Communities combine to remember 2001 terrorist attacks
Before he began his address, Col. Robert “Scott” Grant stared down from his podium at Homewood City Hall into a small sea of local fifth graders. Each had a flag clutched in his or her hand, some waving. Their small faces stared back.
“Like most of you, I woke up under the safe and sovereign skies of the United States of America this morning,” Grant began. “I woke up covered in a blanket of red, white and blue.”
Grant delivered the keynote address during a Patriot Day Ceremony hosted by the cities of Homewood, Mountain Brook and Vestavia Hills on the morning of 11th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He is currently Commander of the maintenance group attached to the Alabama National Guard’s 117th Air Refueling Wing at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport.
That morning, his audience was brimming with service men and women and elected officials from all three communities, but his focus rarely strayed from the 11-year-old children at his feet. Grant told them that a new chapter in American history began the year they were born, and it was up to each of them to remember the sacrifices made to keep them safe. But more importantly, it was the children’s task to volunteer in their communities, sacrifice their time and reach out to the men and women who protect their freedoms.
Then he turned his gaze on the rest of the crowd.
“Every American can do something,” Grant said, “but doing nothing is not American. It is incumbent upon us all to get involved and stay engaged.”
During his address, Grant told the story of Birmingham’s – and his own – involvement following the September 11 attacks. Men with the 117th Air Refueling Wing were deployed to Turkey at the time, but pilots here took KC-135 Tankers stationed at the Birmingham airport to the sky in order to support combat aircraft patrolling U.S. airspace.
“I’ve flown all over the world, but flying a mission over your homeland is a very different experience,” Grant said, noting that the only aircraft in the sky after 9/11, the ones he was tasked with refueling, were fully armed.
Grant also discussed the price paid by those who served their country in the War on Terror that followed the attacks. He said conflicts in the last 11 years have produced twice the number of amputees as compared to conflicts between World War II and 2001. He said the number of soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder is “absolutely staggering.”
Moreover, according to the Defense Manpower Data Center, nearly 6,000 U.S. Military service men and women have lost their lives in conflicts that followed the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and approximately 43,000 have been wounded.
“Americans volunteered in record numbers after the attacks, flew flags and prayed,” Grant said. “I’m afraid we’ve lost a little bit of that enthusiasm sometimes.”
A program honoring the nearly 3,000 killed in the devastating attacks accompanied Grant’s powerful words. The event, held in Homewood’s SoHo Square, also paid tribute to active, retired and honorably discharged men and women currently serving in their city’s fire and police departments.
Members of the Homewood High School Show Choir, “The Network,” lent their voices to the program, and Homewood High students Grant Smith and Will Palmisano trumpeted Taps across the Square. A bagpipe rendition of “Amazing Grace” was played by Brian Bowman, and the Brad Hunicutt delivered a striking version of the National Anthem.
Notable guests and speakers included Homewood Mayor Scott McBrayer, Mountain Brook Mayor Terry Oden, Vestavia Hills Mayor Butch Zaragosa Jr. and Alabama Rep. Paul DeMarco. But the most prominent guests sat legs crossed, front and center, listening to a man who protected their skies following the terrorist attacks, an event they now study in history class.
From the Executive Summary of the “9/11 Commission Report”
At 8:46 on the morning of September 11, 2001, the United States became a nation transformed. An airliner traveling at hundreds of miles per hour and carrying some 10,000 gallons of jet fuel plowed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. At 9:03, a second airliner hit the South Tower. Fire and smoke billowed upward. Steel, glass, ash, and bodies fell below. The Twin Towers, where up to 50,000 people worked each day, both collapsed less than 90 minutes later.
At 9:37 that same morning, a third airliner slammed into the western face of the Pentagon. At 10:03, a fourth airliner crashed in a field in southern Pennsylvania. It had been aimed at the United States Capitol or the White House, and was forced down by heroic passengers armed with the knowledge that America was under attack.
More than 2,600 people died at the World Trade Center; 125 died at the Pentagon; 256 died on the four planes. The death toll surpassed that at Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
This immeasurable pain was inflicted by 19 young Arabs acting at the behest of Islamist extremists headquartered in distant Afghanistan.