Sept. 11: UK Military Organizations Honor the Fallen

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 11, 2009) -- Nearly 3,000 people died on Sept. 11, 2001, in the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. Each one of them will be remembered at the University of Kentucky today.

The Pershing Rifles, a group drawn from UK Army and Air Force ROTC cadets, will mark the day by reading aloud the names of all Sept. 11 victims, civilian and military, during a day-long vigil near the flagpole in front of the Main Building. The reading will include the victims in New York City, Washington D.C. and on United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed near Shanksville, Pa. The vigil will begin at 9 a.m. and will last until 3 p.m. or until the last name is read.

Together with the newly-established UK Veterans Resource Center and UK Military Veterans of America, ROTC members will plant 2,974 American flags on the lawn - where they will be visible both to UK students walking to class and to passersby on South Limestone. The mass of flags is intended to serve as a poignant reminder of the lives lost eight years ago.

Before beginning the vigil, new cadets will be sworn in as future officers in the United States military. Cadets will take the oath at 8:46 a.m., the precise moment American Airlines Flight 11 struck the north tower of the World Trade Center. This contracting ceremony will take place near the flagpole on Administration Drive, in front of the Main Building.

UK ROTC and the Pershing Rifles have marked Sept. 11 with a solemn vigil since the first anniversary of the attacks. According to UK Army ROTC Cadet Charles Hoffman, a political science senior and commanding officer of the Pershing Rifles, “We do it as commemoration of the people who lost their lives in the World Trade Center, airplanes and the Pentagon. We are not concerned about politics – just the lives lost.” Hoffman will graduate from UK in May, and will be commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army.

On the importance of ROTC honoring the victims of Sept. 11, Hoffman says: “I think that being in touch with the civilian population as an Army officer is a big thing - engaging in things like this to bring the community together is important. I think that anything that brings you in touch with the civilian population you are fighting for is a good thing. “