‘Never forget.’ Beaufort County pays tribute to the fallen on 9/11 20th anniversary
More than 100 people stood beneath a clear blue sky at Bluffton’s Veteran’s Memorial Saturday morning, pausing to remember a day the country has pledged never to forget.
A man played a bagpipe as veterans, families and current service members gathered on the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when two planes flew into the World Trade Center in New York City, a third struck the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvannia. The attacks killed almost 3,000 people.
On Saturday, some wore military pins from wars they served in decades before the twin towers dropped at ground zero. Others dressed in patriotic red, white and blue, wearing their American pride on their sleeves.
Uniformed members of the Bluffton Police Department, Bluffton Township Fire District, Beaufort County Emergency Services and other emergency responders stood among the crowd.
“We all experience this day differently,” Mayor Lisa Sulka said. “Yet we all experience it together.”
Sulka said she was impressed by the size of the crowd, recalling just more than a dozen people attending Bluffton’s first 9/11 memorial event at town hall in the early years after the attacks.
Bluffton High School’s honor guard presented the colors.
After the U.S. flag was waving at full staff, a member of the honor guard sang the National Anthem, when a majority of the crowd began quietly singing, “what so proudly we hailed” before finishing the song and cheering.
Retired New York City Police Detective Bobby Numssen, who moved to the Lowcountry in 2020, vividly remembers responding to the World Trade Center on 9/11 after the second tower was struck. He was supposed to be off duty that day.
“Everyone responding there was there to save lives because they cared enough to put themselves in harm’s way for the greater good,” Numssen said. “That’s what we all have in common. ‘Never forget’ is not a bumper sticker. It’s a lifestyle.”
He shared his story of assisting survivors as they evacuated the south tower, directing them to walk across the street to the Hudson River, and related other memories from working in Lower Manhattan that day.
He said he often thinks of the people — service members and good Samaritans — who helped save lives so others could make it home safely to hug their loved ones.
Those survivors are the “fortunate ones,” he said, “to be able to honor the stories and memories of those who lost their voices on Sept. 11 and to the ones thereafter.”
John Acker, a junior at The Citadel in Charleston, remembers 9/11 differently, similar to many of America’s younger generations who were either small children in 2001 or not born yet.
“I learned all of that secondhand,” he said. “While all of you watched in sheer terror from work, from school, and on your television sets, I was sitting in a crib wondering when my mom would come back.”
Growing up near ground zero, Acker said he learned about the attacks and felt a “fragment” of what it must’ve felt like that day. For him, the years that followed 9/11 are what built his memories, including on the 10th anniversary, when his mom was driving him to a football game.
He asked her why they were playing a game on 9/11 instead of mourning and remembering.
She turned to him and said, “If we stop living our lives today, then they win. If you don’t go play football, if I don’t go to work, if we don’t all get up and go live, then what they aimed to do will succeed.
“So go out today, do your best, have fun and remember, today we do it for them.”
Now, 10 years later as Acker finishes his education at the state’s military college to serve others, he reminded the crowd of “who America is.”
“Today, right here in Bluffton, South Carolina, we are living proof that Americans stick together,” he said.
The Cross School’s Choir performed two songs to conclude Bluffton’s tribute event.
Other memorial services were scheduled throughout Beaufort County Saturday, including at St. Marks Episcopal Church in Port Royal, at Shelter Cove Community Park on Hilton Head Island and at Beaufort’s Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park.
This story was originally published September 11, 2021 at 11:54 AM.
