Huntington's 9/11 remembrance includes a rose for every town resident lost
Community members, police and elected officials gathered in Huntington on Sunday to remember the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — including 43 town residents — ahead of Thursday's 24th anniversary.
Town Supervisor Ed Smyth and town council members read aloud the names of people from Huntington who lost their lives — including seven firefighters and other first responders. After each name, members of the Huntington Veterans Advisory Board placed roses in buckets and rang a silver bell, while an honor guard representing various veterans organizations, along with about 100 others in attendance, stood nearby.
The names and the chiming of the bells echoed through the Town Hall chambers as a soft rain fell outside.
"I'm honored not only to memorialize those who are lost, but to honor those that remain, to carry the message of hope, perseverance and remembrance," Smyth said. "We will never forget."
Barbara Duffy attended in remembrance of her son Michael Duffy, a Huntington High School graduate who played baseball for Manhattan College before getting a job in finance at the World Trade Center.
"Every day is hell. The chair is always empty and it's sad, but Michael is in a good place. He's with my husband," added Duffy, who said her husband died soon after her son.
Nearly 500 Long Islanders were among the roughly 3,000 people who perished when hijacked aircraft flew into the World Trade Center in Manhattan, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and a field in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Monsignor Steven Camp from the Church of St. Patrick, who delivered a homily at the service Sunday, said 24 members of his parish were killed.
"The passing of so many people during 9/11 had a trickle-down effect into the simplest aspects of community life, and that's when you realized how involved these individuals were in their local communities," Camp said, noting many of the 343 firefighters who perished also served as youth sports coaches.
Others remembered included Judd Cavalier and Joe Achundia, best friends from Huntington in their 20s, who worked together at a bond firm in the World Trade Center.
"I think about him every day," said Cavalier’s mother, Linda Cavalier. "But this time of the year, I can't help but think about how they died ... and how horrible it must have been for them."
Judd, she said, was an avid golfer who was enjoying living in New York City.
During his homily, Camp prayed that remembering the victims would "increase in all of us our civility, proper discourse, the desire and the will to work for justice and peace among all nations and people."
"In our politics today, we’re so fractured," he told Newsday afterward. "We need the civility that we all had with each other on Sept. 12, when all these communities, all these villages, bounded together. ... They were all concerned about their neighbors."
