ATHOL – Athol American Legion Post Chaplain Peter Newman said he was preparing to go for a walk with a friend on Sept. 11, 2001, when they saw the news on the television.
“We were thunderstruck,” he said. “We never got off our seats the whole day; we were there all day long. Forget about going outside.”
A small crowd of area residents joined local first responders Friday morning to mark the 25th year since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Following the opening prayer from Gene Duran of Athol American Legion Post 102, Fire Department Capt. Jamal Hamilton lowered flag to half-staff while firefighter Timothy Fritz gave the station bell four strikes, repeated four times, a tradition used to signal that a fellow firefighter had lost their life in the line of duty.
Once the flag was at half-staff, Fire Department bagpiper Todd Bowdridge played “Amazing Grace.” The flag was then raised back up as Fritz repeated the striking of the bell, followed by a rifle salute from the Athol American Legion honor guard.
The Police Officer’s Prayer and the Firefighter’s Prayer were then read by Athol Police Lt. Douglas Kaczmarczyk and retired Athol Fire Chief Tom Lozier.
“It has been said that the struggle of humanity against terror and tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting,” said guest speaker Scott Hume, president of the North Quabbin Veterans Council. “That when you forget, history has a way of repeating itself.
“Even after 25 years, we must never forget the perfect blueness of the sky on that Tuesday morning; September 11, 2001, a day that started like any other day,” he continued. “We must never forget the children, the adults, the businessmen, and the families traveling that day when four planes were hijacked.
“Every one of the innocents who died on September 11 was the most important person on earth to somebody,” Hume said. “Every death extinguished a private life and a public world among us.”
Hume went on to urge those in attendance to remember the sadness and anger they felt, as well as “the surge of love for our county. We must never forget the true heroes of that day were the first responders; the firefighters, the police officers.”
The 9/11 attacks killed 2,977 people. American Airlines Flight 77 was hijacked and flown into the west side of the Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, when the hijackers deliberately sent the plane into a nosedive after passengers and crew attempted to retake control of the cockpit. Among the dead were 343 New York City Fire Department firefighters, 37 Port Authority Police Department officers and 23 New York City Police Department officers.
Hume said he was at work at Raytheon in Waltham when word came of the attacks.
“I think we were having a coffee break and we heard that there was some trouble in New York….We were told to go home to be with our loved ones,” he said.
Athol Town Manager Shaun Suhoski was working as the economic development director for the town of Ayer at the time.
“I was getting ready for work,” he said. “Running late, so it was a typical morning for me. The minute I heard the second tower was struck I realized this was real, the world was changed. I turned on the television news and was just transfixed. I reached out to a former classmate who worked in the Trade Center and heard back from him a few days later.”
State Rep. Susannah Whipps, I-Athol, said she spent much of the day trying to track down her nephew, Michael Adams.
“We had just dropped him off at college. I picked up my grandmother and was taking her to get her hair done, and when we walked into the salon, it was on the television. I said, ‘My gosh, we have to get in touch with Michael,’ but all of the phones were down,” she said.
The family later heard that Michael was okay when someone emailed Whipps Inc. and said, ‘I’m a friend of Michael’s and I told him I’d send an email to tell you he was okay.”