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L.A. firefighters remember 9/11 victims and rescuers at Hollywood memorial

Los Angeles Fire Department cadets pay honors as the American flag is lowered to half-staff at a 9/11 ceremony at the LAFD Historical Society Museum and Fallen Firefighters Memorial at Fire Station 27.
(Michael Owen Baker / For The Times)
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At a Hollywood memorial to fallen firefighters, Los Angeles firefighters and recruits gathered early Sunday to remember the victims of the terrorist attacks that devastated the country a decade and a half ago, including hundreds of firefighters and other emergency personnel who rushed in as others fled.

As scores of people clad in dark blue stood in silence at the Fallen Firefighters Memorial, bells were rung at the approximate times that the first and second towers of the World Trade Center collapsed. A flag was lowered to half-staff.

Retired Asst. Chief Frank Borden, director of operations at the Los Angeles Fire Department Historical Society, recounted the indelible scenes of New York firefighters climbing stairways toward the flames.

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“You know, our firefighters, police officers, medics all over the country are doing things like that — not on that scale — every day,” Borden said.

Retired Asst. Chief Frank Borden speaks during the ceremony at the LAFD Historical Society Museum and Fallen Firefighters Memorial at Fire Station 27.
Retired Asst. Chief Frank Borden speaks during the ceremony at the LAFD Historical Society Museum and Fallen Firefighters Memorial at Fire Station 27.
(Michael Owen Baker / For The Times )

Several people spoke about seeing the destruction and recovery firsthand: Retired fire inspector Don Forrest, who was flown to New York to assist rescuers in the aftermath of the attacks, remembered Ground Zero as an overwhelming pile of smoking ash and rubble akin to a volcanic eruption. He quickly learned not to tell the New York firefighters that he was sorry for their loss, Forrest said, because they still held out hope that their friends and co-workers were merely missing.

From time to time, the haunting sound of air horns and a siren would rise and the flurry of activity came to a halt, Forrest recalled. A body would be carried out, draped in a flag.

“It was something to behold, to watch that many people stop and honor one of the fallen comrades,” Forrest said, his voice wavering as he addressed the Sunday morning crowd.

“It is burned in my memory,” Forrest concluded.

LAFD personnelsalute during a ringing of the bell at a 9/11 ceremony at the LAFD Historical Society Museum and Fallen Firefighters Memorial at Fire Station 27.
LAFD personnelsalute during a ringing of the bell at a 9/11 ceremony at the LAFD Historical Society Museum and Fallen Firefighters Memorial at Fire Station 27.
(Michael Owen Baker / For The Times )
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Forrest was among more than 100 people from the Los Angeles Fire Department who went to New York to assist after the attacks, including some who paid their own way, Borden said. Another was Asst. Chief Wade White, who remembered his shock that offices full of desks and computers had been almost completely pulverized.

“Why do we go up into something like that when we know it could possibly collapse?” White said, ruminating on why some people are drawn to become firefighters.

“We all took an oath … I’ll risk my life to save yours,” he said.

The ceremony ended with remarks and a prayer by Fire Department Chaplain George Negrete, who described the kindness of a letter from a 12-year-old boy at a New York middle school. Negrete said had been handed that letter while assisting firefighters at Ground Zero, and its words of support had stayed with him for years.

“Those that don’t wear a badge that are here today — you matter. You matter a lot to us,” Negrete said. “You give us a way to express our calling to rescue.… We do it for you and we couldn’t do it without you.”

emily.alpert@latimes.com

Twitter: @LATimesEmily

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