F.E. WARREN AIR FORCE BASE, Wyo. -- Airmen of the 90th Missile Wing participated in a 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony and Ruck March beginning at 6:48 a.m., Sept. 10, 2021 at the base flagpole on F. E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming.
Twenty years ago, the U.S. was attacked in coordinated terror strikes in New York and Washington, D.C., with another strike thwarted by the passengers of United Flight 93 over a field in Pennsylvania.
Today, the Mighty Ninety honored those lost, even if many might have been children or not even born when the attacks happened.
“For me, it’s honoring those who came before us and living up to their legacy,” said Senior Airman Zachary Orr, firefighter with the F.E. Warren Fire Department. “We want to carry on their tradition and their sacrifice and remember the lessons learned from everything that happened on 9/11.”
Organized by members of the Warren Fire Department, the event was split into a memorial and a ruck march. The ceremony included narrators and the laying of a wreath to remember those lost. Those who participated in the ruck followed firefighters in full firefighting equipment in a march around the base.
For some, involvement in the event was borne of personal history.
“I knew someone who was on Flight 93 as a friend who worked with my mom,” said Tech. Sgt. Xavier Farms, firefighter with the F.E. Warren Fire Department. “I also grew up in New Jersey, so I knew people who were in the FDNY back then, as well as people who volunteered to go and help that day, so this has a strong personal significance to me.”
For others, it was the memory of 9/11 that drove them to come out and honor those fallen.
“I still remember where I was the day it happened and wondering where do we go from here,” said Staff Sgt. Nathaniel Sixberry, from the 890th Missile Security Forces Squadron. “A lot of people sacrificed that day and in the twenty years since. Firefighters, police officers, troops – being out here is a reflection of them, and it doesn’t matter how many miles you run or how much weight you have on your back, it can never make up for their sacrifice, but doing this can help people remember them.”
Though twenty years have passed, the memories of that day still remain sharply in focus for many. For those that lived through it, there is a strong sense of ensuring that those who were too young to remember it in person never forget the lessons of 9/11.