Hattiesburg ceremony to honor the first responders who died in 9/11 terrorist attacks
Twenty-one years ago a silence fell across the nation that had never been heard before. On Sept. 11, 2001, four commercial airplanes crash-landed with the intent to kill. Two crashed into Towers 1 and 2 of the World Trade center. Once crashed into the Pentagon. One was forced down into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
In all, 2,977 people were killed, including 412 emergency workers in New York City. Nearly 350 of those workers were firefighters. Air traffic was halted. Parents picked up their children from school and took them home to protect them from an unknown danger.
A blanket of fear washed over the country as people tried to process what had happened. Their country was under attack.
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2001 terrorist attacks:'He became my firefighter,' says Hattiesburg woman of 9/11 victim
Every year since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the city of Hattiesburg has held a ceremony to honor those who sacrificed their lives in service to their country: The firefighters, the police officers, the emergency responders who made their way into fiery, crumbling skyscrapers to rescue as many people as they could before they themselves succumbed to the flames or were trapped beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center in New York City.
In Hattiesburg, the solemn ceremony begins at 8:40 a.m. outside Fire Station No. 1, 810 Main St. Across the street is a memorial sculpture of the Twin Towers where a wreath is laid each year. A bell will be rung at 8:46 a.m. and again at 9:03 a.m. — the moments American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the World Trade Center.
This year's ceremony will feature former Clarion Ledger editorial cartoonist and current Mississippi Today editor-at-large Marshall Ramsey.
The ceremony also will feature Hattiesburg High School's String Quartet, a special "Taps" presentation by Navy veteran, Howell Purvis, and "Amazing Grace" on bagpipes by Gerry Burns.
The ceremony is open to the public.
Four Mississippians died in the 2001 attacks
James Cleere, a 1964 Hattiesburg High School graduate living in Des Moines, Iowa, was an insurance representative and had been sent to a company meeting in New York. He was staying at Marriott World Trade Center between the twin towers.
Ada Mason, 50, originally from Picayune, graduated from Jackson State University. She was a budget analyst for the Army and died while working in the Pentagon.
Jerry Don "D.D." Dickerson, 41, grew up in Yazoo County and spent his last two years of high school in Durant. A systems analyst and lieutenant colonel in the Army, he was killed while working in the Pentagon.
James "Joe" Ferguson, 39, who grew up in Durant, was director of the National Geographic Society's geography education outreach program. He died aboard American Airlines Flight 77, the plane that flew into the Pentagon.
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This article originally appeared on Hattiesburg American: Hattiesburg to hold annual 9/11 memorial service Sunday
