CENTRE– Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks changed America, Cherokee County gathered Friday morning to remember.

Outside the Cherokee County Courthouse, the 25th-anniversary memorial service honored the 2,977 people killed on Sept. 11, 2001. It also honored those who ran toward danger that morning, those who carried the nation through the years that followed, and those who still answer the call close to home.

However, remembrance began before the first word from the courthouse steps.

Emergency personnel had assembled at Cherokee Plaza at 7:30 a.m. At 8:15, their vehicles began a 4.2-mile silent procession toward East Main Street and the courthouse. The route was planned at 25 mph, a roughly 10-minute run. Emergency lights flashed, but no sirens sounded.

Along the route, students from the community’s middle and elementary schools came outside to show their support. Many were born years after the attacks. Still, they stood beside the road for the first responders who had come to remember a morning those children know only through lessons, photographs, recordings, and the stories passed down to them.

That sight gave the morning one of its clearest meanings. The memory of Sept. 11 no longer belongs only to those who watched it unfold. It now depends on what they are willing to tell those who came later.

A Promise Made 25 Years Ago

At the courthouse, attendees removed their caps except for members of the honor guards. David Glenn, president of the Cherokee County Association of Volunteer Fire Departments, welcomed the gathering on behalf of the county’s first responders and thanked the Cherokee County Commission for helping make the service possible.

Glenn recalled that Americans awoke 25 years earlier expecting an ordinary day. Within a matter of minutes, the nation confronted one of the deadliest attacks ever carried out on American soil.

He said the local service had three purposes: to honor the victims and their families, to pay tribute to first responders and military personnel, and to renew the patriotism and promise that followed the attacks.

Glenn also remembered the American service members who later gave their lives in the war on terror.

That promise was simple: Never forget.

The Cherokee County Fire Association Honor Guard and the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office Honor Guard presented the colors. Tony O’Neal sang the national anthem as the American flag was raised, and Centre Fire Chief Robert Pace led the Pledge of Allegiance.

The Rev. Jay Penton of Slackland Baptist Church then read from Psalm 46.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble,” Penton read. “Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.”

He closed the reading with another assurance from the psalm: “The Lord of hosts is with us.”

After a moment of silence, Penton prayed for the families who still carry loss. He also prayed for the firefighters, law enforcement officers, emergency responders, military personnel, and others who served that day and continue to serve now.

“May we never forget those we honor today,” he prayed, “and may their courage remind us of the value of service, the value of sacrifice, and the value of standing together.”

Penton asked God to give those who serve courage, wisdom, and strength, and to bring them safely home to their families.

“They Ran Toward Danger”

Cherokee County Probate Judge and County Commission Chairman Tim Burgess reminded the crowd that the first responders who reported for duty on Sept. 11 did not know what waited ahead.

They expected to do their jobs and return home. Instead, they entered burning buildings, helped strangers, and moved toward scenes from which everyone else was trying to escape.

“Those people ran toward danger,” Burgess said. “They are truly heroes.”

He then turned the focus toward the same kind of service in Cherokee County. Burgess recognized the men and women of local fire and rescue departments, law enforcement agencies, emergency management, 911, and forestry.

He asked every first responder in attendance to stand, raise a hand, or wave. The crowd answered with applause.

Many of those men and women serve as volunteers, Burgess noted. Their families also share the sacrifice that comes when a call interrupts a meal, a night’s sleep, a holiday, or an ordinary day.

“You are truly heroes in our community,” he told them. “We want to thank you for your bravery and your courage.”

The Morning the World Stopped Turning

 

Cherokee County Emergency Management Agency Director Shawn Rogers began his remarks with a show of hands.

First, he asked how many people were old enough to remember Sept. 11, 2001. Then he asked those who had not yet been born, or had been too young to remember, to raise theirs.

Rogers said data he had reviewed estimated that about 30% of Americans either were not alive on Sept. 11 or do not remember it. A generation now sees the attacks as history instead of memory.

“That’s why it’s important for us to never forget,” he said.

Borrowing the question Alan Jackson placed at the heart of a song written after the attacks, Rogers asked, “Where were you when the world stopped turning?”

For those who remember, the answer often remains exact: the room, the television, the person who called, and the disbelief that gave way to fear. For those who do not, Rogers carefully rebuilt the ordinary Tuesday that came before the horror.

