Ronald J. Hemenway: Remember his name

There are a few occasions each year that are as so important they warrant our annual attention in this space. Patriot Day is one of those days, and it’s a day with special local importance.

Sept. 11 each year was designated Patriot Day by a joint resolution of Congress approved in December 2001. In 2009, Congress passed Public Law 111-13, which requests the observance of Sept. 11 as a “National Day of Service and Remembrance.”

Flags across the United States were ordered lowered to half-staff Wednesday in honor of all those killed in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. People around the nation in offices and classrooms fell silent in an annual show of respect from 8:49 to 8:50 a.m., Sept. 11.

But gather your children, there is more to the Valley’s story of this day.

We lost one of our own on Sept. 11, 2001. ET1 Ronald John Hemenway was working in the office of the Chief of Naval Operations when American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon, killing 125 people inside the building and all 64 on the plane.

Hemenway is one of five persons in the Pentagon whose remains were never recovered from the rubble.

Before he enlisted in the military, Hemenway spent years exploring the Alaska wilderness. He also walked the halls at Wasilla High School and across the stage in 1982 to receive his diploma.

It’s hard to absorb, even 12 years later, that these attacks killed nearly 3,000 souls — or about half of the population of Palmer. Of those, just one was an Alaskan. Only Hemenway was a hometown boy.

Patriot Day is an occasion that should be marked by every U.S. family in its own personal way. One way we can do that locally is by remembering, telling and teaching Hemenway’s story to our children.

In 2010, Hemenway’s parents Robert and Shirley Hemenway had a 46-inch-tall bronze Battlefield Cross Memorial presented to them in their son’s memory permanently installed near the main entrance to Wasilla High.

A Battlefield Cross is the marker used in combat when a soldier falls, rifle with bayonet attached stuck in the ground, helmet on top with the soldier’s boots in front.

To those killed this day and in the long wars since, there is no treasure we can offer to square the debt we owe for your sacrifice on our behalf. If we have any hope of honoring Hemenway’s service, it is by stepping forward to stand his watch.

While we are not all cut from a soldier’s cloth, we are all called to serve.

Pick something that could be better about our community and do it. If your idea is larger than you can accomplish solo, organize your friends, family or church group and get it done.

ET1 Hemenway leaves behind his wife, Marinella, and their children, Stefan and Desiree.

Remember his name. Remember our responsibility to serve.