(Seguin) – Although it’s been nearly two decades, Seguin is nowhere near closing the history books on the events that unfolded on Sept. 11, 2001.
In fact, leading that effort each year for the city are the men and women of the Seguin Fire/EMS Department. In a short celebration outside its Central Firehouse on Friday morning, fire fighters gathered with members of the Seguin Police Department and other city staff in remembering the sacrifices that were made during the terrorist attacks on America.
Fire Chief Dale Skinner says with the tragedy of that day still so noticeably clear for many of us, he believes it’s important to keep the lives of those lost always at the forefront.
“It’s just important to me personally because of the service that we do to our community and 343 fire fighters. rarely have I ever seen that firefighters in one place and to imagine that we lost that many firefighters on one day. Those guys when they got up that morning, they had no idea that was the end of it for them. But when they looked up at those towers and they saw, they had to know that they probably wouldn’t come home but they did it anyway. We owe it to them to never forget that drive, that passion for the job and to serve their fellow man and I just want to honor them for what they sacrificed and we have many men and women today that are still fighting for our freedom and defending our country and I don’t want to forget them either. We have two active reservists now that are serving overseas right now. We just had one come back so this war on terror is very personal for me and it all began on Sept. 11, 2001 and so we owe it to them,” said Skinner.
While many smaller communities across the country have slowly drifted away from remembering the tragedy on a public scale, Skinner believes that part of history can never be forgotten especially for those in uniform.
“The fire service is all about history and tradition and this has become part of our history and our tradition and we owe it to the young fire fighters and police officers to remember that, what occurred that day and it’s a reminder of what they signed up to do — that every day is precious and you don’t know when you get up and put that uniform on — you don’t know that that could be the last time you do it,” said Skinner.
Among those on hand for the ceremony Friday was Seguin Police Chief Terry Nichols. Nichols says he believes it’s a community’s obligation to always remember the American sacrifices that occurred on that day.
“It says a lot about our local community and that we do remember, and we do value our first responders. Whatever uniform you wear, it doesn’t matter, fire, police, EMS. I think our community respects that they understand the history and we don’t want to forget. I wasn’t around after WWII, but I think 15-20 years after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, I think you probably saw the same thing. You saw a generation starting to forget the horrific events. I personally set on my phone an alarm for everything that happened today when the first plane hit, the second plane hit and all that just to remind myself of what that meant to me and what I was doing that day and how it affected me personally,” said Nichols.
This day in history, now referred to as 9/11, involved a series of terrorist attacks against the United States by the Islamist terrorist group al-Qaeda. The day is noted as the single deadliest terrorist attack in human history – killing 2,977 people and the single deadliest for firefighters and law enforcement officers in America’s history.
