9/11 Steel Pulls Residents Together for Poignant Observance

Those in Dixon who wanted to gather for a September 11 observance found the perfect place.

The Sunday dedication of a 9/11 memorial containing a twisted piece of steel saved from the Word Trade Center drew a much larger crowd than Chief Aaron McAlister anticipated. He’d printed 100 programs but they were soon gone before everyone could get one. The ceremony took place in front of Dixon’s fire station.

Standing respectfully on a mild and breezy fall day which animated the Stars and Stripes at half-mast, the crowd listened to several speakers talk about Patriot Day and the 10-year anniversary of 9/11.

Chief McAlister, who described the 2001 terrorist attack as the “most significant tragedy in modern history,” said he’s aware that his high-school-senior daughter and her friends were only seven or eight years old when the event happened. The implication was that new generations need to learn about, and learn from, 9/11.

Wearing white gloves and in dress uniform, Chief McAlister said that since 2001, Dixon’s fire department has become better equipped to handle any local or regional biological, nuclear or explosive terrorist attack.

He also noted that Dixon has the most modern fire facility in the county and visiting firemen who come for training will pass by the memorial, which was unveiled by Dixon fire captains John Malone and Dean Sarley.

The memorial, built by Dixon’s California Pipe Fabricators, features a yard-long piece of World Trade Center steel, backed by a black representation of the twin World Trade Center Towers. Eventually, the all-metal memorial will be surrounded by granite stonework carrying a description.

Dixon fire department Division Chief Ron Karlen later solemnly rang a series of bell tolls to honor the 343 firefighters who died on September 11.

An invocation was read by an emotional Dixon fire department Engineer Jarrod Infante, who quoted passages from a Bible given him by his daughter: “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends,” and “Be brave, be strong, and let all that you do be done with love. And help us Lord to fulfill our duty by being strong in the faith.”

Dixon Mayor Jack Batchelor, Jr., made the point that not many remember the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, but do remember 9/11.

Next to speak was local California Assemblywoman Mariko Yamada, who mentioned that her family was relocated to internment camps after Pearl Harbor. “While we all know that mistakes can be made in our country, at the same time we know that our country can recover from some of those kinds of mistakes,” she said. She also said that 10 years after 9/11, “… we are recognizing that while we are still at war with those forces that seek to harm us, … we have recovered and … we are moving forward. Nothing will ever destroy the resilience of the American spirit.”

As two rows of firefighters and firefighting volunteers stood at attention, and the flag continued to flutter valiantly in the delta breeze, Mollie Smith sang God Bless America to end the 4 p.m. ceremony. The audience of youth and adults then drew close to the memorial and the steel memento to get a closer look and take pictures.