Calif. Firefighters Hold Ceremony in Honor of 9/11 Victims

Sept. 11—Just after 6:45 a.m., on the 16th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, four garage doors at Fire Station No. 7 slid up.

One by one, three engines and an SUV started up, purring in the warm morning air. They inched forward, their noses poking out of the station. A dozen firefighters in uniform stood facing the street. Then, silence.

Silence for the emergency responders killed during the worst terrorist attack in the nation's history. Silence for the nearly 3,000 people, most working normal jobs and going about their normal lives when they were killed on Sept. 11, 2001. Silence for the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the crash site in Shanksville, Pa.

At 6:59 a.m., the exact moment the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York collapsed 16 years ago, the brigade stood at attention, saluting a flag as one firefighter raised it to half-mast. They rang a bell and recited the names of the 343 New York City Fire Department men and women who were killed in the line of duty.

As the sky splashed with orange and pink and the sun slowly rose, the firefighters stood at attention and saluted, their faces faces stoic and ashy.

Every year, the San Francisco Fire Department hosts the same memorial. It never gets any easier.

"This is an event in America, for my era and younger eras, to not forget," said Lt. Jonathan Baxter, a San Francisco Fire Department spokesman. "This was an attack on our soil mostly on civilians. EMTs knowingly went into these buildings to do one thing: save lives. That's an important thing you can't teach. You have to show it."

Noticeably absent from Monday morning's memorial were command staff. They spent the anniversary at stations 2, 15 and 17 to honor San Francisco Battalion Chief Terry Smerdel, who collapsed and died Sunday after responding to a fire call.

"When you raise your hand and say you will give up your life for another, it's not just words," said Assistant SFFD Chief Tom Siragusa. "It's what is expected."

As his eyes filled with tears, Siragusa added, "We had a tough weekend as a department," he said, referring to the loss of Smerdel, a 26-year veteran of the department. "For me, being here every year since, I have a heightened emotion to what is happening this morning."

At the Pentagon in Washington, President Trump told a crowd that "no force on Earth can take away your memories, diminish your love or break your will to endure, carry on and go forward.

"We can never erase the past or bring back those you lost," the president said. "We can honor their sacrifice by strengthening our resolve to do whatever we must to keep our people safe."

San Francisco Chronicle