San Jose State alumna Johannah Baccaglio said she was deeply saddened by the lack of community members at the San Jose Fire Department’s (SJFD) 20th anniversary of 9/11 commemoration parade Saturday.
“On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Downtown [San Jose] was filled with hundreds marching multiple blocks,” Baccaglio, who graduated from SJSU in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in recreational management, said. “I hope it’s because of [the coronavirus] pandemic . . . ‘Never forget’ seems to be fading.”
About 150 community members marched alongside San Jose’s first responders from South Market and West San Fernando Streets, stopping at Fire Station 1 to memorialize the lives lost in the 9/11 attacks.
Terrorists from Saudi Arabia and several other Arab nations flew airplanes into the original World Trade Center towers in New York City and the Pentagon on Sept.11, 2001. A fourth plane crashed into a Pennsylvania field before it could reach the hijacker’s intended destination.
The parade began around 10 a.m. and was available for those at home through livestream on Facebook and Zoom.
Two SJFD trucks hung a large U.S. flag over St. James and Mission Streets as first responders marched to music played by an orchestra.
“How appropriate that our first responders would bring us together on this day,” said San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo after the parade. “One by one, slowly, we began to hear the stories [in the days that followed 9/11], stories of heroism, of courage, of faith, of resilience. It’s those stories that slowly began to lift our spirits.”
We all have a story to tell about where we were on that fateful day, Liccardo said.
Baccaglio was a senior in high school, sitting in her first period history class when the 9/11 attacks began.
“The principal had told us to turn off the TVs, that we had all seen enough but my history teacher said ‘You know what, we’re going to remember this day forever. We’re not turning off the TVs. If you have a problem with that you can leave my class,’ ” Baccaglio said.
She said the class stayed together, as did the rest of the nation.
Baccaglio said she found the “last phone calls” from 9/11 victims both on hijacked planes and in the twin towers of the original World Trade Center, heartbreaking.
“They knew they were going to die, they were saying goodbye . . . It began as a normal day. It’s unfathomable,” she said.
SJSU 2010 alumna Jennah Isaacs said she feels 9/11 is slowly being forgotten.
“No one talks about it anymore and over the years it only gets quieter. What’s being taught in school and how much?” Isaacs said at the parade. “I understand other things going on in the world, why some young people might be turned off by the nation . . . like Black lives matter and [U.S.] crises . . . and I support that too, that’s why I bring my girls out with me. But, today’s about lives lost and especially the lives of the first responders.”
SJSU’s UPD Capt. Frank Belcastro was a New York Police Department Captain about to start his regular shift on the morning of 9/11.
When the two hijacked planes hit the twin towers of the original World Trade Center, Belcastro knew it was a terrorist attack and the “mission was clear—save lives,” he told Tiffany Harbrecht, SJSU assistant director of editorial content and news in a Sept. 9 blog post.
“I remember that 9/11 started out as a beautiful day that became a nightmare,” Belcastro said. “I will never forget the uncommon valor of the police officers and firefighters who ran into those towers to save others.”
He said it’s important to understand people are still dying from toxins released on 9/11.
“Officers, firefighters, other first responders, they’re dying from cancer,” Belcastro said in a phone interview. “Ash [and] debris filled the streets . . . harmful fiberglass was in the air and we were breathing it in . . . you name a chemical and it was in the air that day.”
He said more than 200 NYPD officers have succumbed to cancers from those toxins and pollutants since 2001.
More than 241 NYPD police officers have died in the past 18 years, 10 times the amount of those killed in the 9/11 attacks, which was 23 officers, according to a Dec. 23, 2020 ABC News article.
Researchers have identified more than 60 types of cancer and about two dozen other conditions that are linked to ground zero exposures from 9/11, according to a Friday Scientific American article.
As of Friday, at least 4,627 first responders and survivors of the attacks enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program have died, according to the same Scientific American article.
“You've had all these officers running into danger, into buildings that were collapsing while people were fleeing, they had no consideration of race, religion, politics . . . you’re talking thousands and thousands of people,” Belcastro said. “The first responders went in knowing the danger they faced and they lost their lives knowing that . . . they gave their lives to save people that were basically strangers to them.”
Long-time San Jose resident Janice Stevens said everyone should find a personal way to memorialize these heroes.
“Parades and memorials like these are great for the community to feel that unification again, but I can’t stress how important it is to obtain your own witness to these stories if you don’t already have one,” Stevens said after the parade, referring to today’s Gen Z. “And I don’t mean the basic facts. I mean the raw, resilient stories.”
Baccaglio said while her teachers and the rest of the nation kept their TVs on during the 9/11 attacks, she now keeps the TV off because the news is too depressing.
“It’s funny, I've never thought about it before . . . I kept the TV on that day and now I turn it off. That day united us and now I feel we are a just divided nation, still suffering,” Baccaglio said.
She said she feels that people today are intolerant of differing opinions and this is a strenuous, polarized time.
Baccaglio said despite this sentiment, this day should forever be a day in which people take time to commemorate the lives that were lost and/or sacrificed.
“9/11 touches all of us in a different way,” Baccaglio said. “I felt compelled to honor these first responders today, I had to memorialize my own feelings.”
