Paul Wood says Sept. 11 has grown bigger than a date on the calendar for him.
Every year since the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, the Lowry Crossing Volunteer Fire Department in McKinney, Texas, participates in a remembrance service. But for Wood, the remembrance stretches past that.
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“We do this because there were thousands of lives lost, not just firemen or police, EMS, and a whole bunch of others,” said Wood, the department’s fire chief. “It didn’t just happen at nine at the World Trade Center. It happened in Pennsylvania. It happened in Washington, D.C., at the Pentagon.”
Remembering the sacrifice
He said he’ll never forget.
“I know where I was and what was going on around me when I heard the news of this, and it’s equally as devastating for everyone that was around me,” he said. “We want the community to share in that remembrance of the loss of human life, the loss of our brothers and sisters in Christ … and that part is important for me to share with our community, that remembrance.”
They’ve also started using the anniversary as an opportunity to remember other first responders who have sacrificed their lives since then.
We “will remember their sacrifice, their contribution, their legacy to what it is we do,” Wood said. “As the Scripture says, you know, there’s nothing bigger than for a man to lay down his own life for another man.”
