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Five strokes on a brass bell. A pause. Five more. Fire Lt. Tim Cronin rang the sequence four times Friday morning at Memorial Park, the fire service signal for a member killed in the line of duty, and the sound carried across a lawn where police officers and firefighters had stood at attention since 9:55 a.m.
Marblehead, Massachusetts, holds this ceremony every Sept. 11, and Friday marked 25 years. At the foot of the black granite monument, cut with "September 11, 2001" and "Never Forget" above the year it was dedicated, 2006, someone had laid a row of hand-painted rocks. One read "Remember." Others carried names: William M. Weems, Dr. Fred Rimmele, Sgt. Rachel R. McKay.
Fire Chief Jason R. Gilliland opened the observance at 10 a.m. Veterans Agent Roseann Trionfi-Mazzuchelli lowered the flag to half-staff. A bugler in white gloves, Jack Collins, played Taps, and the park held one minute of complete silence.
Two on Flight 175, one on the 104th floor
Gilliland told the gathering that 2,977 people were killed in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, among them 343 firefighters, 60 law enforcement officers and eight emergency medical personnel. They climbed stairwells crowded with civilians coming down, he said, without asking who deserved help. "They did not ask about political affiliation, social standing, or personal circumstance," Gilliland said.
Then he read three names belonging to this town. Frederick Rimmele III, 32, a family physician, was aboard United Airlines Flight 175, headed to a medical conference in California. William Weems, 46, a commercial producer, was on the same plane and left a wife and a young daughter. Both lived in Marblehead. Erik Hans Isbrandtsen, 30, grew up here and worked for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center's North Tower. Flight 11 struck that tower at 8:46 a.m. Both planes had taken off from Logan International Airport.
Gov. Maura Healey ordered flags across Massachusetts to half-staff Friday and asked residents, schools and businesses to pause at 8:46 a.m. Massachusetts commemorations counted at least 206 victims with ties to the state.
Gilliland also named three with Marblehead ties who died in military service afterward: Army Staff Sgt. Christopher N. Piper, killed by wounds suffered in Afghanistan; Marine Corps 2nd Lt. Christopher B. Shay, whose family lived in town; and Army Sgt. Rachel R. McKay.
F-14s over Salem
Police Chief Dennis King was a Salem police officer that morning. He remembered the uncertainty, then the second plane, then the understanding that the first crash had not been an accident. What stayed with him came later, when F-14 fighter jets crossed overhead while he stood guard at the liquefied natural gas tank on the Salem waterfront. Seeing them, King said, "was a reminder that the world had changed."
King marched with the Salem Police Department honor guard at Piper's funeral. "Boy, the town of Marblehead turned out that day," he said. He described people lining up to give blood and flags going up on houses, and said police officers felt something from the public they were not used to.
Trionfi-Mazzuchelli was not watching from Massachusetts. On Sept. 11, 2001, she was serving in an Army Reserve criminal investigative unit that was ordered to report to the Pentagon. Its members carpooled and got to Washington any way they could, she said, to help process the crime scene and provide assistance, aid and protection. The deployment lasted three years for most of the unit, longer for members kept on active duty.
"To date, six of my unit members who responded on 9/11 have passed away due to various cancers after being exposed to a multitude of hazardous toxins," she said.
What the dust carried
The World Trade Center Health Program, administered by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, estimates about 400,000 people were exposed to toxic contaminants, injury risk and severe stress in the days, weeks and months after the attacks. The towers' collapse filled the air with asbestos, silica, metals, pulverized concrete and glass. Fires in the debris burned through the end of December 2001, with flare-ups into 2002, releasing carcinogenic combustion byproducts. The program's inventory references more than 350 hazards that may have been present. Covered conditions include asthma, gastroesophageal reflux disease, cancer, musculoskeletal disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder. Within weeks of the attacks, clinicians were describing something new among firefighters and calling it World Trade Center cough.
Gilliland folded those deaths into the words carved on the monument, saying the commitment covers responders and civilians who have since died of illnesses tied to Ground Zero.
Some now working in fire stations, police departments, emergency medical services and dispatch centers were not born when the towers fell, Gilliland said. A college student starting classes this fall has no memory of the day at all.
"For them, September 11th is history," he said. "For those who lived through it, it is memory."
Rabbi Mangold prayed. Select Board Chair Dan Fox carried the wreath to the monument. Monsignor Moran gave the closing invocation, and Trionfi-Mazzuchelli walked back to the pole and raised the flag to the top. The painted rocks stayed where they were.
