tour and other materials for teachers to use in classrooms.
Educators with a total of more than 10,000 students have registered for access
to the free “National Day of Learning” program, which will be available through
the fall, organizers say. “We need to get the word out to the next generation,”
said memorial spokesperson Katherine Hostetler, a National Park Service ranger.
^ It’s hard to believe that it has been 22 years. ^
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