Enduring freedom

September 11, 2012

Citizens in the Hickory Metro joined those nationwide as they marked the 11th anniversary of terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

"As we gather today, we want to honor those that have perished, but we also want to honor the men and women who put themselves between good and evil in our country: our military serving around the globe and our police and firefighters in our country," said Conover Mayor Lee Moritz Jr. "On this Patriot's Day, on this Sept. 11, we show the world that Americans continue to have resolve."

Beginning at 8:30 a.m., leaders, police and fire personnel, city workers and citizens gathered in Conover and Hickory to commemorate the tragedy of 9/11. On Hickory's Union Square, ladder trucks from Hickory and Longview fire departments held aloft a giant U.S. flag as Maj. Gen. James B. Mallory delivered a memorial address.

"It was a tragedy that changed us all as Americans," Covenant Christian Church Rev. Don Bledsoe said during a memorial in the ground floor of Conover Station. "It is important that we remember this day for the people who died at the World Trade Center and the airline flights ... but we also remember and honor the thousands of heroes and heroines who gave so much of themselves at the site of the disaster."