The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum is hosting its Community Day of Remembrance where more than 1,000 West Michigan Boy Scouts are saluting the flag from sun up to sundown paying their respects to all who died 16 years ago during the 9-11 terror attacks. “
Second row attention. Right hand salute.”
“How many times have you saluted?” I ask a young Boy Scout. “Probably around 20?”
“First row, too. Left face. Forward march.”
“7:18 this morning…”
“All rows advance.”
“…The fire department was here, brought the flag down half-mast and we’ve been in continuous salute ever since that time and we’ll be under salute until 7:59 tonight.”
I ask nine year old Landen Bolich, who has saluted the flag twenty times, what he thinks about while saluting? “Um, about the people who died protecting us.”
“Every year we commemorate the 9/11 anniversary,” says Randy Ringquist, Assistant Council Commissioner for the Gerald R. Ford Service Council, “A lot of the Scouts weren’t even born at that time so it’s one way that we try to honor those who left us and to instill the values into the new boys who are coming up now.”
“I wasn’t alive then but I’ve learned a lot of things here,” says 11-year old Connor Kelley, “when you salute you get time to think about and reflect on what happened that day.”
Kelley is with Scout Troop 283 out of Belmont, “I have seen the videos and it has…it’s very, just strange how things happened. It’s like, why would someone want to kill other people?”
A day of reflection and education.
From the West Michigan day of Remembrance from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential museum, Patrick Center, WGVU News.