It was the deadliest foreign attack on American soil, with the nearly 3,000 people killed as terrorists commandeered aircraft that would crash into the twin towers in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a field in Shanksville in western Pennsylvania.
Nineteen years after the 9/11 attacks, Phillipsburg on Friday hosted one of several commemorations planned across the Lehigh Valley.
The service opened with a bell tolling nine times, followed by 11 peals at the close. The Rev. Bill Slack read a timeline of attacks.
Speaker town Councilman Harry Wyant Jr. was mayor in 2001 and like most of us who were alive at the time, as current Mayor Todd Tersigni observed, remembers exactly where he was and what he was doing. Wyant was sitting in his office, going over expenses, when he got word a plane had crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
His first thought was: what a horrific accident, an initial misunderstanding that would be resolved when a second plane slammed into the South Tower 17 minutes later.
“We didn’t know where it was going to happen next,” Wyant said during Friday’s memorial service in Shappell Park. “We didn’t know whether we were safe here in Phillipsburg.”
Council President Randy Piazza Jr. said it’s difficult to remember life before the attacks altered everyday routines and before the selfless acts of heroism and sacrifice of those who responded.
“Before we witnessed and in some cases experienced unimaginable loss,” he said. “As the years pass us by, we become more removed from the experience that changed us all. For future generations, there is no before. Our way of life was altered so drastically for us, it is now commonplace for them.”
Piazza echoed the words repeated on every anniversary of that Tuesday, a cloudless late-summer day across the region: Never forget.
“We don’t want to forget that day because we don’t want to relive it,” he said. “In one moment everything could change, so try to take time out of your day and enjoy life a little more, cherish all moments big and small and don’t take anything for granted.”
Tersigni said he believes the country came together on 9/11 and that the experience strengthened the nation, even as it’s hard to believe nearly two decades have since passed.
“It does not seem like it was 19 years ago that our country was attacked by terrorists,” he said. “Many fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, husbands and wives and even grandchildren were taken in this most horrific way.”
The mayor asked the community members and representatives of the Phillipsburg Police Department, Fire Department and Emergency Squad gathered Friday to join him in prayer and remembrance of those who lost their lives and loved ones, and to honor those who continue to fight for the United States.
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Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.
The Link LonkSeptember 12, 2020 at 03:26AM
https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/phillipsburg/2020/09/911-remembered-in-phillipsburg-we-dont-want-to-forget-that-day-photos.html
9/11 remembered in Phillipsburg: ‘We don’t want to forget that day’ (PHOTOS) - lehighvalleylive.com
https://news.google.com/search?q=forget&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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