The sun rose. Parents woke their children for school. Firefighters changed shifts, police officers began patrols, paramedics checked their trucks, and dispatchers answered the first calls of the day.

In New York, thousands stepped off trains, bought coffee, walked the sidewalks of Lower Manhattan, and entered the World Trade Center. Employees arrived at the Pentagon. Across the country, airline passengers stowed their bags and found their seats. Teachers began classes, and businesses opened their doors.

America went to work.

Using Eastern Time, Rogers then traced the sequence of attacks and collapse that transformed the nation.

At 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower. At first, many wondered whether they were watching a terrible accident. Meanwhile, 911 dispatchers were already receiving calls, and firefighters, police officers, paramedics, and other emergency personnel were moving toward the World Trade Center.

Each tower rose 110 stories. While thousands began trying to get down and out, the first responders began going in.

At 9:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower. Confusion ended. America was under attack.

Rogers was a 15-year-old high school student that morning. He had been in the weight room with classmates when a coach told them to change clothes quickly and report to a classroom.

The television was on when he walked through the door.

“I remember seeing the words across the screen: ‘America was under attack,’” Rogers said. “I will never forget that moment.”

He can still picture the classroom and the television. He remembers sitting there as the world changed in front of him.

At 9:37 a.m., American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon. At 9:59, the South Tower collapsed.

Passengers and crew members aboard United Airlines Flight 93 had begun learning what happened in New York and Washington. Realizing their plane was part of the attack, they fought back. The aircraft crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 10:03 a.m., never reaching its intended target. Rogers said authorities believed that target was either the White House or the U.S. Capitol.

At 10:28 a.m., the North Tower collapsed.

Only 102 minutes separated the first impact from the fall of the second tower.

In less than two hours, 2,977 people were gone. Among them were office workers, airline passengers, flight crews, military personnel, firefighters, law enforcement officers, and paramedics. They were mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, friends and neighbors.

Each had expected to come home.

Yet, Rogers said, one of the darkest days in American history also revealed some of the best of America. As thousands descended the stairwells of the towers, firefighters climbed upward floor after floor. Police officers and paramedics ran toward danger. Strangers stopped for strangers. Aboard Flight 93, ordinary people decided that even if they could not save themselves, they might save others.

“There is also the story of September 11,” Rogers said. “It’s a story of courage, duty, and sacrifice. It’s a story of Americans taking care of one another.”

The story did not end when the towers fell, Rogers continued. Al-Qaida carried out the attacks after receiving sanctuary in Afghanistan from the Taliban regime. America responded, and the mission became pursuing those responsible.

A Soldier’s Life Redirected

Rogers introduced the ceremony’s special guest, Col. Sam Guy, as deputy chief of operations for U.S. Army Materiel Command at Redstone Arsenal. Guy, a Lowndes County native, first enlisted in the Alabama Army National Guard in June 2000.

Guy described growing up in a small, rural Alabama town, raising cattle, and living a simple life. He told the crowd it was a community not unlike Cherokee County. Amid the unimaginable ruin of Sept. 11, he said, first responders, service members, and ordinary citizens showed humanity’s brightest light through acts of selfless courage.

He joined during peacetime and expected the familiar rhythm associated with Guard service: one weekend a month and two weeks a year.

Then his father called on the morning of Sept. 11.

“You need to turn on the TV,” Guy remembered him saying. “Get it together, because we’re going to war.”

Guy watched the towers fall and the Pentagon burn. In that moment, he said, the abstract idea of service suddenly carried the full weight of a nation under attack.

The path that followed took him to Iraq in 2007 and Afghanistan in 2016. It also took him into three years of active-duty work in casualty affairs and at the military port mortuary at Dover Air Force Base during the height of combat casualties.

There, he saw the human cost of war return home in flag-draped transfer cases.

Later, Guy supported adaptive sporting events where combat-wounded soldiers refused to let their injuries define them. Those experiences, he said, changed his life and deepened his commitment to the American people.

Now, many young soldiers serving in the Army were born after Sept. 11. For them, just as for the students who stood along Cherokee County’s procession route, the day is history read in a book rather than an experience carried in memory.

Therefore, Guy said, firsthand accounts have become more urgent with each passing year.

He recalled how the Army mobilized after the attacks, helped secure the homeland, and deployed around the world. Twenty-five years of operations, innovation, and rigorous training shaped a generation of adaptive leaders and modern warfighters.

