MONTGOMERY – Orange County
remembered all those lost in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001
with its Patriot Day commemoration at the county park in Montgomery.
The county lost 44 residents in the World Trade Center attack and since
then, the war on terror has claimed the lives of 11 residents who served
in the armed forces.
Remembering with dignity what happened 15 years ago
County Executive Steven Neuhaus is a lieutenant in the Naval Reserve. He joined the service in response to the attacks.
“It has definitely the entire world; it has changed this country,” Neuhaus said. “I would never have joined the military personally. The majority of the people overwhelmingly of the people you meet in the services today say they joined because of 9/11. Even if they were little kids, it was still a rally call of our generation because people don’t want to see this happen on our soil again.”
Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney worked in Lower Manhattan at the time and was a few blocks away, having just gotten off a subway train. He stood there with hundreds of others and watched the towers come down. That day resulted in a wakeup call for homeland security.
“In some ways we are safer from threats of mass casually attacks like 9/11,” Maloney said. “We are, of course, still very much at risk for these decentralized lone wolf attacks that we have seen in places like Orlando and San Bernardino so the fight goes on and it’s a fight we have to take very seriously and a fight we have to win.”
Prior to the ceremony, white doves were released into the sky in memory of those who died in the attacks.
