Gainesville leaders remembered where they stood 24 years ago during a 9/11 ceremony at City Hall.
Working an internship in Carbondale, Illinois. Traversing hills at Camp Pendleton and finding Marines sitting at the top to get radio news.
Participating in a meeting at Perkins Restaurant before heading to the Gainesville Police Department and learning a second plane had struck. Watching smoke rise on TV in WUFT’s offices, wondering how to tell a story you don’t fully understand.
Retired Sgt. Maj. Patricia McCullough, a Hawthorne and UF graduate who serves as special assistant to Jacksonville’s major on civic engagement and youth participation, said every student in high school and college is now too young to remember the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“For them, it is history. That means it’s up to us who lived it, who served through it, those who carried the weight of that day to pass on the story with courage and with heart. And we must tell it truthfully, and we must tell it fully,” McCullough said.
The attacks sent McCullough to Afghanistan and into battle. She said 9/11 continues to impact the nation and change how we teach the next generation, and McCullough said she believes in the strength of America through that teaching.
“It’s not only found in the battlefield,” she said of the county’s strength, “but it’s found in how we empower and prepare our youth to take our places.”
Mayor Harvey Ward read a proclamation declaring Thursday as Patriot Day in Gainesville. He said he hopes the next generation of leaders can find a way to unify the country without needing a tragedy like 9/11.
He said he wants the next generation to look back on retirement and not have a mentally ingrained national tragedy.
“My challenge to you, once again, is to find ways to be together, to understand that we are joined, whether we like it or not, and to not look for that moment of tragedy to inspire us to find within us the spark that keeps us together and molds us into the people, into the Americans, that we are capable of being,” Ward said.
Rev. Graham Glover, Commissioner Ed Book, Fire Chief Joseph Hillhouse and Police Chief Nelson Moya also spoke and told of their remembrances and hope for moving forward.
Moya asked the crowd to look around and find an officer in blue, whether at the top of City Hall’s steps or on the bridge over the plaza fountain. He said police officers are patrolling the area to ensure safety.
Moya charged the first responders to remember their training, notice the little things and leave the public better than they were found after each interaction.
“To the rest of us as we sit here and gather—there’s city managers, there’s legislators, there’s police chiefs, there’s everybody here—here’s my challenge to you. Change nothing, live your lives, serve democracy because we have your back,” Moya said.
