Irvine Valley College pays tribute to those who died on 9/11

Irvine Police Departments’ Color Guard presents the Presentation of the Flags at the 9/11 memorial in Irvine Valley College’s Performing Arts Center on September 11, 2014.
(Photograph/Hannah Tavares)

Irvine Valley College held their 9/11 commemoration ceremony in the Performing Arts Center last Thursday in the afternoon.

Outside the PAC, a bomb squad, emergency services personnel, police, as well as a helicopter gathered around the outside of the building, while videos from the attacks on September 11, 2001 played on large-screen TVs and photos and a timeline hung on the wall.

“The New York Bomb Squad lost team members during 9/11. They had to conduct a blast investigation, figure out where the blast happened, how it happened, as well as why it happened,” said a member of the OCSD Bomb Squad.

White roses piled onto the floor below a poster of the American flag that was made up of the victims’ names.

“I think it’s important to remember and observe because it was probably the greatest American tragedy of all time. It made no sense when it happened. To me it still makes no sense now,” Tameka Hall, 18, said.  “Regular people just going about their days were killed for something they had nothing to do with. It was more than a slap to America’s face, it was robbing sons and daughters, mothers and father, sisters and brother’s from people who loved them.”

Orange County Sheriff Sheriff Hutchens spoke at the commemoration ceremony along with Lieutenant Aroon Seeda, a military chaplain, and TJ Prendergast, president of the South Orange County Community College District’s board of trustees.

Singer Robbie Britt performed the “Star Spangled Banner” and “Amazing Grace” during the ceremony with a special performance from Brittany Case and Anne Yoon-Young Shin performing “Wind Beneath My Wings.”

After the ceremony, people gathered outside to meet the OCSD’s Canine Search and Rescue Unit on the PAC lawn.

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