The city of Dover will formally unveil a new 9/11 memorial Friday, on the 25th anniversary of the attack.
The memorial, an 11-feet high structure made of granite panels, will stand in the Cocheco Mill Courtyard.
It’s an effort spearheaded by city leaders, including police and fire chiefs, the former and current mayor, and former Dover fire chief Perry Plummer.
Plummer, who had been with Dover Fire and Rescue for about 26 years, spoke with NHPR’s Morning Edition host Rick Ganley about the memorial and what it means to his community.
Transcript
I know you and other city leaders formed a committee last fall to create this memorial. Why was this the time for this memorial?
I was the fire chief back when 9/11 happened, and every year since it happened, Dover Fire had some type of ceremony in memory of the lives lost.
So prior to last September 11th, the mayor and myself got together and we were talking about this, and we said, “Look, we really don't have a fitting tribute to those lives lost and the sacrifices that were made on that day. Why don't we get a committee together and talk about getting the memorial together?”
At that time, we were thinking of a smaller memorial, probably in a cemetery somewhere where someone could go in solitude and sit and reflect. And as the committee grew a little bit, we got people involved, the community support, and we realized this could be a larger scale memorial really fitting the memory of that day.
So over the last year, we've raised almost $200,000, all community money. [We] found a beautiful spot and a nice planter that's about 25 feet long. It's right in the heart of downtown. It's going to be a great thing for the city of Dover.
Well, I want to ask you why in Dover in particular? I think 42 folks from New Hampshire died on that day. What's the significance of that location, though?
That's where we did our very first ceremony right after 9/11 and we went right back to that spot.
We had four people that had a connection to Dover pass away during those events and we wanted to honor them as well. So not only do we have the memorial, but we also have a large information board that has their pictures on it, explains their connection to Dover, and then talks about the memorial as well as the timeline for 9/11.
Mayor [Robert] Carrier, who was the mayor at the time, came up with something early on in the meeting. What he said was, “What we want to do with this memorial is make it field trip worthy.” And that's really our goal, is to make this field trip worthy. So not only can people go there and reflect and sit in solitude, it also will be a learning piece for the city. Hopefully the schools will go there for field trips and the younger generation will understand a little bit more about 9/11 and how it shaped our country for years and years and years to come and changed us forever.
Yeah, it really did. And it's true, there's a whole generation that's grown up not knowing, at least, firsthand about that day. Now, you were a firefighter for decades. What does this memorial mean to you?
It affected all of us. I went to some of those funerals. And I think that this is our way, 25 years later, of saying, “We said it that day, we said we'd never forget.” We'd never forget those heroes that gave their lives, the sacrifices that were made, both civilian and military and public safety. And I think this is a great tribute to say we kept our word.
The second thing that we hope that this really does is [to] remember the first couple years after 9/11 happened. The community outpouring was tremendous. The patriotism was so high. Everybody came together. It didn't matter anything other than we're coming together to support our country. And we hope that this memorial and this ceremony will at least bring a little bit of that back because we said we'd never forget. Let's never forget.