For more than 250 years, Guy said, American soldiers have stood as guardians of liberty through conflict and crisis. Their mission after Sept. 11 changed, but the Army’s obligation to the nation endured.

“September 11 tested our resolve, but did not break our spirit,” Guy said. “We honor the past by remaining ready for the future.”

Still, much of his message concerned service far from a battlefield.

Guy remembered how Americans became less divided in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. They stood shoulder to shoulder, grieved together, supported one another, and united around the responsibility to defend their country.

Time can dull both memory and impact, he warned. Americans cannot repay those killed on Sept. 11 or in the wars that followed. However, they can honor those sacrifices in the way they live each day.

Check on a neighbor. Thank a first responder. Reach out to someone who is struggling. Give time and talent to the community. Invest in children and teach them why the nation remembers.

“The true measure of our nation is not just how we overcome tragedy, but how we treat each other on the ordinary days that follow,” Guy said.

He challenged those gathered to live with courage, grace, compassion, service, and duty.

“When one is hurt, we all help; when one falls, we lift them up; when our nation is tested, we stand together,” Guy said.

He closed by asking God to bless the memory of those killed on Sept. 11, the armed forces, first responders, and the United States.

The Names Close to Home

The ceremony’s final observance belonged to Chief Rich Lindsey of McCord’s Fire Department, who delivered “The Last Alarm.”

Lindsey explained that early steamer fire engines used bells to warn people of their approach and clear the way. Firefighters also used bell codes to communicate important instructions at a scene.

The 5-5-5 signal carried a final meaning. It told firefighters that it was time to return home to the station.

Through the years, thousands of firefighters have died while performing one of the world’s most dangerous jobs. On Sept. 11 alone, 343 firefighters died in the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Then Lindsey brought the remembrance home.

He spoke the names of seven Cherokee County public servants whose final calls came while serving their friends and neighbors.

Retired Chief Billie John Tucker of the Broomtown Volunteer Fire Department died April 6, 2002. Cherokee County’s first firefighter line-of-duty death occurred when a vehicle struck Tucker as he directed traffic at an accident scene.

Crossville Fire Department firefighter Adam Cody Renfroe died Oct. 29, 2008. He had entered a burning home to search for a person who might be trapped when the growing fire overtook him.

Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office animal control officer and Air Force veteran Larry Eugene Martin died Aug. 1, 2011. He collapsed while placing a dog into his vehicle and later died at a hospital.

Steve “Boo” McGatha died Jan. 28, 2013, after suffering a heart attack during a shift with Cherokee EMS. McGatha was an EMS driver, a Cherokee County Rescue Squad member, and a former firefighter.

Centre Police Investigator Jeffrey Hugh Bryant died Dec. 20, 2013. His patrol car was struck head-on in a line-of-duty crash following a prisoner exchange.

Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office Cpl. Michael Keith Morgan died Feb. 16, 2022, from complications of COVID-19 contracted in the line of duty.

Cedar Bluff Police Sgt. Christopher Michael Vaughn died April 1, 2022, after suffering medical complications while on duty.

“May we remember all who have paid the ultimate price while serving their friends and neighbors,” Lindsey said, “and those who have served and gone on to be with our heavenly chief.”

He then read the firefighter memorial poem “Fallen,” using the wording heard during Friday’s ceremony:

Rest now, my fallen brother,
Lay soft your suffering back.
Rest well and forever;
Your memory shall not lack.

Rest your tired hands;
Wipe clean your weary brow.
Rest with our Lord and Savior;
Your spirit now endowed.

Rest here your breaking heart;
We know that you gave your all.
Rest easy, you’ve done your part;
You’ve answered your last call.

Rest, knowing that in God we sought
While fighting earthly hell.
Rest assured your troubled thought
As we ring the final bell.

—R. Hoffman

The final bell sounded.

Then Anthony, a member of the Cherokee County High School band, played “Taps,” carrying the final notes across the courthouse grounds before the gathering was dismissed.

Twenty-five years after the world changed, Cherokee County’s answer came in a procession of lights without sirens, in students standing outside their schools, in first responders rising to be recognized, in seven local names spoken aloud, and in the measured sound of the final bell.

It was more than a look back at one terrible morning.

It was how a community kept its promise.

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