WOODBRIDGE, Va. — Prince William County will mark the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks Thursday evening with a remembrance ceremony at Sean T. Connaughton Plaza, featuring a recovered FDNY fire engine and steel from the World Trade Center's Twin Towers on loan from a Nokesville-based nonprofit.
The ceremony begins at 6:30 p.m. at the plaza, 1 County Complex Court, and will honor the 22 Prince William County residents killed in the attacks, along with the nearly 3,000 others who died that day nationwide. County officials say the evening will include personal reflections from a special guest whose life was changed by the events of Sept. 11, along with a performance by the Madrigal Choir from Osbourn Park High School.
FDNY Squad 252's engine, one of the first units to respond to the World Trade Center attacks, at the Americans in Wartime Experience's storage site. (Photo: Dennis Gill / AWE)
The ceremony continues a county tradition of reading the names of its 22 fallen residents — 19 of whom were working at the Pentagon when American Airlines Flight 77 struck the building, and three of whom died in the World Trade Center attacks in New York. Their names are permanently inscribed on the county's Liberty Memorial Fountain near the McCoart Government Center.
A fire engine that survived Ground Zero
This year's ceremony will be framed by an unusual backdrop: an FDNY Squad 252 fire engine that responded to the World Trade Center attacks and was later recovered from Ground Zero, along with mangled steel from the towers' upper floors. Both are on loan from the Americans in Wartime Experience (AWE), a Prince William County-based nonprofit developing a military history museum in Dale City. AWE brought the engine to the plaza by police escort from its storage site, which the organization calls its "tank farm" and which also holds Squad 252's companion EMS vehicle and additional recovered WTC steel.
Steel recovered from the World Trade Center's upper floors, stored alongside the Squad 252 engine at AWE's Nokesville site. (Photo: Dennis Gill / AWE)
AWE, whose collection includes more than 100 operational military vehicles, describes its mission as honoring the service and sacrifice of Americans in wartime, from World War I to the present, and educating visitors about the personal and social costs of conflict — a mission reflected on the nonprofit's own site, which frames its work around the stories of the citizen-soldiers, home-front families and fallen who define wartime America.
AWE CEO Dennis Brant has said the display is intended to help younger generations — many born after 2001 — understand the significance of the attacks. The organization plans to eventually give the engine a permanent home within a dedicated 9/11 exhibit when its museum opens.
Remembering the County's 22 Lost
Prince William County lost more residents on 9/11 than any other jurisdiction in the Washington region. Those killed included military service members, retired veterans and career civilian employees of the Department of Defense, many of whom worked at the Pentagon. Their names — including Sgt. 1st Class John J. Chada, Sgt. Maj. Lacey B. Ivory, Sgt. Maj. Larry L. Strickland and Manassas residents David W. Laychak, James T. Lynch Jr. and Robert J. Maxwell, among others — are etched into the Liberty Memorial alongside steel beams the county acquired from the World Trade Center in 2010.