BUTTE — While Butte, Montana is a long way from New York City, that doesn’t stop members of the community here from honoring and recognizing the sacrifices made on 9/11.
"I was a freshman in college waiting in the morning to go to my first class and I remember seeing people fleeing and first responders going into those buildings, and it gave you a sense of wow, these people are heroes—they’re going in when people are coming out and a lot of ‘em didn’t make it back out," says Butte-Silver Bow Fire Chief Zach Osborne.
About 30 members of the community attended the ceremony that was punctuated by the bugling of Jean Perusich, a member of the United Veterans Council.
"A friend of mine was the bugler for the council, and when he passed I thought it was an honor to step in. It helps people to release and it’s an honor and I just really respect it," says Perusich.
"We treat 9/11 very important in our department. I think fire training and first responder training really increased greatly from 9/11 and we’ve taken a lot of those lessons learned and put them towards what we do today still," says Osborne.
At the podium, Sheriff Ed Lester addressed the audience with his personal story of the day.
"I like to remember 9/11 as a day—it’s certainly not to be minimized as a day of tragedy, but it’s also a day of heroes. The heroes that were there and the heroes who fought for our country since then," he said.
Sheriff Lester continued:
"In the days following 9/11, Americans, even though they may have had different points of view, they came together and realized that unity was the key to us coming through this thing as best we could. And so hopefully at some point, we can return to that and it doesn’t take a tragedy like 9/11. Hopefully we can remember what that felt like and return to it without having a tragedy 'cause we do need to come together as a country right now."
