Remembering 9/11

If you are of a certain age you will never forget where you were on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, when terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes and crashed them into the World Trade Center Towers in New York City, the Pentagon outside of Washington, D.C., and a field in Pennsylvania.  Scott Crane, Vice-Chairman of the Rabun County Board of Commissioners, Safety Coordinator for the Rabun County School System, and an active member of the U.S. Air Force recently returning from deployment in Afghanistan, shared these memories of that day.  “I was on shift the night before with the Clayton Police Department, I worked the night shift and came back the next day and was sitting in my living room and had the news on when this happened.  I remember the feeling coming back into work that afternoon of helplessness as a law enforcement officer but I also felt that love from the community for our public safety.  The day after, plus 1, 9/12, that feeling that the country had of togetherness, to me I remember that more than anything else.  Yes, the loss of lives, but the feeling of patriotism.  Everybody, former military, wanted to come back to the military and wanted to do their part for the country.  You just hope and pray that we get back to that point as a country, as a community.  One thing we are lucky here in Rabun County is that we have a community full of people that appreciate our public safety workers, just our public servants and we appreciate that so much about Rabun County.”  Crane encourages everyone to show their support for our EMS, firefighters, and law enforcement by saying “Thank You” when you see them working in  Rabun County.  “We get it all the time and so, like I said, we are so lucky as a community that the people here and the citizens here appreciate it and they tell us all the time.  That means so much to a paramedic, to an EMT, to a firefighter, to a police officer, to a deputy!  Just say thank you to them.  Tell them you appreciate what they are doing.  You don’t have to buy them anything, just say thank you and I think that means more than anything.  If you know a military member say thank you to them because they sacrifice a lot to give back and it is something that they volunteered to do and something they want to give back.  But just a thank you means more than anything.”  We will never forget 9/11 and the brave men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice.