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BOSTON (WHDH) - 25 years ago, 19 terrorists hijacked four commercial planes and crashed them in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, claiming thousands of lives.
After two and a half decades, memories and lessons learned from that day remain fresh; flags set up in the Boston Public Garden overnight serve as a reminder of those lives lost.
“Time touches all more gently here” is the first line of a poem by Lawrence Homer, inscribed at the Boston Public Garden September 11 memorial.
“There are no words sometimes,” said a Cambridge woman. “You have to think we can be a better country.”
She visits every year to pay her respects and remember her high school running mate, Shawn Nassaney.
“He was very happy,” she said. “He was kind of a cool kid.”
Paul Miller visited too. He remembers his friend, Brian Sweeney, a classmate of his at Boston University.
“I ride through here a lot,” Miller said. “I touch his name a lot. It was 40 years ago; I knew the guy. Something like that, ridiculous. 35 years ago. But it’s as if he was here today.”
“A great, amazing human being who was dedicated to his family and to the United States; he was a military veteran, and he was from Spencer, Massachusetts,” Miller continued.
Many find solace in this specific corner of the Public Garden. A place where memories of their loved ones stay alive as the years pass.
Organizers said memorials like this are even more important now than before, as younger generations never experienced the day the nation vowed to never forget.
Local Scouting America members were on hand with other volunteers placing flags on the Public Garden to remember the 2,977 lives lost.
These scouts are part of a growing population paying tribute to those lost on a day they can’t remember or weren’t alive for.
About 10% of adults today were born after 2001 and know about the attacks only through what they have learned from others and in school.
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