Locust Dale’s Davis: Recall 9-11

By Jane DeGeorge
Eagle Reporter
Published: September 11, 2008

Most Americans can recall exactly what they were doing seven years ago today.

Following news of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, numerous Madison County residents responded by flooding an already-scheduled local blood drive and organizing prayer vigils around the community.

One local resident, Lisa Davis of Locust Dale, also remembers the exact moment when she heard the news about the attacks, although she wasn’t living in the county at the time.

Davis, who is now retired from the U.S. Air Force, was stationed in Germany that year. It was in the afternoon at Ramstein Air Base when Davis was told to report to the general’s office. There she watched a live television broadcast of smoke billowing out of the World Trade Center after the first of two planes truck the New York City towers.

Davis immediately thought of a close friend of hers stationed at the Pentagon – another location where attacks were directed – and of how the events of the day would affect her future, and the future of her fellow Americans.

A few months after the attacks, President George W. Bush passed a resolution recognizing Sept. 11 of each year as Patriot Day. (This is not to be confused with the plural Patriots Day, which is a holiday set aside to honor American Revolutionary War soldiers that is observed in several New England states in April.)

“On Patriot Day, we remember the innocent victims, and we pay tribute to the valiant firefighters, police officers, emergency personnel, and ordinary citizens who risked their lives so others might live,” the president said in a White House news release about last year’s holiday.

The resolution calls for all flags to be flown at half-staff and that a moment of silence be observed starting at 8:46 a.m., which marks the first plane crash on that day.

While other patriotic U.S. holidays – such as Memorial Day and Veterans Day – honor various groups within the military, Patriot Day is different, according to Davis.

“This is not a military holiday, this is an American holiday that affects all Americans. This was a catastrophic terrorist attack on America [that’s] changed everything,” she said.

Like the assasination of John F. Kennedy, the first landing on the moon and the fall of the Berlin Wall – the Sept. 11 attacks “were one of the defining moments for people in this generation,” Davis said.

Although Madison County does not have a countywide formal observance of Patriot Day, this is something Davis may work to organize in the future as she recently joined the Madison American Legion Post 157. Until then, she hopes that individuals will observe the holiday on his or her own, she said.

“It would be nice to see everyone’s flags out in honor of the people we lost,” Davis told The Eagle.