Remember his name, remember our responsibility

For those of us who lived through the events that changed the world on Sept. 11, 2001, no words can convey the range of emotions we experienced watching it unfold.

Remember what it used to be like to fly? Remember how every car, house and office building had a U.S. flag displayed as the first weeks of recovery stretched into months?

But 11 years later, we still struggle to give voice to the full meaning of these events. What do we tell our children who have grown up in the shadow of this historic tragedy about why ET1 Ronald J. Hemenway and thousands of others lost their lives that day?

Students at Wasilla High School have spent the past year living with a Battlefield Cross installed there last year on the 10th anniversary of ET1 Hemenway’s death on Sept. 11, 2001.

His parents, Robert and Shirley Hemenway, were given the 46-inch-tall bronze Battlefield Cross Memorial in Ron’s memory, which they chose to install permanently at Wasilla High. To help us all remember.

ET1 Hemenway, a 1982 WHS grad, was working at the Pentagon in the office of the Chief of Naval Operations when American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the building, killing 125 people inside the Pentagon and all 64 on the plane.

ET1 Hemenway is one of five persons there whose remains were never recovered. We resolve to continue telling his story as a way to ensure his place in our shared history as a hero who gave his last full measure serving others.

Whatever you tell your children about the events of 9/11, please tell them about ET1 Hemenway. Tell them the men and women who died that day thousands of miles away were not strangers. They walked our trails and graduated from our high schools. Tell them that though we are not all cut from soldiers’ cloth, we are all called to serve.

The number of flags flying these days has diminished. As has the feeling that we are one nation, one people, shouldering our shared grief. We miss that feeling of unity, but not the overwhelming grief that was its constant companion.

Congress has designated Sept. 11 annually as Patriot Day and National Day of Service and Remembrance.

In this call to serve and remember, we see our best hope of demonstrating to the families of those we lost that we are indeed a grateful nation. But words alone are empty. Service to others offered in their names is the best way we know to make tangible our respect for their sacrifice.

“Even the simplest act of kindness can be a way to honor those we have lost, and to help build stronger communities and a more resilient Nation,” President Barack Obama says in a proclamation directing all U.S. flags to be flown at half staff today. “By joining together on this solemn anniversary, let us show that America’s sense of common purpose need not be a fleeting moment, but a lasting virtue — not just on one day, but every day.”

Service to country and community comes in many forms. Volunteer to plow a veteran’s driveway this winter. Share with a neighbor you know is low on food. Help how you are able. That’s the legacy and responsibility left us by the Valley’s own ET1 Hemenway and the rest killed that day.

ET1 Hemenway leaves behind his wife, Marinella, and children, Stefan and Desiree. Remember his name. Remember the responsibility to serve it represents.