Agawam, West Springfield remember unity, sacrifice of 9/11Date: 9/28/2022 AGAWAM — Under attack, America found unity, and 21 years later we could use that unity again, speakers said at 9/11 remembrance ceremonies in Agawam and West Springfield this month.
The Rev. Harvey Hill, pastor of St. David’s Episcopal Church in Agawam, highlighted two anecdotes during his remarks at Agawam Fire Headquarters on the morning of Sept. 10. He told the story of a young Muslim from Pakistan who worked at the World Trade Center in New York City and fell as he fled the collapsing building. A Hasidic Jew, also fleeing, stopped to help him up, saying “brother, grab my hand.”
“In that moment, those two young men were not divided by religion,” Hill said. “They were united as human beings and as Americans.”
Hill himself was living in Georgia at the time of the attacks, which saw extremist Muslim terrorists hijack four airplanes, flying two of them into the World Trade Center towers and one into the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.
“Not everybody in Georgia loves people in what we down there call ‘the North,’” Hill said. “But on 9/11 we were praying hard for the people of New York City, and Pennsylvania and Washington, DC. … We weren’t divided into southerners and northerners in our minds that day. We were all human beings, and we were all Americans.”
He continued: “In the two decades since the attacks, our unity has frayed badly. But in addition to whatever else 9/11 means, 9/11 proved that unity really is possible for us; 9/11 proved that that, despite our differences, we can come together as a single people committed to the common good.”
Paul Connor, West Springfield’s police chief, struck a similar note at his town’s ceremony on the morning of Sept. 11. He said young people need to be told about the mood of the nation both immediately after the attacks and in the subsequent months.
“It is now up to us to share with them not only the events of that day, but also how it felt — shock, anger, grief. But also tell them about the patriotism we saw. … Make sure the next generation and generations to come know we are capable of coming together.”
The keynote speaker at the West Springfield ceremony, retired Army Col. Chris Riga, was a captain in the Special Forces at Fort Bragg, NC, in 2001.
“Our country was attacked and turned upside-down,” he said — not only for the soldiers, who realized that they would soon be sent to war, but also for civilians, who became newly aware of the nation’s vulnerability.
He said the attacks should also teach Americans to value what sets the nation apart from so many other countries: “We live in a world where everything is based on the ideals of freedom and liberty,” he said, unlike the world of the terrorists.
Speakers at both ceremonies thanked first responders for their sacrifice on 9/11, and for standing ready to make similar sacrifices for the sake of public safety in a future national emergency — or the next police call or house fire.
Agawam’s Fire Department chaplain, the Rev. Bill Hamilton, quoted the Gospel of John: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,” and said that first responders take Jesus’ commandment further, as they put their lives at risk for the sake of strangers.
Agawam Mayor William Sapelli said 9/11 ceremonies need to acknowledge not only the 2,977 victims, but also “their family members who died that day,” emotionally. He also said people who weren’t alive in 2001 need to hear the story of Flight 93, the fourth hijacked airplane. Passengers in that plane learned by telephone what was happening to other hijacked planes that morning, and voted to storm the cockpit. The plane ended up crashing in rural Pennsylvania, rather than hitting the terrorists’ intended target, the U.S. Capitol. Sapelli said passengers, ordinary citizens, did what they had to do to protect their country.
“They had to take action,” he said. “They had to bring that plane down, and they knew they weren’t going to survive. Spread that message to young people. Emphasize what that sacrifice means.”
Fire Chief Alan Sirois said at the Agawam ceremony that police officers, firefighters and EMTs on 9/11 simply did “what was right and what was necessary,” as did many civilians. He asked the people of today to examine what is “right and necessary” in their community today — “taking time to mentor a young man or woman, helping an older person who might eb struggling to carry their groceries, donating a few hours of time or a few dollars to a worthy charity, shoveling the snow from a neighbor’s walkway, comforting a troubled friend or family member, being patient in the face of frustration, simply taking the time to actively listen to people’s concerns”— and to do it, for someone else’s benefit, in the spirit of the sacrifices of 9/11.
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