By WMBD-TV
BLOOMINGTON – Dozens gathered outside of the McLean County Museum of History for American Legion Post 635’s 9/11 Memorial Service.
Tears were flowing as people remembered the thousands of lives lost 23 years ago. The ceremony included a gun salute and the playing of taps and Amazing Grace on a bagpipe.
Retired firefighter Roger Troxel was the bagpiper. He went to New York City to help his fellow firefighters in 2001. Troxel’s wife Dianne took to the podium during the ceremony.
“That day changed all of us. To this day it changed all of us. We don’t travel the same way we did before that. We don’t trust the same way we did before that,” she said.
She shared the importance of educating younger generations about what happened that fateful day.
“Roger went to New York and did funerals and came home. He compiled a scrapbook. And our grandkids have all had to sit down and look at that scrapbook,” said Troxel. “And we’ve shown them and he even talks about that smell of that burning pile of rubble.”
She also opened up about why it was her speaking at the podium instead of her husband.
“But he said on the way here, ‘I can’t do that. Will you get up and say something?’,” she said. “But he also told me that when he really thinks about it, he still smells that smell and has that taste in his mouth when he was down there on that site.”
September 11, 2001 is a painful day to relive in U.S. History.
“It’s one of those things it’s very vivid in your memory. It’s things like you don’t ever forget,” Normal Fire Chief Mick Humer said. “You know my parents telling me about the Kennedy Assassination, Bobby Kennedy’s assassination. Where they were at, what they were doing, all of those things.”
Humer said 9/11 allows people to think about the risk first responders take on a daily basis.
“Obviously with the September 11th attacks, almost 3,000 people lost their lives. A lot of police officers, firefighters as well,” he said. “But first responders lose their lives every day in this country. Auto accidents, and fires, and police officers involved in shootings. I think we just need to remember on daily basis of what these folks do for us.”
