MURFREESBORO, Tenn. —
It brought many people to tears, the nearly 40-minute 9/11 Remembrance
ceremony held early Tuesday (Sept. 11) morning at the Veterans Memorial outside
the Tom H. Jackson Building.
From cadets and the new Department of Military Science chair
Carrick McCarty to Gold Star Moms Tammy Bass and Jan Edens to Keith M. Huber,
senior adviser for veterans and military initiatives, it was a touching time of
recalling the events of Sept. 11, 2001, when the United States was attacked in
an act of terrorism.
For the fourth year, the university and the Charlie
and Hazel Daniels Veterans and Military Family Center held a public
ceremony to commemorate the 17thanniversary of a
series of four coordinated terrorist suicide attacks by the militant extremist
group al-Qaida on U.S. landmarks.
Nearly 150 people
attended the solemn yet moving ceremony. Two of those were the mother-daughter
tandem of Hope (the mom) and Kylee Harrison of Rockvale, Tennessee.
Kylee Harrison is a sophomore graphic design major in the College of Liberal
Arts and a new ROTC cadet.
While Kylee Harrison
was impressed with the ceremony, the “nice touch” with the addition of a
Murfreesboro Fire Department fire truck (its ladder lifting a U.S. flag high
into the air) and appearance of more students, Hope Harrison was touched by the
words of Huber and the Gold Star Moms.
“Everybody was
crying like a baby, including me,” said Hope Harrison, who said she gave both
Bass and Edens a hug after the ceremony. “There’s nothing you can really say to
them. … And that guy’s (Huber) incredible.”
Edens, a Lebanon,
Tennessee, resident, saw her stepson, Jason Edens, be shot and eventually die
from his head wounds April 26, 2012. “Six years later, we’re waiting for the
world to change and waiting for peace,” she said. “One day, these terrorist
events may end because of his sacrifice and everyone’s sacrifice.”
A Hendersonville,
Tennessee, resident, Bass saw her son, Spc. David Bass, die in action. “He was
where he belonged, where he needed to be,” she said. “My job is to never
forget, never forget the events of 9/11 and never forget what a wonderful
country we have.”
McCarthy, the
first-year head of the military science program and a U.S. Army major, spoke of
the personal sacrifices of his U.S. Military Academy classmates, seven graduates
of the institution and “three of my own soldiers. I’m glad we are doing this to
remember their sacrifice.”
Huber spoke of where
he was that day as a U.S. Army one-star brigadier general, how he quickly
realized “we are at war after the deliberate, well-planned, orchestrated
attack” and how he lost friends at the Pentagon and elsewhere that day.
“This is a day to
remember and a day to have reflection,” said Huber, who retired as a lieutenant
general with nearly 40 years of service. Some of his final remarks — “this is
the saddest sound I know” — led to the playing of taps by David Andrzejewski.
Student cadets read
the timeline of the Sept. 11, 2001, events, from Flight 11 crashing into the
World Trade Center North Tower, the collapses of the twin towers and the other
attacks throughout the morning.
Including military science, MTSU has more than 300 combined undergraduate
and graduate programs. Military science is one of 11 College of Basic and Applied Sciences
departments.
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