PAX Centurion - Winter 2016 - 2017

www.bppa.org PAX CENTURION • Winter 2016-2017 • Page 25 of loved ones. As you enter the 9/11 Museum, you observe the steel beams which were in the shape of a cross with a black banner draped over it, symbolizing you were entering a solemn place. As you descend down the escalator, you observe another large steel beam with numbers and letters painted on top that tells how many first responders perished from the Port Authority, NYPD, and NYFD. You observe the large slurry wall which held up through all the devastation. A saying runs along another wall fromVirgil which reads, “No day shall erase you from the memory of time.” How apropos a saying to greet visitors as they enter. You truly understand how much these hallowed grounds envelop you. As you enter the inner memorial section, you feel a reverence given by those who visit. There is a calmness, as if you’ve entered a cemetery. It is the same calmness we felt when the sky was void of planes after the attack. Some of the pictures and audio that went along with it were gut-wrenching to experience. I observed pictures of people trapped in the windows of the top floors above the fire with no where to go. One witness account stated, “I looked up and observed a woman in a window and she looked down and patted her skirt as if to die with dignity, and then she leaped.” These accounts, these pictures, they brought me to tears. I can see why many NewYorkers – especially first responders – are hard-pressed to visit this place. I’m sure they would like to leave it behind them, but unfortunately we will never forget 9/11.