He thanked Lafuente from coming all the way from California to be with them at the service, along with several of her family members who had attended, as they do every year, the memorial services at Ground Zero for September 11.
“Thank you, Paul, for inviting me, and for all that you’ve done for the City of Poughkeepsie and the Town of Lloyd. I’m in the 70-to-74 age group, and I compete in the 400IM, because I’m not fast enough to get a medal in the shorter events!” With that, Lafuente talked about the services in New York City that morning and what she took away from the readers, those who had lost family members, of whom she was one.
“I divide my time between California and Florida with my children and grandchildren and all I can say is that you do not feel September 11 in California or Florida like we do in New York, in the Hudson Valley. This is where it happened. As people read, holding up pictures of those that they lost, the emotions are as raw, the pain as deep as it was the day it happened. We gather every September 11 in the morning and share that collective grief of wives who lost their husbands, fathers who lost their sons, mothers who lost their sons, fathers, brothers, sisters — the people that we all wanted to spend more time with…” Lafuente teared up and once again thanked Hansut.
“I’m so lucky to have you as a friend. You are incredible,” he said.
Ulster County executive Mike Hein then took the podium. “We are all in awe of your courage,” he said to Lafuente, and then to the crowd, “Thank each and every one of your for being here. You are not required to be here. You chose to be here. There is no way we can say ‘Thank you’ enough to our veterans for what they have given us, to our heroes, our first responders, that here and across the country make or break life and death every hour of every day. They are on the front lines, and again, we thank you.”
He went on to remember talking with his brother, a 20-year New York State Police officer who was en route to Ground Zero when the attacks first happened. “I didn’t hear from him for 48 hours. When I finally did, he said, ‘Mike, I got out of my cruiser and it looked like it was snowing. The debris just kept coming down. I walked trying to help anyone that I could, and there were so many people to help. What I saw, I can never explain and I will never forget. It was pure horror.’”
Hein went on to say that his brother must have been “in shock, because he didn’t even realize that he had been torn up by the falling debris and was soaked in blood.
“He died a few years later, at 44 years of age. It is an impossible ‘Thank you’ that we give to those first responders who gave their lives, who ran into those towers as they were collapsing to help and rescue others. ‘Never Forget’ is one of the most powerful things to come from September 11, because we must never forget, and we must teach our children and our children’s children what happened that day. We are the United States of America, the greatest country on Earth, and we must move forward in faith and not in fear — and never forget.”
Lloyd Fire chief Ray Miller mentioned the first responders and construction workers who were either buried in the rubble or worked to remove the rubble and debris of the collapsed towers in hopes of finding people still alive or the remains of those who died. “Twenty-four thousand of them have become ill. They are also victims of 9/11. Everything was so simple on September 10. And then the world stopped turning, and we will never be the same.
“As a first responder, I think we’re all more aware of our vulnerability than we were before. But we ask those that make the decisions to provide us with the resources we need to be able to better protect ourselves and to help those that we serve and save. We must try to move forward, not in fear, but with the love of our country and those that we serve every day.”
