Fallen heroes and their families will be the focus of Marshall University’s first large-scale 9/11 Days of Service memorial. 

The event will honor the lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as well as veterans, first responders and their families, Gabe Brown, the director of community service & family programs, said The event will last three days, starting Thursday, Sept. 11. 

“We want to be together. We want to remember that time that the nation came together, worked together and seemed as if we were all one,” Brown said.

Marshall has never had a major observance of 9/11, Brown said, and he aimed to change that by applying for a grant.

“I read all the research, and I looked it up and then went ahead and wrote for the grant, and I received $10,000 to put on the event,” he said.

Each part of the event, he said, serves a purpose. 

“We have the hero’s breakfast, which is going to be really important because it’s bringing the first responders in, post 9/11 veterans to campus to be able to have a free breakfast,” he said.

Paul Ambrose, Marshall alumnus who died in the Sept. 11 plane crash into the Pentagon, will receive a bench in his honor during the event, Brown said.

A tribute walk, Brown said, will begin in front of the Memorial Student Center and end at the Marshall Recreation Center and will be led by the fire department color guard.

“The fire department color guard is going to be leading the walk to the plaque on the bench,” he said. “That, in itself, is pretty special for campus, but not just for campus and our community, but as well as the Ambrose family.”

In a service vehicle wash, “Fire trucks and police departments or police cars and the ambulances are going to pull up in front of the playhouse, and we’re going to wash their vehicles for them,” he said. “We did not know the impact that this actually was going to have on the first responders because they are apparently responsible for washing their vehicles daily.”

He, like many other Americans, Brown said, remembers the tragic day as if it were yesterday. 

“I just remember turning on the news one morning, and it happened, and I was forever impacted by it,” he said. “I have several family members who are in the military, but even if we look at the student population we have now, most of the students who are here at Marshall right now weren’t alive when 9/11 happened.”

He said he hopes the event will inspire change.

“We’re so divided right now, and it’s causing a lot of heartache and pain,” he said. “Remembering what happened with 9/11, how it brought the nation together, I’m hoping that this will bring out the community together even if it’s just for three days.”

Holly Belmont can be contacted at belmont9@marshall.edu.