SMYRNA, Ga. — Today is a day no one wants to celebrate. It’s a day to pause, reflect and remember.
While the most significant commemorations take place in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, smaller ceremonies take place in communities across the country. It’s a testament to how much this day changed us as individuals and the country as a whole.
Remembrance ceremonies took place in cities large and small. Perhaps the ceremony in the bucolic community of Smyrna, Ga., was was emblematic of how the country chose to pause and commemorate those lost and the heroes who emerged on what started as a beautiful Tuesday morning and ended as one of the saddest days in the country’s history.
“The occasion for which we’ve gathered today certainly is a somber one,” Pastor Shell Osbon, chaplain for the city’s police and fire departments said during a remembrance ceremony. “Many of us, I am sure, remember exactly where we were 17 years on this day. It’s etched indelibly in our minds.”
So many people can vividly recall when they heard the news 17 years ago. Similarly, a generation earlier people could remember where they were when they heard the shocking news about the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
“On Dec. 7 of 1941, after the attacks of Pearl Harbor, FDR addressed Congress and addressed the nation and famously proclaimed that that would be a day that would live in infamy, and he was certainly correct,” Smyrna Fire Chief Roy Acree said during a ceremony in Smyrna, Ga. “Sept. 11, 2001, is another day that shares that infamy.”
In the aftermath, “I remember how our nation just within hours, within days, for the coming months, was able to set aside any and all differences and unite together as one people, as we the people, as Americans,” Acree added.
