Lanterns lined Freedom Park and the honor bell sat ready Thursday evening as Prince William County gathered at Sean T. Connaughton Plaza to mark 25 years since Sept. 11, 2001.
The ceremony was held the night before the national anniversary, beside the Liberty Memorial Fountain outside the McCoart Government Center in Woodbridge.
World Trade Center steel stands on the same grounds — four beams the county brought down from New Jersey in 2011 and later raised as part of the memorial.
County Executive Christopher Shorter hosted. The Joint Honor Guard posted the colors. The Osbourn Park choir sang the National Anthem.
Shorter recognized Chair Deshundra Jefferson, Vice Chair Victor Angry, and Supervisors Andrea Bailey, George Stewart, Jeannie LaCroix and Yesli Vega, along with Dels. Briana Sewell and Elizabeth Guzman and later Sen. Danica Roem.
Two speakers carried the night.
Brenda Lynch’s husband, James T. Lynch Jr., went to the Pentagon that morning. She went to the National Reconnaissance Office. They kissed goodbye. They did not see each other again. After the plane hit the Pentagon, the phones failed. She drove home crying and waited while family and friends called.
“From that day forward, time was measured, at least by me, by before 9-11 when Jimmy was alive, or after 9-11 when he was gone,” she said.
The flagpole Jimmy put up at their Prince William home now stands at the memorial. Lynch pointed to the sites in New York, at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, and asked people to love their families and be kind — “because we never know when our last day will be.”
Vickie Taylor has worked for the county more than 40 years and directs the Public Safety Resilience Center. She has consulted for the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation since Congress created it in 1992. Prince William, she said, “lost more members than any other jurisdiction in the entire metro area.”
She and her husband, Tim — then a captain in Prince William Fire and Rescue — drove to New York with the foundation after 343 FDNY firefighters were killed. On the way, she said, Tim told her that looking only for loss would find more than anyone could bear. Looking for honor, courage, commitment, pride, hope and love would find those too.
Taylor described Ground Zero as six acres and said more than 4,300 later deaths tied to toxins now outnumber the people killed that morning, as she stated.
Shorter walked the crowd through the Liberty Memorial Fountain, dedicated in 2006: a reflecting pool and walk for the 184 lost at the Pentagon; limestone from the damaged Pentagon wall; two columns of water for those killed at the World Trade Center; Pennsylvania flagstone for the 40 on Flight 93.
Names of the 22 Prince William residents inscribed on the memorial were read:
- Sgt. 1st Class John J. Chada, U.S. Army, Retired
- Petty Officer 3rd Class Jamie L. Fallon, U.S. Navy
- Amelia V. Fields
- Lt. Col. Robert J. Hymel, U.S. Air Force, Retired
- Sgt. Maj. Lacey B. Ivory, U.S. Army
- Judith L. Jones
- David W. Laychak
- James T. Lynch Jr.
- Gene E. Maloy
- Robert J. Maxwell
- Molly L. McKenzie
- Craig J. Miller
- Diana B. Padro
- Rhonda S. Rasmussen
- Edward V. Rowenhorst
- Judy Rowlett
- Donald D. Simmons
- Jeff L. Simpson
- Cheryle D. Sincock
- Chief Information Systems Technician Gregg H. Smallwood, U.S. Navy
- Sgt. Maj. Larry L. Strickland, U.S. Army
- Sandra L. White
The bell was tolled in the fire-service pattern — five, a pause, five, a pause, five.
Shorter closed on who keeps coming back. Donna Flory and retired Lt. Jeff Howdyshell have taken part in every county 9/11 ceremony from the start. Fire and Rescue Technician Eamonn Radburn played “Amazing Grace.” On the plaza this year was FDNY Squad 252’s recovered engine from Bushwick, Brooklyn. Six of that company went into the North Tower and died when it collapsed. The truck is on loan through Angry and the National Museum of Americans in Wartime.
Shorter spoke of nearly 3,000 lives, and of 25 members of the Prince William community, as he put it. The county’s published memorial list is 22 names.
Taylor offered tokens of hope when the program ended. Shorter asked people to walk the memorial and the truck before taps.
This account is drawn from the official ceremony video posted by Prince William County Government on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzVFAs1eW2k. Names on the memorial follow the county’s published list. Speaker spellings were checked against pwcva.gov.
