Photo by Erica Techo
Matina Johnson, the fine arts director at the Hoover Public Library, sings the national anthem at the city of Hoover's Patriot Remembrance Day ceremony at Hoover Fire Station No. 2 on Sept. 11, 2015.
The city of Hoover is holding its 2020 Patriot Day of Remembrance ceremony at the Finley Center this Friday at 8:30 a.m. to honor people who were killed, injured or deeply affected by the terror attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
The ceremony normally is held at Hoover Fire Station No. 2 near The Preserve but this year is being moved to the Finley Center at 5508 Stadium Trace Parkway to make room for social distancing because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year’s guest speaker is retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Ginger Branson, who won the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce’s 2020 Freedom Award.
Branson is a resident of Vestavia Hills but is commander of the Hoover-based Ryan Winslow American Legion Post 911. She joined the U.S. Army Reserve in 1973 and served for 28 years, including two years of active duty in 1990 and 1991.
She spent nine years as a nurse (four as head nurse) for the 75th Field Hospital in Tuscaloosa, four years as a nurse with the 341st Medical Battalion in Dallas and five months as the charge nurse for the medical intensive care unit of the 251st Evacuation Hospital in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
She also was deployed on medical missions in Paraguay, Panama and El Salvador, usually in support of Special Forces.
Branson concluded her time with the Army Reserve as the head nurse of the intermediate care unit of the 75th Combat Support Hospital in Tuscaloosa from 1991 to 2001.
The Hoover Fire Department is helping host the Patriot Day of Remembrance ceremony at the Finley Center and also holding abbreviated ceremonies around the flagpoles at each Hoover fire station at 8:50 a.m. Social distancing and face coverings will be required at all of the ceremonies, city officials said.
There were 2,996 people killed in the attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, including the 19 terrorists associated with the Islamic extremist group al Qaeda and citizens of 78 countries, according to history.com.
The terrorists hijacked four commercial jets filled with passengers and crashed two of them into the World Trade Center twin towers in New York City and one into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The fourth plane never reached its intended target as passengers stormed the hijackers in the cockpit and the plane crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
At the World Trade Center, 2,763 people died after the two planes slammed into the twin towers, causing both towers to collapse. That figure includes 343 firefighters and paramedics, 23 New York City police officers and 37 Port Authority police officers who were trying to evacuate the office buildings and save office workers trapped on higher floors, according to history.com.
At the Pentagon, 189 people were killed, including 64 on American Airlines Flight 77, the plane that struck the building. And 44 people died on United Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania.
