Photo by Frank Couch.
Patriot Day 2015
The Patriot Day ceremony will be held in Mountain Brook on Sept. 11, 2016.
Vestavia Hills will join the cities of Mountain Brook and Homewood this year to pause and remember the lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. The annual Patriot Day ceremony, which rotates annually among the three cities, will this year be Sunday, Sept. 11, in Mountain Brook.
U.S. Navy Rear Admiral (Ret.) John T. (Jack) Natter will serve as the keynote speaker at this year’s Patriot Day ceremony. Natter is an attorney and has served as a member of the Hoover City Council since 2011. He grew up in Trussville and Homewood, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1962 and retired from the Navy in 1998 after service both on active duty and in the reserves. Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, Natter returned to duty for a few weeks at the headquarters of the Navy’s European fleet in London, England, serving as Deputy of Resources and Readiness.
Beginning at 8:30 a.m. that Sunday morning, Vestavia Hills Mayor Butch Zaragoza will join Mountain Brook Mayor Terry Oden, Fire Chief Chris Mullins and Police Chief Ted Cook, as well as Homewood Mayor Scott McBrayer and other members of the cities’ police and fire departments to welcome guests at the intersection of Hoyt Lane and Oak Street in Mountain Brook’s Crestline Village.
Mullins, who is helping to plan this year’s event for the first time as Mountain Brook’s fire chief following the retirement of former Chief Robert “Zeke” Ezekiel, said he planned the event in 2013 when it was last held in Mountain Brook.
This year’s event, he said, will have an “identical footprint.”
The city of Vestavia Hills hosted the event in 2014, which began with the Vestavia Hills High School Choir singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Zaragoza gave the welcome address, and Dr. Dennis Anderson of Vestavia Hills Baptist Church gave the invocation.
Vestavia Hills Police Department Chief Dan Rary introduced keynote speaker Colonel Andrew W. Love, who shared his personal involvement with first response teams after 9/11 and also his involvement with the response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
As in years past, Vestavia Hills will provide the large American flag set to be raised above the crowd using ladder trucks provided by the other participating cities.
Mullins said the cities discussed the possibility of hosting the event on another day because Sept. 11 falls on a Sunday this year, but they decided against it.
“We felt it was important to reflect on that day,” he said.
Mullins said because the event is on a weekend day, the hope is that more community members will be able to take part in this year’s 15th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
The ceremony was first organized after the Sept. 11 attacks as a way to always remember. The host city is in charge of organizing the main details, while the other cities participate in the coordinated effort by providing personnel and equipment.
Area residents, as well as off- and on-duty firemen and police officers are all invited to attend, said Mountain Brook Police Chief Ted Cook.
“Schedules and patrol duties permitting, of course,” he said.
The 45-minute ceremony, which brings together those who keep the city safe and its residents to honor lives lost, will once again be steeped in tradition. A laying of the wreath and a bell ceremony will be part of the planned schedule, along with a moment of silence at the exact time two passenger planes struck the World Trade Center towers.
The ceremony will take place next to the Sept. 11 memorial, which sits outside the Mountain Brook fire station. The beam, a 1,305-pound H-beam from the former World Trade Center site in New York, was dedicated during the 2013 Patriot Day ceremony.
