September 11th, 2001 is the most infamous date in America’s history. It is the day the World Trade Center, or Twin Towers, in New York were toppled by terrorists, the Pentagon was hit, and four planes filled with innocent passengers took the lives of 2,977 people who perished. Sahuaro s Marching Band, thanks to band director Ms. Engel, held a ceremony for the eighteenth memorial of these devastating attacks to remember the day and honor those who fell on that day.

Every student attending Sahuaro was not alive or are not old enough to remember the day the towers fell. That’s the main reason Ms. Engel put on this event, so the students can reflect and remember the day, even if they weren’t alive for it.

She has been greatly affected by the attacks, and says, “When you see the second tower fall live, it changes you. You don’t want it to but it does.” She went on to say that the event, “made everybody realize that the world wasn’t this safe little bubble that we lived in.”

On the morning of the memorial, Sahuaro’s trumpet players played “Taps”, a song played to venerate fallen veterans. They played it multiple times to highlight the time-stamps certain events happened. The first was played at 6:37 am (9:37: am EST) which was when Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. At 6:59 (9:59 EST), Taps sounded a second time to coincide with the collapse of the south tower. 7:07 (10:07 EST), Taps was heard a third time to coincide with the crash of Flight 93 into a field in Pennsylvania. Finally, Taps sounded one last time at 7:28 (10:28 EST) to coincide with the collapse of the North Tower.

For the hour-long period Taps was being played, other students in the Marching Band read off the different names of each person who lost their lives on that day. All around the courtyard, students read off a total of 2,977 names.

Seventeen minutes after the final taps were sounded, the full band came out to the flag pole with Mr. David Bellows, a teacher at Sahuaro who worked at the WTC and was spared when he called in sick that day. Mr. Bellows received the honor of raising the flag to half-mast that day, to remember and commemorate his friends, co-workers, and those who passed in the attacks.

Ms. Engel hopes to instill this traditional ceremony at Sahuaro to help keep the memory of 9/11 alive with all the students who never experienced it through reflection and reminiscence and help us as Americans to prevent anything like this from happening again. “In reading the victim’s names out loud, their lives didn’t really end that day because no matter what, someone is remembering them.”