World Trade Center flag returns to Ground Zero

[thedrifter]

May 22, 2003

World Trade Center flag returns to Ground Zero

By Elizabeth LeSure
Associated Press

NEW YORK ? Last Memorial Day, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey presented a unit of the Marines with flags that had once flown at the World Trade Center.
On Thursday, Col. Richard Mills returned to ground zero to hand back the flags, which had accompanied his 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit during missions around the world, including recent combat in Iraq.

Mills said that when he originally accepted the flags in honor of those killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attack, he made two promises on behalf of the Marines: ?First, that we would carry them wherever we went.?

And second, ?that we would do so with honor.?

?I?m here this morning to report that mission accomplished in both areas,? Mills said at an early morning ceremony overlooking the pit at ground zero.

Mills presented the folded flags to Port Authority Chief of Department Joseph Morris.

The Port Authority lost 37 police officers and 38 civilian employees in the attack on the trade center.

The flags were given to Mills at a ceremony in Central Park last year. They then traveled with the Marine Expeditionary Unit to Africa, Eastern Europe, the Persian Gulf and Iraq.

Speaking at the ceremony, Gov. George Pataki said, ?We are proud of those who since Sept. 11 have responded with incredible courage to protect the people of New York and protect the people of America by taking the war against those who would take away our freedom to the far corners of the globe.?

Several members of the Marine unit took part in the ceremony, including Sgt. Charles Rodriguez, whose sister, Lizette Mendoza, 33, died at the World Trade Center.

?With time, slowly you heal, but you never forget,? said Rodriguez, whose mother, wife and 5-year-old son also attended.

Dominick Cirri, whose son Robert was one of the Port Authority officers killed in the attack, also attended the service, which included a bagpipe procession.

?I was very moved,? said Cirri, as construction workers labored at the trade center site in the background.

The Marine Expeditionary Unit had received four flags ?? one American flag, two commemorative World Trade Center flags and a Port Authority flag. Three of the flags will eventually be housed in a memorial hall at the Port Authority police headquarters in Jersey City, N.J.

The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit will keep one of the trade center flags. The unit, which experienced intense combat in Iraq, is expected to return from the Middle East this Memorial Day.




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Copyright 2003 The Associated Press.



Sempers,

Roger





Col. Richard Mills, left, commander of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, presents an American flag and a World Trade Center commemorative flag to Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Chief Joseph Morris, as New York Gov. George Pataki and Deputy Superintendent Sam Plumeri look on. Both flags were carried by the 24th MEU into the battlefields in central Iraq during the Iraq War. ? Louis Lanzano / AP