Charles Kong Soo

US Em­bassy's Charge d'Af­faires David Wolfe says among the hor­rors of the Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001 ter­ror­ist at­tack on the US, there were al­so the high­est ex­am­ples of hero­ism and no­bil­i­ty dis­played by reg­u­lar peo­ple and par­tic­u­lar­ly the first re­spon­ders who raced in­to Ground Ze­ro in New York. He was speak­ing at the wreath-lay­ing cer­e­mo­ny for 14 Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als killed which was held at the US Em­bassy, at 15 Queen's Park West, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

The T&T cit­i­zens who per­ished were: Con­rod Cot­toy, Reena Sam Di­noo, Joan Fran­cis, Win­ston Grant, Clara Hinds, Stephen Joseph, Bob­by Mo­hammed, Paula Morales, Glenn Neblett, Jerome Nedd, Os­car Nes­beit, An­tho­ny Por­tillo, Vish­noo Ram­sa­roop and Goumatie Thack­ur­deen.

"To­day we wel­come the friends and fam­i­ly mem­bers of the 14 Trin­bag­o­ni­ans killed on Sep­tem­ber 11th, along with mem­bers of the Em­bassy com­mu­ni­ty, to re­mem­ber that day, and to re­flect on all that has hap­pened in the 11 years since the at­tacks," Wolfe said.

"The vic­tims of these at­tacks came from all walks of life, they rep­re­sent­ed every race and every faith. They were men and women, both young and old. They were bankers, con­struc­tion work­ers, sol­diers, po­lice of­fi­cers, fire­fight­ers and chil­dren. The old­est vic­tim was 85 years old, the youngest just two and a half.

"But among the hor­rors of that in­fa­mous day we al­so saw the high­est ex­am­ples of hero­ism and no­bil­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly among the first re­spon­ders who raced in­to burn­ing build­ings as oth­ers fled. As we re­mem­ber the in­no­cent who died, let us al­so pay trib­ute to those who gave their lives so that oth­ers may live."

He said US Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma had said Amer­i­ca was at war with al Qae­da and its af­fil­i­ates and will nev­er be at war with Is­lam or any oth­er re­li­gion. Oba­ma called on Amer­i­cans and peo­ple around the world to mark the an­niver­sary with acts of ser­vice to oth­ers to give back to their com­mu­ni­ties. Act­ing Deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs Re­i­ta Tou­s­saint spoke on be­half of For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an who was un­avoid­ably ab­sent.

She said the haunt­ing im­ages of 9/11, in all their mis­ery, did not de­feat the Amer­i­can peo­ple, nor did they paral­yse their in­ter­na­tion­al coun­ter­parts. Tou­s­saint said a true sense of glob­al uni­ty emerged as mil­lions across the world joined in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Amer­i­can peo­ple and out of the ash­es that re­mained af­ter the ter­ror­ist at­tack, he­roes emerged. Ellen Coop­er de­liv­ered re­marks on be­half of the rel­a­tives of the vic­tims.