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MAYOR VILLARAIGOSA PAYS TRIBUTE TO FALLEN FIREFIGHTERS AT THE LOS ANGELES FIRE DEPARTMENT’S ANNUAL MEMORIAL
Mayor orders all City flags flown at half-staff on the 8th Anniversary of the 9/11 Attacks
LOS ANGELES, 9/11/09 – In front of firefighters and families of the victims, Mayor Villaraigosa memorialized the fallen heroes and paid homage to the everyday bravery of emergency workers on the eighth Anniversary of 9/11. The following are the Mayor’s remarks from today’s event:
“Tribute to Fallen Firefighters”
Our emergency workers devote themselves unconditionally to our public safety. They do not pick and choose which calls to respond to. When there is danger, they are there.
Eight years ago, men and women with families of their own, with futures to realize in the company of their loved ones, with every reason to turn around from a scene of violence and devastation of which there is no comparison, ran into towers engulfed in flames, into the face of insurmountable odds, into a fate of almost certain death.
They did so without the air of glory, without a cause of righteousness, without the promise of celebration.
On a day of great violence and tragedy, they ascended the stairs of the World Trade Center so that they could provide a small sense of peace to the families of those trapped on unreachable floors, to let them know that in their tears, and in the grief that would forever be theirs, they could take solace knowing that everything within the power of their fellow man was done to save their loved ones.
We never know how tall we can stand until we are called to rise. In the days and weeks following September 11th, we stood together and touched the sky.
Acts of heroism large and small radiated from every corner of this country. Strangers donated blood for the injured, donated money to those who lost the family breadwinner, and bowed their heads together in candlelight vigils.
Here in Los Angeles, the brave men and women from our police and fire departments answered the call from 3,000 miles away, and traveled to the crater of glass and steel that continued to burn in downtown Manhattan.
They dug through the rubble – day after day – driven by a sense of solidarity with the responders whose mission that day was cut short, and with a sense of compassion for the families who awaited the final word.
And although the scene was fueled with urgency, a moment of silence fell over the volunteers for every body recovered from the ruins.
411 emergency workers died that day, 343 of them were firefighters. They did not die in vain.
We stand here today to remember their sacrifice, and take a moment of silence for the 2,998 men, women, and children who were taken from us in Arlington County, Virginia, Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and New York City, on a day that will be forever seared in the hearts and minds of every single one of us.
God Bless America.