New Pinellas 9/11 Memorial built for youngest generation

PALM HARBOR, Fla. - It happened to all of us. September 11th didn't pick and choose.

Anne Koster knows. She sat on the 81st floor when it happened to her.

"We saw the plane come into the building.  Plane came in about nine floors above my floor,” said the 9/11 survivor.

9/11 happened to Mark Kijas a New York security guard who ran toward two falling towers not away like his bride begged.

"My wife called and she told me not to go there," said Kijas who was a civilian first responder.

It also happened to a dad who waited for word from two firefighter sons.

"She called us on the telephone and said the boys are safe and we said ‘thank God, praise the Lord,’" recounted retired New York Firefighter Francis X. Hogan.

Even though each of us has a story to recount from that day, there is a younger generation who don't have any.

"They're going to read about it in a book like we read about the Civil War and the Revolutionary War and its going to seem like was a million years ago," said dad Lenny Thomas.

So a Palm Harbor Community decided reflecting on our memories isn't good enough. Even the kind of memories that tie a knot in your throat will fade. But two tons of granite and a steel beam from the World Trade Center will not.

"This memorial will serve as a reminder about to future generations about the brave actions of so many that day and how we as a nation responded," said Fire Department New York Battalion Chief Michael Gala, Jr.

343 fallen firefighter names are cast in bronze. A never-ending flame burns at the 9-11 memorial inside Curlew Hills Memorial Gardens in Palm Harbor.

"It can start to seem like it was a long time ago and it wasn't," said Thomas.

9/11 happened to all of us. We must teach the youngest -- never let it happen again.