9/11 Memorial Meeting

    If you attended our meeting this time last year, you know it fell on 9/11. Our meeting theme today was last year’s terrorist attack – especially recalling the heroic actions of public safety personnel.  This theme was first dealt with, sensitively, in an invocation by Joe Penner, who heads MEDIC, our county’s emergency medical service.

   John Lassiter, chief planner of this program, had enlisted two other members of our club to lead off: Charlotte Fire Chief Luther Fincher, and Police Chief Darrel Stephens.  Darrel was called away during lunch to take an unexpected call about an “orange alert” of potential security threats.  Thus, Luther did the introductions of the three officers who would relate impressions gained during and after 9/11/01.

   Fire Department Battalion Chief Mike Wilson told of an assignment he was given two weeks after 9/11.  He was part of a team of firefighters from throughout the U.S. who stepped in to help NYC deal with the cases of their fallen firefighters.  The enormity of the tragedy had left in shambles the traditional rituals among firefighters of retrieving the body of a fallen comrade, moving it from the scene on that comrade’s fire truck, and mass attendance at services by fellow firefighters.  Wilson and other visiting comrades attempted to fill some of those roles, to give honor to some of the fallen heroes. In doing so, he grew to understand the grief and bitterness of many bereaved in that city.

   Deputy Fire Chief Jeff Dulin told of how, in Charlotte itself, his views were changed by 9/11.  To him, “everyday citizens” were found often to be “heroes” of the day, as much as EMS, police, firefighters, and Armed Services personnel.   Charlotte firefighters, he felt, now seem to embrace our community more genuinely, and are much more appreciated by their fellow citizens, as evidenced by how they are received by children, neighbors, and people of all types.

   Deputy Police Chief Tim Stewart related a harrowing 9/11 experience in the streets of Washington.  A private plane bringing him and two others from NC to a Washington meeting landed in Manassas, VA, just minutes after the Pentagon attack.  Driving to DC, a 20-minute traffic jam on their bridge—in full view of a blazing Pentagon—presented their first shock.  It was intensified by their inability to “get through” via cell phones, to find what was happening in Charlotte.  Then three hours in a greater traffic tie-up near the White House worsened things.   He feels that there is now “more unity” in Charlotte among the various types of public security personnel, and agrees with words he saw on a DC monument: Freedom is not free.

   As a means of responding tangibly to the debt we owe our community protectors, President David Anderson introduced a new club project.  Pledges were collected to set up a scholarship fund through which our club can, each year, help educate two students—one a child of a local police officer; the other, a child of a firefighter, as they prepare for public safety careers.  We will work with the Foundation for the Carolinas to manage the program.  A year from now, we can have the pleasure of meeting the first recipients – a happy event to occur each year at our meeting closest to 9/11.

POWELL'S
OBSERVATIONS

Ø Chuck Lineberry was captain of the “Pearl of Great Price” which  raced at the Outrigger Yacht Club on Lake Norman.

Ø Bill Terrell, who died recently at the age of 95, was a Paul Harris Fellow at Charlotte Rotary when he was a former member.

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