It’s a matter of respect for fallen comrades, they say
By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
Firefighters in two Hillsborough fire stations will hold their annual remembrance ceremonies next Thursday for the "fallen heroes" who died in the 9-11 terror attacks.
They feel they must remember, and pass along the tradition.
The public is invited to join both services.
Volunteer Fire Co. No. 3’s memorial service is at the fire station at 324 Woods Road at 7 p.m. There will be a bagpiper, color guard and playing of taps.
Fire Company No. 2 will hold its annual ceremony in the morning from about 9:45 to 10:30 at the firehouse at 375 Route 206.
At both events, members of local police, fire, rescue squad and auxilians will read the names of the 403 emergency responders who lost their lives trying to rescue people after two hijacked jetliners were deliberately flown into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in New York City.
Patrick Kelly, Company 2’s chief in 2002-03, said the ceremony will ring the station’s bell and observe silence for the two minutes, 10:05 and 10:28, that the towers collapsed from the damage.
This will be the 13th annual remembrance by the two fire companies. Mr. Kelly has vowed to continue it every year "as long as I’m alive," he said.
"While I may not have known all of the 343 firefighters, we all know what they went through," Mr. Kelly said. "They would pay us the same respect."
Tim Coyle, chief of the Woods Road company in 2008-09, said taking the roll of the fallen is something the local fire-fighting fraternity does because "you have a personal sense of duty," he said.
He wants to help engrain the tradition in the next generation of fire fighters, too, he said. The company has some young members who were only eight or nine years old at the time of the attack, and he feels they, as firefighters, are now able to grasp what was going on. Some of them will join the reading of names, he said.
Mr. Kelly said fire fighters, police and emergency responders are a brotherhood, and a close-knit group. "We may fight with one another but don’t let anyone come and pick a fight with us," he said.
Mr. Kelly said calls of "never forget" and "never again" seem to be quickly lost in the fog of history.
"We can’t let ‘never forget’ just be words," he said.
Both ceremonies will be held in plazas around monuments made out of pieces of steel from the towers’ twisted remains.
Mr. Coyle said Station 36’s ceremony will be at night to entice neighbors to attend. He said 9-11 is this generation’s equivalent of Pearl Harbor, and it has had the effect of kindling a patriotic spirit, if flags in his neighborhood are any sign, he said.
"9-11 still touches many people’s hearts, especially in this area, being so close," he said.
Both men say they recall the bright and clear day when they first heard the morning news that a plane had flown into one of the towers. They both thought it was an accident by a small aircraft.
When word came that a second plane had hit the other tower, they knew it was no accident, they said.