'We cannot forget'

SEE ALSO: Kasich urges Ohioans to honor first responders

By ROBERT CONNELLY

rconnelly@vindy.com

AUSTINTOWN

Students at Austintown Middle School sat quietly during a ceremony Friday morning to commemorate the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001.

But as eighth-grade American history teacher Ron Johnson noted, his students were born in 2001.

“We take 9/11 serious to where we take the whole day and talk about it,” he said.

Fellow eighth-grade history teacher Jeff Wilson echoed Johnson. “The events and the wars still going on go back to this day, and they need to understand and respect that,” he said.

The students, along with police, fire and military officials and local politicians, gathered at 9/11 Memorial Park, 1051 S. Raccoon Road, to mark the events of 14 years ago. Normally, the event takes place at night, but due to Fitch High School’s having a home football game this year it took place during the morning.

A Fitch alumni band played with the school band before Friday night’s game and at halftime. A moment of silence was observed before the game.

Austintown Trustee Jim Davis was the emcee of the event and shared his own recollections from 9/11, when he was a Mahoning County deputy and also worked for a limousine company. He was called to the limo job that night.

“I remember driving in a limousine that day filled with people that were stranded at the Youngstown airport and taking them back to New York City. Their offices were in Tower 7,” Davis recalled. “On the following days, I made several trips back to New York City, taking more individuals back.

“Hearing their stories of individuals they lost on that day – Sept. 11 will forever be burned in my memory from the sights I saw that day from driving into New York and not seeing the Twin Towers there. It was a sight I will never forget.”

Many area fire departments had firetrucks at the event, along with members of the Ohio National Guard, based on Victoria Road, with a Humvee.

Sgt. Jeffrey Greene of the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s Warren Post, the keynote speaker Friday morning, talked about being deployed after 9/11 while he served in the National Guard.

“It doesn’t stop with 9/11 of 2001. It continues 14 years after, and I hope it continues for 365 days a year until eternity, because if we turn our back and act like it didn’t happen, or assume it can’t happen again, then that’s the greatest implosion of our society. We cannot forget it. Never forget shouldn’t be words inscribed on marble; it should be what we live every day by,” Greene said.

The event featured performances from the OSHP Drum and Bugle Corps from Columbus, a flyover from an OSHP plane, songs from the Fitch Concert Choir and other events. Local dignitaries included state Rep. Michele Lepore-Hagan of Youngstown, D-58th, Austintown Trustees Ken Carano and Rick Stauffer, Mahoning County Commissioner David Ditzler, Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally and Youngstown Police Chief Robin Lees.

For Wilson, in the Austintown School District, he no longer shows the videos of the attacks in his class.

“I just talk about what came about – the unity of our country at that time,” Wilson said. “I talk about the firemen and the police officers that gave their lives trying to save people.

“I just don’t feel that footage – the footage is a depiction of evil. I try to stress the heroic actions of the day more.”