City prepares for annual 9/11 remembrance

The events on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, are just as vivid today as they were 22 years ago for both Fallon Mayor Ken Tedford and former mayor and councilman, Robert “Bob” Erickson.

With people already settled into their daily routines on the East Coast and those in Fallon waking up, the September morning began as a normal day for thousands of Nevadans. The morning calm, though, was shattered with the hijacking of four passenger jets. By the end of the day, more than 3,000 people died when two of the commandeered jets crashed into New York City's World Trade Center on the south end of Manhattan. Terrorists hijacked another jet and flew it into the Pentagon and a fourth jet, United Flight 93, crashed in a western Pennsylvania field after passengers overwhelmed hijackers in an unsuccessful attempt to wrestle control.

As with the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, almost 60 years before the 9/11 terrorist hijackings, the United States and its allies were plunged into a global war.

Tedford said Fallon’s 9/11 remembrance is just as important to remember as Pearl Harbor. The ceremony begins at 10 a.m. behind city hall, and with each passing year, a new generation is learning about the fateful events.  The area’s first responders and military will attend the ceremony, and Capt. Shane Tanner, commanding officer of Naval Air Station Fallon, is the featured speaker.

“The big reason I want to do this monument to 9/11 is so people wouldn’t forget,” Tedford said, adding it’s just as important today to remember the thousands of people who died on that day. “You had those people who rushed danger and didn’t flee from it. All the firemen rushed into the towers, the policemen rushed into danger, and the men and women who lost their lives. That monument is to honor and remember the families who gave up so much and who lost their loved ones.”

Tedford said over time people tend to forget the tragedies that have made this country stronger. He said history passes down events for its citizens to remember.

“Generations forget because many children were still at home with their mothers or attending elementary school,” Tedford said. “Young parents need to remind their children and pass it on to the next generation of what a terrible day this was in our country’s history. Terrorists attacked us in three areas of our country, and we fought back. It united the country, and nothing like that had happened since Pearl Harbor. People left their jobs and went to war.”

The attack on Pearl Harbor occurred three years before Erickson was born, but during his years as a student, he said very little was mentioned of the surprise Japanese attack.

“Schools may have mentioned it, but as far as a community doing a ceremony, it wasn’t available,” Erickson added.

Tedford said after 9/11 men and women volunteered to serve in the military like Pat Tillman, a former National Football League player who left his team and joined the Army. Tillman, though, died in Afghanistan in 2004.

“It just changed our country forever,” Tedford said.

Compared to many communities its size and larger, Fallon had an enhanced role in the fight against terrorists. Training ramped up at Naval Air Station Fallon and the Naval Aviation Warfighting Development Center (Top Gun), and many Nevada National Guard soldiers and airmen deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. Tedford said the city showed its patriotic side and supported the training at NAS Fallon. That pride in the naval installation has existed since World War II.

“It’s a very somber day,” Tedford said of 9/11, which also is known as Patriots Day. “On the day of the event, I get a lot of people who come up to me and tell me we can’t forget.”

Additionally, Tedford reads a chronology derived from day because it takes the community back 22 years and how the country reacted. A chronology of the events from 9/11 is also included in today’s Lahontan Valley News.

“What’s hard is when I begin reading the chronology … you know the beginning and end. That’s really hard for me,” Tedford said. “At the end of the day, 3,300 people died. Firemen running up the towers saving people. You know they’re all going to die. So much was going on that day. Everybody was so stunned and numbed.”

Fallon also was affected.

Retired Navy Capt. Brad Goetsch, who was commander of NAS Fallon, said the trust between military installations and their nearby communities changed. Rather than having school buses take students home during that day, the pupils were kept at school or released to their parents.

“Parents were still working, and school was the safest place for the students,” Tedford recalled.

With the students remaining in their respective schools, Goetsch said the time allowed personnel to check the base for vulnerability and infrastructure, and security looked at everyone as potential targets.

“Not one came in or out until we knew there weren’t any more attacks,” Goetsch said.

In the meantime, Goetsch said the command positioned armored vehicles at the gates, and personnel were ready with their weapons. He added F-16 fighter aircraft from Top Gun flew over the West’s population centers of Los Angeles and San Francisco, and the pilots were prepared to shoot down any passenger jet that had been compromised by terrorists.

Over the months and subsequent years, Tedford said the military was deployed either to another location within the United States or overseas. Tedford, along with others, was surprised the Pentagon began to call up the National Guard and Reserves, a move he said affected so many people ranging from those in uniform to civilian employers. One of the first local military casualties occurred in Afghanistan, a country that provided a safe haven for al-Qaida terrorists who had a role in planning the September attack.

“We lost Jason Disney on a battlefield a long ways from home,” Tedford said.

Army Spec. Jason Disney, who grew up in Fallon and attended schools here, died at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan, in February 2002.

In addition to the remembrance ceremony, Tedford said the San Diego Air & Space Museum is loaning to the city of Fallon a former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police car that was damaged at ground zero on 9/11.

Retired Navy Cmdr. Jim Kidrick said the museum received three Port Authority vehicles, and two were given to other museums in the San Diego area.

Kidrick, who was the operations officer of NAS Fallon in the 1980s, is the president and chief executive officer of the museum. During his time in Fallon in the late 1980s, he organized with the community’s assistance several air shows at the base.

The vehicle will be displayed at the Fallon Convention Center on the following dates from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Sept. 1, 5-7,12-15, 18 and 9/11 at Fallon City Hall from 10 a.m. to noon.

NEED TO KNOW

What: City of Fallon 9/11 Remembrance

When: Sept. 11, 10 a.m.

Where: Behind City Hall