Remembering 9/11
By Joey Pitchford and Steve Herring
Published in News on September 11, 2016 1:45 AM
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Josh Mozingo walks down the straightaway that links the two sets of staircases that the participants climb and descend at Wayne Community College on Friday. This is Mozingo's first year participating in the remembrance event.
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Southern Wayne High School Air Force ROTC Cadet Kiah Murriell, left, holds an American flag and Cadet Hunter Grantham right, stands at ease Friday morning during the school's 9/11 remembrance ceremony.
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Elijah Slater writes the name of fallen 9/11 firefighter, Ronnie Henderson, on his forearm so that he will have a visual reminder and reason to keep going when the climbing becomes difficult.
For Wayne Community College public safety students, never forgetting Sept. 11 means finding common ground with those who gave their lives 15 years ago.
The school hosted its annual memorial stair climb event at its campus Friday, with 38 participants from paramedic, law enforcement and emergency medical programs at the school joining local law enforcement and fire fighters to commemorate the sacrifices of first responders on Sept. 11.
As that ceremony was going on, Southern Wayne High School at Dudley held its 14th annual 9/11 remembrance ceremony.
The ceremony pays tribute to fire fighters, rescue personnel, law enforcement and the military and trucks from seven different fire departments lines the drive.
Members of the 916th LRS of the 916th Air Refueling Wing at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base also participated in the program conducted by the school's Air Force ROTC cadets.
"Few of you students remember that day or even were born by then," principal Dr. John Boldt said. "Those of us old enough will never forget it. Our country changed in that we starkly realized we are not as safe or isolated from the evils of the world that we thought we were. It is as if innocence was lost.
"Our country also changed in that we saw on that day numerous acts of heroism as average American citizens did heroic acts in the service of others. On that dreadful date in 2001, 72 law enforcement officers and 343 firefighters and first responders lost their lives. These men and women did not die trapped in their offices unable to exit the burning Twin Towers. These average men and women rushed into the burning buildings to help the victims of the attack, and they did serving others."
Their ultimate sacrifice provides everyone with a powerful lesson and reminder -- every day people put their lives on the line serving others, Boldt said.
Boldt thanked fire fighters, law enforcement officers, first responded and members of the military at the ceremony for their service of helping others.
Many will never be "big-time" heroes because they will not face an opportunity to face "big-time" evil, or give aid in natural disaster, he said.
"Yet, there is much of the social habits of heroism that can be practiced on a dally basis by each of us as every day heroes," Boldt said. "Serve others. Help others. Sacrifice for others for the good of others. Be a hero in waiting -- and everyday hero. These are the enduring lessons of 9/11. Never forget them."
At Wayne Community College students received a practical demonstration of those words as they simulated climbing 78 flights of stairs, the number ascended by first responders Ronald Bucca and Orio Palmer inside the World Trade Center before their deaths. The stair climb has been a tradition for five years, since EMS instructor Dave Cuddeback brought the idea to the school.
Cuddeback said that the idea behind the event was to bring the tragedies of 9/11 to the forefront as generations born after the event begin to mature.
"The further we get away from this, the more we forget the details," he said. "As they're doing this process they get very close to the first responders on that day."
Before undertaking the climb, the participants each took the picture and name of a first responder who died on Sept. 11. This helped put a face to the concepts that the event was intended to illustrate -that the heroes of Sept. 11 were people with stories, not just statistics.
While the event fulfilled a class requirement for many, others took part purely out of solidarity. The event was grueling, nearly two hours of walking up and down the same two flights of stairs in the midday heat, all while wearing upwards of 60 pounds of fire and police gear. Oxygen tanks, full-body fire jackets, and even gas masks were all work to better simulate what first responders went though on Sept. 11.
One of the largest groups in attendance was the Basic Law Enforcement Training (BLET) class, for whom the stair climb is included in the curriculum. They took the challenge in a group, never straying too far from one another as their Goldsboro Police Department mentors ran with them to keep them together. As other walkers discarded equipment as they tired, the BLET students picked it back up and put it on, never letting a helmet, jacket or oxygen tank go unused.
Capt. LeAnn Rabun of the Goldsboro Police Department was one of those mentors, and also coaches physical therapy for the school. She said that melding the climb into the BLET curriculum was a move designed to keep the students aware of those who came before them.
"It's to be able to know, to be able to honor them, and to never forget the sacrifices that those first responders made that day," she said.
As the walk wore on, physical fitness gave way to sheer determination and teamwork as climbers labored through the last few laps. All around, words of encouragement passed between classmates, many of whom had only been in class with each other for four weeks.
Tyler Kline, a paramedic student, completed his run and then turned to run with a fire fighter for his last lap. Exhausted after finally finishing, he said that it just felt like the right thing to do.
"It's a team event, you want to do whatever you can to help each other out," he said. "Somebody else carried my gear for a while, so I figured I'd do whatever I could."
For Cuddeback, the event was about moving forward after the tragedies 15 years ago, and focusing on the strength of the human spirit in times of crisis.
"That say wasn't about terrorism, it was about heroism," he said. "It was about people watching out for each other, people coming together to help each other out."