YARMOUTH – Remembrance events were held across Cape Cod Monday to honor the first responders and civilians who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.
Yarmouth held a service at the town’s 9/11 Memorial Garden at police headquarters.
Isabelle Slifer, who was in the Pentagon when it was attacked 16 years ago, praised first responders and said everyone should always remember that day.
“We need to remember to be mindful and to continue on to live and strive for peace and to regard everybody the way we did on 9/11,” Slifer said. “I didn’t see any kind of hate. I saw love. I saw caring and I wish we could continue that and not have to have another 9/11 bring us back to that point in American’s lives.”
Slifer, now lives in Yarmouth, was serving in the Army and was on the second floor of the west side of the Pentagon.
“We crawled out when we were told we’ve been hit. ‘Move out. Move out now.’ We didn’t know what hit us,” she said. “We didn’t ever think there would be a plane hitting us because it wasn’t a tall building.”
Slifer said it felt like a train traveling underneath the floor.
“If it wasn’t for the first responders, in my case in Arlington County, Virginia, there are a lot of people who might not have been able to say I survived the Pentagon,” she said. “They were right there. The EMTs were right there faster than I could have expected. So I’m always grateful to first responders.”
Slifer, who has attended several Pentagon remembrance ceremonies, said her first memorial in Yarmouth this year probably meant the most to her out of the 15 events she has attended.
In Hyannis, firefighters honored those lost with a ceremony at the Hyannis Fire Department.
Deputy Fire Chief Dean Melanson says the memorial ensures that we don’t forget those who lost their lives on 9/11, including first responders who ran into the buildings to save others.
“Also, we’ve had a lot of folks die post 9/11 from related illnesses while they worked on the pile trying to recover the remains of firefighters, police officers and civilians,” Melanson said.
More than 3,000 deaths have been directly attributed to the attacks on September 11.
Similar events were also held on the Cape in Provincetown, Wellfleet, Eastham, Brewster, Chatham and Harwich.
In New York, victims’ relatives, survivors and rescuers observed the anniversary at ground zero.
The commemoration began with a moment of silence and tolling bells at 8:46 a.m. It’s the time when a terrorist-piloted plane slammed into the World Trade Center’s north tower.
Then victims’ relatives began reading the names of the nearly 3,000 people killed when four hijacked planes hit the trade center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, 2001.
Republican President Donald Trump, a native New Yorker, observed a moment of silence at the White House and then participated in an observance at the Pentagon. It’s his first time observing the anniversary as president.
By BRIAN MERCHANT, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
Material from the Associated Press was used in this article.
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