Conneaut remembers 9/11 with emotional tribute

CONNEAUT – In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, emotional tributes of every kind reached the populace of the United States.
On the 25th anniversary of that fateful Tuesday morning, American Legion Cowle Post 151 tugged on the heartstrings with an emotional ceremony in the parking lot of the Corpus Christi parish hall.
“We need to honor the sacrifices of the first responders,” Post 151 Cmrd. Kirk Jennings said. “We need to honor the victims of 9/11. It was not an easy day. I remember where I was. I was 30 years old when that happened, and it’s something that I will always remember. It’s something that I’ll absolutely always remember. We just need to honor them. We need to remember them, not just the families, but the citizens of this country need to remember what happened, and I don’t want to diminish anything else, but especially United 93.”
With Conneaut’s firefighters and police officers standing front and center throughout the ceremony, Jennings talked about the importance of first responders in a community.
“If you ask some of the first responders, 9/11 might have been the catalyst that made them want to become a firefighter or a police officer,” Jennings said. “You never know their story, but they’re always out there.”
“I know Conneaut is a smaller community, but they’re still in danger,” Jennings continued. “There are still bad people no matter where you are, and that’s why we require the police officers. I’m sure that one or two of them were probably thinking about what they were going to do with their lives, and then 9/11 happened, and maybe that pushed them towards what they really wanted to do. Maybe that was their actual calling. I don’t want to say anything good ever came out of 9/11, but maybe some people that weren’t going to be police officers and firefighters are really, really, really excellent first responders because of that.”
The songs played during the ceremony included “Into the Fire,” “Last Call,” “One Last Time” and “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” by Alan Jackson.
“Into the Fire” is a song inspired by the story of a young firefighter who gave the last day of his life to saving the people of New York City, and fighting the blazes in the twin towers on September 11, 2001.
New York City Firefighter Stephen Siller had just finished an overnight shift and was driving from Brooklyn to New Jersey to meet up with his three brothers for their weekly round of golf. He looked back across the river to lower Manhattan, saw the smoke bellowing from the towers, and turned his truck around. He was stopped in traffic near the entrance to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Non-emergency vehicles were being turned back.
Siller knew that he had friends fighting the fire and he wasn’t going to let them fight it alone. He called his wife, told her the situation, and asked that she let his brothers know that he would catch up with them later. He threw that truck in park, put on the firefighters’ turnout gear that he kept in the back of his truck and abandoned his vehicle on the side of the road.
With his gear on, Siller began a two-mile run toward Lower Manhattan. It was the last time anyone who knew him by name heard from him.
It is assumed that Schiller died in the collapse of one of World Trade Center’s towers.
When a police officer dies in the line of duty, a last call is issued across their department’s radio waves. It’s an emotional goodbye to the fallen.
“Last Call” was a song written to represent the final words of a fallen officer, giving his last request to his wife, his children and his brothers and sisters in blue.
“One Last Time” is a song written from the perspective of a passenger on United Flight 93.
“The passengers and crew of United Flight 93 had something that the other aircraft did not have that fateful morning,” Jennings said. “They had knowledge. They knew what was happening. They knew their fate. They decided to do something about it. They did not go quietly. When United 93 crashed into that field in Shanksville, Pa., it was traveling 563 miles an hour and it was inverted.”