The Commercial Appeal
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — As a retired New York City Fire Department lieutenant who said he escaped the rubble of the crumbling World Trade Center towers twice on Sept. 11 nine years ago, Joe Torrillo believes a giant flag temporarily unfurled Thursday at Shelby Farms should stimulate patriotism and thought.
“It was a day that people put all differences aside, in racial and religious and ethnic boundaries, and I think we became the re-United States of America,” Torrillo said.
“I think that’s the theme to go forward, and having this flag fly all across this country, that we really need to rethink what the country means to us and what do we mean to the country,” he said.
At about 1,800 square feet, an American flag that once flew above an auto park association in Escondido, Calif., fluttered from a Shelby County Fire Department ladder truck at Patriot Lake for less than an hour.
A San Diego firefighter and paramedic, Mitch Mendler, 55, through a nonprofit organization featuring Sept. 11 artifacts and artists called the World Memorial , is planning to have “The Patriot Flag” similarly flown in cities in all 50 states, Afghanistan and Iraq.
The culmination of the effort is planned for next Sept. 11, the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, when the flag would be flown that day at those sites and in Pennsylvania, where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed after passengers fought the terrorist hijackers.
Memphis-based FedEx is shipping the flag, wedged in a black trunk, at no charge, Mendler said.
With the Wolf River Pipes and Drums providing bagpipe music for the ceremony, as well as the Navy Band Mid-South, remembering 343 firefighters, 23 police officers, 37 port authority officers and other pubic safety workers who died in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, created a solemn tone.
Shelby County Fire chief Clarence Cash said it was an honor and a heavy-hearted privilege to be the master of ceremonies.
“Today is really to honor you,” Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell said to the firefighters and law enforcement officers gathered under a clear blue sky.
A Shelby County firefighter, Andrew Hoard, provided the link that made Memphis the first stop in Tennessee for the traveling flag. His mother, Mary Jean Ammermann of Cookeville, Tenn., is founding president of America’s 9/11 Memorial Quilts organization and knows Mendler, Hoard said.
Torrillo said a press release before his arrival erroneously said he had been buried in rubble for three days.
However, he was rescued from the rubble of the south World Trade Center tower, but then was covered by rubble again when the north tower fell, making him a survivor of both tower collapses.