By Jeanette DeForge | jdeforge@repub.com
SPRINGFIELD – Whether it was a 25-year-old Air Force lieutenant escorting passenger planes to safety, a lawyer who signed up to join the military or a firefighter who watched first responders run into the World Trade Center in New York knowing they may not make it out, they all remember one thing from Sept. 11, 2001.
The country came together in a united front.
“We can go back to Sept. 10, 2001, we were all fighting, all at each other’s throat,” state Sen. John Velis, D-Westfield, said. “Or we can go back to Sept. 12, 2001 … flags everywhere, people loving thy neighbor, being able to talk, have disagreements without being disagreeable.”
Velis, who joined the military that day, remains a major in the Army National Guard, joined with commanders for Westfield’s 104th Fighter Wing and Chicopee’s 439th Airlift Wing, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Springfield, Mayor Domenic J. Sarno, Police Superintendent Lawrence Akers, multiple city officials, state legislators and police and firefighters on Thursday’s 24th anniversary of the terrorist attacks to remember the 3,000 killed.
The event was held at the city’s Sept. 11 monument in Riverfront Park created from a “twisted, scarred piece of steel” that came from the wreckage of the World Trade Towers and included the unveiling of a new piece that explains the monument, installed in 2019, is a tribute to the 498 first responders who died in the attacks.
Thomas Ashe, director of parks, buildings and recreation management, announced the area where the monument sits has been renamed “The 9/11 Memorial Plaza.”
Velis recalled being in Afghanistan on Sept. 11, 2018, and attending a memorial in honor of those who died at the World Trade Center and elsewhere and the roughly 7,300 killed in the subsequent War on Terror in the same place where the attacks were planned.
“When Bin Laden and his crew of cowards got together and decided to attack us, I’m pretty sure, as they were planning, part of their thought process wasn’t, ‘we are going to hit Democrats. We are going to hit Republicans,’” he said. “No, they said we are going to hit Americans because of what we stand for.”
Col. David Halasi-Kun, commander of the 104th Fighter Wing, was 25 and stationed on the West Coast the day the terrorist attacks took place. He said he remembers the lines of people who wanted to donate blood and the lines at his base from everyone returning to work.
That day, he was assigned to fly a fighter jet to escort passenger planes to safety not knowing who might be piloting them. That night, while still in the air, he remembered the only planes still flying belonged to the military.
“When I landed … I see American flags everywhere. I see unity. I see pride. I see patriotism. I see dedication to duty and dedication to each other and that is the next greatest, if not the greatest, emotion of that day was the unity that the country had,” he said.
Sarno remembered the events of day being so terrible but at the same time he recalled the coming together of people and the show of bravery by police and fire who sacrificed their own lives to save others.
“We are so divided right now,” Sarno said. “We need that spirit to come together as one when times are OK and when times are good.”
Neal said he visited the wreckage of the World Trade Center two days after the attack when fires were still burning. He remembered children posting letters on a wall searching for their parents and reminded people those families still grieve.
“We developed this great sense again of national purpose,” he said. “In that moment of great unity and caring for each other.”
Neal reminded people the United States was built on the idea that the First Amendment guarantees the right of a second opinion, but a peaceful one, referring to Wednesday’s killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Fire Chief Bernard J. Calvi talked about firefighters, including a retired chief, who refused to evacuate while people were in the towers. Many of those men and women died.
“I knew looking at television those buildings were going to go down,” he said. “Those firefighters knew the grave situation they were in and they went up the stairs anyway.”
