VALDOSTA —
Eleven years ago on Sept. 11, the United States watched in horror as unnamed terrorists hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 and crashed them into the World Trade Center.
We feared for national security when the hijackers flew AA Flight 77 into the Pentagon, and took in the bittersweet news of the heroic passengers aboard UA Flight 93, who lost their lives preventing another impact in a revolt against the terrorists.
Together we wept, we mourned and we took action. And the lesson we learned was one of survival and constant vigilance — a lesson that Valdosta and Lowndes County emergency professionals will work to never forget.
The City of Valdosta will host its 10th annual 9-11 Remembrance Ceremony Tuesday at 8:45 a.m. at Valdosta Fire Station #1, 106 Oak Street. The significance of the early ceremony is to hold a moment of silence during the time when the first plane hit the twin towers, 8:46 a.m.
Following the moment
of silence, Mayor Pro Tem Alvin Payton, Jr. will deliver a short speech, the VFD Pipe and Drum Corps will play patriotic selections, and the Woodsmen of the World will present American flags to the VFD and the Valdosta Police Department, which will replace last year’s flags.
In contrast to last year’s large 10th anniversary ceremony, this year’s remembrance will last no longer than half an hour.
“It won’t be very long, just significant,” said Sementha Mathews, Public Information Officer for the City of Valdosta. “It’s on a work day. It’s still a big deal to us, but it probably will not be a high attender. We’re expecting 75 to 100 people. There are people in the community who will come every year to this. It’s for those people, and for us to remember.”
At 11 a.m., Lowndes County Board of Commissioners will hold its annual Wreath Ceremony on the lawn of the Lowndes County Courthouse. Commissioners, Lowndes County Fire Rescue and the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office will lay a wreath on the courthouse square in front of the Sept. 11 monuments, will hold a prayer and observe a moment of silence.
“I think it’s important not what we remember; it’s important what we don’t forget—the people who lost their lives to defend the freedom of the nation,” County Clerk Paige Dukes said.
About 2,750 people died in New York, 184 at the Pentagon, and 40 in Pennsylvania, where the flight 93 passengers attempted to re-take the plane, according to Brittanica.com. More than 400 police officers and firefighters were killed in total.
The Sept. 11 attacks affected Valdosta “just like the rest of the country,” VFD Chief J.D. Rice said. “It hit home because we (the U.S.) had 343 firefighters die in the World Trade Center, so that was personal to us.”
More than cause immense devastation, the attacks put a crack in our confidence, Rice said. We saw that the United States wasn’t invulnerable. What’s more, Valdosta received disturbing news a few months later from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“The FBI showed us the floor plans of a high school in Taylor County, Ga. that they’d gotten from al-Qaeda, so we started doing assessments here in Valdosta,” Rice said. “If (terrorists) really want to make us feel we’re not safe, they’ll hit small town America. Most people work in the city, but they live outside the city.”
Rice said the VFD has since taken steps to “handle that situation if the need arises,” but the important thing is that we never forget those who died in New York and Washington.
“Sometimes we get complacent as time goes by,” Rice said. “But we have to stay vigilant, we have to stay prayerful, and we have to stay mindful that we’ve still got folks out there that want to do us harm.”
For more on this story and other local news, subscribe to The Valdosta Daily Times e-Edition, or our print edition.
