Glens Falls remembers 9/11, 22 years later
GLENS FALLS, N.Y. (NEWS10) - Around 40 people gathered on a rainy Monday morning on May Street in downtown Glens Falls. Members of Glens Falls Fire Department gathered in front of the department's Ridge Street headquarters to remember the lives lost in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 - as well as those lost to related conditions in the last 22 years.
"Horror struck our country 22 years ago," said acting Fire Chief Izze Modert. "Even now, it's claiming the lives and disabling so many of our First Responders who were part of that tragedy on that day; Who worked tirelessly on that pile at Ground Zero for so many months, trying to find their lost brother, sister, father, daughter, mother, husband, wife, that was never found. We in the fire service mourn their loss 22 years ago, and still mourn every day we report for duty."
Modert was joined by Rev. Dr. Patrick Wrisley, the recently introduced new pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Glens Falls. Wrisley, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, joined Monday's ceremony as Glens Falls' new fire chaplain.
For Wrisley, remembering Sept. 11, 2001, comes back to the 22-year-old question: Where were you? Wrisley started the day with a trip to visit a member of his previous congregation in the hospital in Orlando, Florida.
"I was visiting him to take communion (...) and I can remember where I was as we passed by a room, and I saw on the television that which we thought could not be real," he said. "Today is a day that each of us has some type of six degrees of separation from someone we know who was directly impacted and touched by the events of 9/11. I think the best way to honor them today is to take those events and form them into a badge of courage, hope, and purpose, as a people, to unite together and focus on all that is right and good, and remind ourselves why this is now a Patriot day."
The ceremony also featured live music by songwriter Kenny Fuller, followed by a ringing of bells and the presenting of flags. The ceremony was one of several across the Capital Region and North Country on Monday.