Yadkin Ripple
BY ANDY MATTHEWS NEWS EDITOR
A few minutes into Monday’s 9/11 ceremony, sirens blared in the background as emergency crews rushed to an accident less than a mile from where volunteers and veterans, the elderly and schoolchildren, politicians and civil servants remembered the most deadly foreign attack on American soil.
Danny Smith, an American Airlines pilot who lost a friend in the Sept. 11. 2001, terrorist attacks, stood before a large crowd who came to honor those who paid the ultimate price that day. It was a bright, cloudless sky Monday reminiscent of that morning five years ago.
“It was the kind of day that you thanked God you were alive,” Smith said.
All of that changed in a matter of minutes as one and then another jet slammed into the 110-story World Trade Centers in New York City. That was followed by an attack on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. More than 2,800 died in New York when the towers collapsed. A total of 184 died at the Pentagon and 40 people were killed when a fourth jet crashed into the ground in Shanksville, Pa.
Rep. Virginia Foxx , R-Banner Elk, grew teary eyed when she talked about America’s bedrock values. No terrorist attack can defeat the United States or the principles that it stood for, she said. A small gust of wind ruffled a huge American flag that towered over downtown Yadkinville.
“We can’t forget the global war on terrorism,” Foxx said. “We’re winning the war . . . They didn’t understand America. They don’t understand America.”
Boonville Mayor Harvey Smith said that the 9/11 attack “still feels like a raw wound.” Smith recalled the pre-9/11 environment at airports.
“You used to be able to look at aircraft,” Smith recalled. “Now that’s only for ticketed passengers.”
At 8:46 a.m., when the first plane hit the first World Trade Center tower, Smith asked for a moment of silence.
“At that point, we didn’t know what had happened,” Smith said. “The only ones who knew were the ones on the airplane.”
David Matthews, the county’s 911 communications supervisor, vividly remembers where he was the morning of the attacks. After watching the towers collapse, Matthews and other members of
“It was just like a piece of your life had been taken away from you,” Matthews recalled.
Still in a state of shock, Matthews was summoned to the Pentagon to help with relief efforts.
He was there when survivors, preparing for President Bush’s visit, placed an American flag on the building’s exterior. It was a show of solidarity — a symbol of the United States’ resilience, Matthews said.
“That was the most emotional emotional moment of all,” Matthews recalled. “It showed that our flag was still there and that people are willing to die for their country. And if it happens again tomorrow, we will do the same thing because that’s what America’s about.”
