Pueblo ceremony honors 9/11 first responder

It was a solemn morning along Pueblo’s Riverwalk. Dozens of people lined up along the sidewalk as fire divisions and law enforcement from the area remembered 9/11 on its 17th anniversary.

The ceremony started with a ringing of the bell at 7:58 a.m. It symbolized when the first World Trade Center tower fell in Colorado’s time zone.

A piece of “touchable steel” from the towers was marched out carefully and presented by the honor guard.

Sitting in the front row was Captain David Brentley. He was one of the first people on the scene at the World Trade Center when the attacks started.

Capt. Bryce Boyer, the coordinator of the event said, “that is an extreme honor. It’s very humbling to have a member of the first responders from ground zero here with us today.”

In the crowd across the Riverwalk, were people and other first responders who came out to pay their respects. Many of them remember exactly where they were on 9/11, 17 years ago today.

Randy Padilla, a Pueblo resident said, “We were sitting in the picket room and we saw the beginning of it. It’s always going to be a special day for us.”

Another man who struggled to hold his tear back said he lived near Shanksville, Pennsylvania where passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 stopped hijackers from hitting the U.S. Capitol. Tim Bartlett said, “they were showing the scenes from New York and I spent the rest of the day helping the police with traffic because of the instances going on.”

The thousands of men and women who lost their lives because of 9/11 were remembered with a gun salute, playing of taps and one final bell ring to symbolize the final tower falling.

A permanent 9/11 memorial stands in front of the Center for American Values. A steel beam is held up on two white pillars where visitors can walk by along Pueblo’s Riverwalk.