Early Friday morning, while family members read the names of their loved ones lost on 9/11 two thousand, five hundred miles away in New York, fire technology students at Los Alamitos High School were honoring brave firefighters with their own flag-line memorial.
On the 25th Anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, firefighting professionals from Orange County Fire Authority joined fire tech students and their instructors, gathered around the American flag at LAHS with their own heartfelt memorial.
With old-glory waving in the wind above, students, administrators, and fire professionals solemnly paid tribute to 343 men and women from various fire services who lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001, in service to others.
“I made sure they understood that these flags represented not just people from the past, but their families. They were husbands and wives, just normal people who answered a call before losing their lives,” said Ryan Weatherman, the fire tech instructor at the school.
The memorial included 343 small American flags, one for each firefighter who died on that tragic day, woven together into a piece of art that read “343.”
On Friday morning, it was placed at the base of the large American flagpole in front of the school’s multi-story administrative building on Cerritos Ave. in Los Alamitos.
According to Weatherman, the project proved moving and instructive, especially for students not yet born when the tragedy occurred.
“We have a fire tech program here. I’m the EMT program director for North Orange County ROP and Los Alamitos. We also teach fire technology here as the students’ elective option, and back there is a student art project for a memorial art project. It’s the number 343 with 343 American flags in it, representing all the firefighters who died on 9/11,” he said on Friday.
“It was a really cool thing for all of these students who are interested in a career in the fire service but weren’t even born and did not witness the 9/11 attack, to kind of imagine and make the sacrifice of these firefighters very real,” he said.
“It (9/11) really changed a lot in the fire service,” he said.
“I think that’s really important that the students understand that (being in the fire service) is not all just about you or being heroes and cool stuff like that,” he said. “It’s about helping your fellow person, helping anybody whenever they call, whatever the need may be.”
“So that’s really important and why we connect the students with the flags, to connect them. When we were putting them together, each flag represented a firefighter, but also their family,” said Weatherman.
Students agreed.
“We were honoring all the firefighters that gave it all at 9/11 and things they did knowing that they might not be going to be able to come home,” said student Cole Michael Hurley.
“That they risked all so other people may live is a beautiful thing, and we should honor them,” he said.
Hurley also praised the fact that Los Al High has a fire tech program at all.
“To go into a class where you get to work hands-on with all the equipment is a very cool class, and I’m very happy and very lucky to have a class where I get to be what I want to do in my future,” he said. “I’m very grateful for Los Al to have that.”
Another student, Cole Romero, said, to him, working on the project brought home the bravery and generosity of service demonstrated by the firefighters.
“These men and women knew the risk; they knew what they were doing, they knew they might not come home at the end of the day, but they decided to give up the rest of their lives to save so many more who could have died in Sept. 11th,” said Romero.
“This place (LAHS) is very nourishing, and it teaches you a lot about how the fire department works and how everything goes, and it’s just very, very helpful and very promising to help our futures out,” he added
In addition to an engine company from the Orange County Fire Authority, Supt. of Schools Dr. Andrew Pulver and Principal Cara Vienna looked on as prospective firefighters joined the professionals for the 343-flag memorial.
“This project drove home the point that this job does require a lot, it connected the past with the future and made sure the students knew that you have to study and practice like your life depends on it, because one day it probably will,” said Weatherman.