9/11 National Remembrance Flag and program to return to Fayette County
As the 20th anniversary of Sept. 11 terrorist attacks nears, members of a local JROTC will continue their mission to honor the fallen and to teach students the importance of the day.
“This is the third year the JROTC has taken part in raising the 9/11 flags throughout the district and Fayette County Courthouse,” said Lt. Col. Joe Walsh, the senior Army instructor at the Albert Gallatin High School JROTC program.
Walsh and the cadets will be visiting schools around the district Sept. 3, and also pay a special visit to the Fayette County Courthouse on Sept. 11 where they will raise the 9/11 National Remembrance Flag.
The flag was created by Stephen and Joanne Galvin soon after the events of Sept. 11, 2001. The Galvins believed the creation of a flag would provide an everlasting remembrance to the lives lost and raising proceeds to provide ongoing donations to various relief efforts.
The flag’s center stars holds a silhouette of the Pentagon and Twin Towers and has the words “Flight 93;” the black in the flag’s center panel represents everyone’s sorrow. The flag’s two blue panels are the colors of the state flags where each plane crashed: New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, and the red, white and blue stars represents the colors in the American flag.
At 2 p.m. on Sept. 11, Walsh said a program will be held at Story Square in Uniontown and, following the program, the flag will be raised at the courthouse.
After the flag is raised in front of the courthouse, Walsh said it will remain there throughout the month of September.
“As far as I know, we are the only JROTC in the area that does this event,” Walsh said. “Its purpose is to educate our youth and citizens about the importance of 9/11 and when they look up at the 9/11 National Remembrance Flag, they will understand a little bit better about what unfolded some 20 years ago.”
On that day, terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners and used them to strike the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon and the fourth plane crashed in a field in nearby Shanksville, Somerset County.
Walsh said they’ll visit seven schools in the Albert Gallatin Area School District on Sept. 3.
Walsh said even though the schools do teach and discuss events that unfolded on Sept. 11, 2001, the program’s intent is to reinforce that learning with a hands-on approach that involves the cadets telling those elementary students what they have learned about 9/11 National Remembrance Flag as well as having the students participate in raising the flag.
“The students will come out and organize around the flagpole while the cadets position to explain the significance of the national Remembrance Flag and to raise it with selected students from the visiting school” Walsh said. “Taps is played after the flag is raised as a symbolic gesture for those that paid the ultimate sacrifice.”