ROCKLAND, Maine — Firefighter Chris Whytock said Tuesday that local firefighters, like everyone else, were transfixed by the events that unfolded on television 11 years ago on Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorist attacks changed the world.
“When the towers fell we knew we had lost a lot of brothers,” said Whytock, who is president of the Rockland Professional Firefighters Association.
On Tuesday, Rockland firefighters unveiled the memorial they created to remember the 343 firefighters from New York City who died when the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed. The memorial is two concrete towers that are replicas of the ones at the World Trade Center, one being slightly more than 6 feet tall with the other slightly less than 6 feet tall.
Fire Chief Charles Jordan praised the department’s crews for their volunteer effort to build a monument that was simple but recognizes the sacrifice. He quoted a New York City firefighter supervisor who lost a son in the rescue efforts 11 year ago.
It’s always better to be around people who get things done, Jordan said.
“They got something done,” the chief said, making the quote apply to his own men for their efforts in building the memorial.
Whytock said that since 9/11, improvements have been made in communications and training that the personnel hope they will never have to use.
An honor guard from the Winslow-Holbrook-Merritt post of the American Legion in Rockland fired off a three-volley rifle salute during the 10-minute ceremony in front of the fire station. Chris Blum of Rockland played taps on the bugle.
Blum said he volunteered to perform as part of a nationwide effort called Bugles Across America that focused on having a bugler available at all 9/11 ceremonies.
Whytock also praised The Home Depot for donating most of the materials for the monument.
About 40 people attend the ceremony and gave a round of applause at the end for Rockland’s firefighters.
Very nice. Thank you for remembering.
The memory of those that died should be in the forefront of any memory of
that day, especially the firefights, police, emt’s, all the first responders that died.
The scientific investigation into the collapse of the twin
towers cost less than Clinton’s impeachment investigation. The NIST
NCSTAR 1 report itself corroborates the eyewitness accounts of
firefighters that witnessed and talked about explosions, secondary
devices, synchronized detonations that they saw, heard, experienced when
they were asked to risk their lives to ascend into the buildings to
save others. NOWHERE in any of the investigations were these events
scientifically described… NOWHERE. The collective experience of the
fire chiefs in charge that day, hundreds of years of experience in high
rise building fires, including a airplane crashing into the Empire State
Building, informed these brave people that it was safe to send their
people into the buildings. They had NO clue the buildings were in danger
of COMPLETE, CATASTROPHIC destruction (not once, but three times that
day) and when a city engineer made a reference to the first tower being
unstable and likely to come down, one of the lead fire chief responded
with complete incredulity. His words are archived in the Oral History
that the NYC Fire Department collected in Oct 2001 thru Jan 2002.
And then there is Building 7, that collapsed late in the day, falling
AT FREE FALL acceleration. Documented both by independent analysis AND
in the official NIST report, this building fell at the same rate that a
bowling ball if dropped from a corner of the building would have fallen.
The ONLY way for that to happen is for ALL underlying supports to have
been removed… It fell EXACTLY like a controlled demolition, which
through explosives deliberately removes ALL underlying supports, because
all the available evidence points directly to a control demolition.
That documented fact that the building fell at FREE FALL acceleration is
a fundamental physical phenomena that has only one explanation: nothing
was supporting the superstructure when it descended at free fall, and
the only way for this to happen is through deliberate destruction of the
superstructure. Fires have never produced a symmetrical, free fall
collapse of a steel framed building in the history of this type of
architecture. It happens ALL THE TIME with controlled demolition.
Today is the time to once again ask for support for a NEW,
INDEPENDENT investigation into what happened that day. 80,000 New
Yorkers signed a petition calling for this and were shut down by a
technicality preventing the initiative from going forward…The cover-up
continues. Hundreds of high govt officials, engineers, architects,
academics, police, fire, military, and intelligence people, and family
members of victims have called for a truer accounting of that day then
we have. http://www.patriotsquestion911.com
And a presentation of independent analysis by architects and structural engineers on Colorado Public Television: http://video.cpt12.org/video/2…
Today is a perfect day to ask for this… in memory of those that died…
Not the time or place or day that you should be talking like this. You should be ashamed of yourself!
Not at all. Today IS the day to talk in support of the people murdered and to ask WHY there has been a cover up. Look at the links I provide and open your mind. For the victims…
You are unreal! If you think there was a cover up then you are sick. You are what’s wrong with this country! I’m so glad that I fought for you to have a liberal BS agenda like this!
Look at the links… and use some common sense… I realize it shakes your faith in this country, but you owe it to the firefighters and other responders that gave their lives trying to help others… Our country will not survive without more honesty about these things…
Please find us any FDNY personnel who actually believe this was anything more than the result to of the two plane hitting the towers. You conspiracy theorists forget one huge truth: Human Nature. Humans cannot keep secrets. Once more than 2 or 3 people know something, it’s over. There are far too many haters in either party, in all facets of the military, in the White House, you name it, to cover up something of this magnitude. The personal gain from outing such a thing would be far too great to ever allow.
Relevant firefighting experts and independent labs have show how this tragedy occurred. Some will ignore any fact until they see the outcome their believe in.
We saw this memorial tonight in Rockland. Very nice. Very tastefully done.