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Workers at Montgomery Disaster Operations Headquarters Observe Fourth Anniversary of Sept. 11 Tragedy
Written by
Ellen Scarsborough
, Special to Redcross.org
Monday, September 12, 2005 — MONTGOMERY, Ala. – A brief but moving ceremony in observance of the fourth anniversary of the devastating terrorist attacks was held at the American Red Cross disaster operations headquarters in Montgomery, Ala., yesterday.
American Red Cross leads a remembrance service for
Red Cross workers at the Red Cross disaster operations
headquarters in Baton Rouge, La., on the fourth
anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
(Photo Credit: Lynn Farrell/American Red Cross) |
The headquarters staff in Montgomery gathered solemnly in the canteen area yesterday at 9 a.m. to remember those lost in the attacks on New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the plane crash in Pennsylvania. Organizational Support Administrator Frank Miller invited a woman who’d lost a dear friend in the New York attack to hold an American flag during the observance. Miller then asked veterans of the Sept. 11 Red Cross response to gather on his right for recognition.
The makeshift podium was then turned over to Dr. Oliver Zivney, a retired United Methodist pastor from Dwight, Ill., who now serves as a fire service chaplain is a Volunteer Agency Liaison on disaster relief operation headquartered in Montgomery.
“On Sept. 11, we were stunned,” Zivney began. “As our eyes were glued to our TVs, we watched tower after tower become first standing torches and then disappearing into fragments of falling concrete and dust.”
Zivney likened the event to the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor which, for the United States, was the beginning of World War II. He touched on the similarities as both events marked not only a march into battle but also a renewed determination to unite in preserving freedom.
Zivney ended by offering the following prayer:
“We who call You in different ways and different names ask that new strength and resolution be imparted within us that we fail neither victims of storm nor our fellow rescuers.”
The ceremony ended with a collective “Amen.”
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