At 7:46 a.m. Friday morning, 25 years to the minute after the first plane struck the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, Tinley Park officials, first responders and residents at the village’s annual memorial ceremony bowed their heads for a moment of silence.
“It’s 7:46, the exact moment 25 years ago when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower between the 93rd and 99th floors,” Village Manager Pat Carr said.
In September 2001, Carr was an Air Force captain based in Indiana, he said. He’d just dropped his oldest son off for preschool when he heard the news that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center.
“Within 12 hours, I was ordered to active duty,” he said. “I went from an ordinary morning with my family to preparing aircraft for combat air patrol missions.”
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The memorial ceremony took place in front of a steel beam from the World Trade Center installed in front of Tinley Park’s Fire Station No. 46.
“A quarter of a century ago, we promised the world we would never forget the heinous terrorist attacks that ended the lives of thousands of innocent Americans,” Carr said. “The fact that you’re here with us today is proof that we haven’t forgotten. And we never will.”
Bagpiper Ken Januszyk opened the ceremony with a series of songs including taps, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “Amazing Grace,” as Tinley Park firefighters stood with heads bowed.
Public Works Director John Urbanski and former police Cmdr. Rick Bruno shared how they, along with two others from the Tinley Park Fire Department, traveled to New York in 2011 to retrieve the World Trade Center beam ahead of the village’s commemoration of the 10th anniversary.
“We wanted the different areas of public safety and the village’s services represented,” Urbanski said. “In many ways, it wasn’t simply four guys making a trip to New York. It was Tinley Park making the trip.”
The part of the trip Urbanski said he remembers most clearly was when, after picking up the beam, they were looking for a place to eat and encountered some New York firefighters, who invited them back to their firehouse.
“They let us pull our truck right into their station and they welcomed us like we belonged,” Urbanski said. “Inside that firehouse was a memorial wall that honored the members that they had lost on Sept. 11.”
One of the firefighters they spoke to was a captain, Urbanski said, who had been returning from sick leave the morning of 9/11, which led to him not being dispatched to the World Trade Center at the same time as his men. He’d survived by pure circumstance, Urbanski said.
Bruno said the World Trade Center beam was more than just a piece of metal.
“For some people passing by, it may simply look like a piece of weathered steel,” Bruno said. “But it isn’t. It was once part of a place where thousands of people went to work on an ordinary Tuesday morning and never came home.”
The Rev. Matthew Nemchausky of St. Stephen Deacon & Martyr Catholic Church led a prayer for the lives lost in the tragedy.
“We remember the nearly 3,000 innocent people whose lives were taken on Sept. 11, 2001,” Nemchausky said. “Today, gathered in a fire station, we remember in a special way those who ran toward danger, while others were running away.”
Kathleen Dunn, who sat in the front row to watch the ceremony, grew up in Tinley Park, she said. She lives in Arizona now, but came back to visit and attend the ceremony.
“I’m glad I was here for this,” Dunn said.
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Her son, Kris Dunn, is a Tinley Park assistant fire chief, she said, and her late husband, Ken Dunn, was the village’s fire chief for 20 years. She chose to attend the memorial in Tinley Park over the larger event in downtown Chicago, she said.
“They do a wonderful job,” Dunn said. “Everybody said, oh, what are you going to do, are you going downtown, because that’s where they’re going to have the big— No, I’m going to Tinley Park.”
At the back of the small crowd Friday morning was former Chicago firefighter Kevin Krasneck, who was part of a group from the Chicago Fire Department that traveled to New York City in the aftermath of 9/11 to provide aid.
“New York reached out to Chicago,” Krasneck said. “They needed help.”
It was almost impossible to describe his experience to someone who hadn’t been there, he said.
“When I try to explain what 16 acres of debris pile looks like, nobody can comprehend it,” Krasneck said. “We arrived in the middle of the night. So quiet. Such devastation, it seemed, because there was nothing flying in the air but military aircraft.”
Urbanski said that as 9/11 grows more distant in time, it becomes more important to ensure that who weren’t alive to remember it know what happened.
“Those of us who remember that day have a responsibility to tell the story to those who don’t,” Urbanski said. “Eventually, those of us who remember Sept. 11 firsthand won’t be here to tell the story. That’s why we have to tell it now.”
Orland Park plans a night of live music to honor, remember and reflect on Patriot Day on Friday at Centennial Park West, 15609 Park Station Blvd. Live music by Nuclear Jazz Quarktet is scheduled from 5-6 p.m., an official Patriot Day Commemoration Ceremony from 6:30- 7 p.m. and a performance by the Southwest Community Concert Band from 7-8 p.m.