Vietnam Veteran David Ogle, above, lowers his head as the events of Sept. 11 are remembered in a speech by Commander of Mississippi Valley Division Brig. Gen. Ed Arnold during the Vicksburg Community Patriot Day Commemoration at Vicksburg High School Memorial Stadium Wednesday. Below, students gather around the flag pole outside Warren Central Intermediate for a memorial service for the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The students observed a moment of silence and recited the Pledge of Allegiance during the program. (The Vicksburg Post/Melanie Duncan)

[09/12/02]From a Warren County hay field to a Capitol Hill office, everybody seemed to remember a year after Sept. 11 where they were that morning.

“It will be a defining day for us as long as we live,” said Brig. Gen. Edwin J. Arnold Jr., commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Mississippi Valley Division, at Vicksburg’s one-year anniversary commemoration at City Park. “We’ll always be able to say exactly where we were, what we were doing and how we felt.”

In groups and alone, Warren County residents paid tribute to victims of the terror attacks Wednesday by wearing red, white and blue and displaying the flag. Organized observances, large and small, were held across the county, including at schools, churches, River Region Medical Center and the 9:30 a.m. stadium event, attended by about 400 people.

Arnold said he was in an office on Capitol Hill when he got word of the attacks. Others were more distant from the seats of commerce and government targeted that day.

“I was at home in a hay field working,” said Charles Hintson, 63, of Redwood. “My wife came and told me about it. I came in and stayed glued to the TV the rest of the day.”

Col. Frederick L. Clapp Jr., commander and district engineer of the Corps’ Vicksburg District, said Corps personnel were performing their usual tasks to preserve and improve the navigability of the Mississippi River when the terrorists struck.

“Within hours our employees were completely involved,” Clapp said of the adjustments made that morning aimed at securing and protecting Corps projects and interests. “I’m proud of the reaction of our team, and I’m proud of the reaction of our hometown city.”

Arnold discussed the challenge to the country posed by the attacks.

“We talk about Sept. 11 as a day that changed America,” he said. “Well, I’m standing here looking at America. If the events of Sept. 11 changed us, what has it changed in you? We look down the street and see a lot of patriotic spirit. Do you feel it? Do you live it? Are you more committed to the ideals of freedom that the terrorists tried to take away? If we embrace those ideals, then the 3,047 who died will not have died in vain.”

Two Corps employees, David Sills and Mike Stewart, were presented the Army’s Civilian Award for Humanitarian Service for their work coordinating investigation and cleanup efforts in New York City after the towers collapsed.

Sills said for three weeks beginning Oct. 8 he helped manage the debris-sorting process, introducing a conveyor belt to improve efficiency. For 12 days beginning Sept. 12, Stewart was part of a team in charge of safety on the cleanup site.

“There were over 1,000 people working around the clock and I think we had only one accident,” Stewart said.

Separate commemoration events held Wednesday morning included a flag-raising ceremony with bugling by Warren Central High School Navy Junior ROTC cadets and observances at Warren Central Intermediate School, Sherman Avenue Elementary School, River Region Medical Center and Vicksburg National Military Park.

Later in the day a patriotic musical salute from local students from South Park and Dana Road elementaries and Vicksburg and Warren Central high schools was at Pemberton Square mall.

Outside the organized activities, work appeared to continue as normal. Guy Creekmore, 38, of Vicksburg, a UPS driver, said he and many of his co-workers planned to observe private moments of silence during the day to remember the victims.

“The only thing they did was get up and go to work,” he said of those who lost their lives.

World War II Army veteran Percy Strothers, 77, of Vicksburg, was one of about 30 veterans and officers who walked onto the stadium field with a ceremonial flag.

“There’s no country in the world that’s any better than America,” he said. “At my age, if something happened and I could go back and serve, I’d do it.”