By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
American flags adorn businesses in St. Joseph as the community remembers 9-11.
Members of the St. Joseph Sertoma Club have put up the flags to remember the terrorist attacks on this day in 2001 which struck New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people died on September 11, 2001 when 19 terrorists with the Islamic extremist group, al Qaeda, flew two commercial airplanes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City as well as airplanes into the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. and into a rural field in Pennsylvania, likely diverted from its path toward the nation’s capital.
Sertoma Club member, Truman Hardy, says the flags mean much more than just decorations to many.
“When I was on the flag route this morning on Frederick Avenue downtown, a gentleman came up to me and he had on a shirt with a Marine insignia and said he was on one of the first Marine detachments deployed after that day,” Hardy tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. “And he’s just really glad to see the flags up.”
Former St. Joseph Mayor Bill McMurray, who is the president of the local Sertoma Club, says he remembers how the country came together in wake of the attacks.
“I think we could use a dose of that today as we remember those who lost their lives. And we remember the unity that spread throughout the country after that,” McMurray tells Birr. “You know, we could use a dose of that today, particularly in this political season. What unites us is more important than anything that could divide us.”
The Sertoma Club flag program recognizes several holidays as well as Patriot Day.
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