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San Marcos Fire Department Battalion Chief Howard Minor (foreground) and Chief Les Stephens place flowers on the 9/11 Memorial Wreath outside City Hall on Tuesday morning. Daily Record photo by Anita Miller

We will never forget

City honors the heroes and victims of Sept. 11, 2001
Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Seventeen years after a day most everyone who was alive then will never forget, people are still dying from the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

In fact, the number of first responders who have succumbed to illness as a result of what they breathed and touched in the rubble  now “rivals the number of those who died that day,” San Marcos Fire Chief Les Stephens told a solemn Remembrance Day ceremony at City Hall Tuesday morning. 

“This event continues to touch our country,” Stephens said, giving special recognition to the Del Valle High School students and color guard who were special guests at the ceremony. — “helping us keep a promise we made 17 years ago,” he told the students. 

San Marcos City Manager Bert Lumbreras addresses an overflow crowd in City Council Chambers, where Remembrance Day ceremonies were moved due to inclement weather. Photos by Don Anders/Anders Photography

The events that unfolded over the course of a few hours that morning — two commercial airplanes striking the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, another one crashing into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and a fourth that, after passengers onboard fought back against the murderous hijackers, crashed into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania — “struck us to our core,” Mayor John Thomaides told those gathered. 

Retired Col. Michael Kinslow

He then recited that day’s death toll, 2,996 in all — 2,763 in the Twin Towers, 189 at the Pentagon and 44 “men, women and children” who perished on Flight 93.

“It was also the deadliest day in the history of the New York Fire Department,” Thomaides said, recalling that 343 firefighters died that day. So did 71 law enforcement officers. 

“Every city and every town in American suffered, because America itself suffered that day and San Marcos is no different,” he said, speaking of young people from our city who join the military or become police officers or firefighters or pursue a career in another area of emergency services.

San Marcos Fire Chief Les Stephens

Guest speaker for the ceremony was Ret. Col. Michael Kinslow, who was working at the Pentagon on that day. He compared the attacks to Pearl Harbor. On both occasions, “enemies attacked us without our knowledge.” 

The two dates, Sept. 11 and Dec. 7 are also alike in that “anyone in high school or above remembers where they were and what they were doing” when they heard the news.

“It’s one of those days that will not be forgotten in our history.”

Following the speeches, which were moved inside City Council chambers due to the threat of rain, everyone moved outside, where the Del Valle Honor Guard and local firefighters were at the head of the line to place flowers in a memorial wreath.

The Del Valle High School ROTC Honor Guard prepares to post the colors as guest speaker Retired Col. Michael Kinslow and San Marcos Fire Captain Frank Arredondo look on.

San Marcos Record

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