Over 300 scouts, scouters, military and family members took part in the Patriot Day commemorative program at Patriots Point this past Saturday.
The ceremony started with a striking of the bell at 8:46 a.m., the time when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. After a minute of silence and the presentation of our National Colors, Capt. Thomas Bailey, USN, commanding officer of the Navy Nuclear Power Training Command spoke to the assembled crowd. He welcomed all the scouts particularly and noted that he had been an Eagle Scout before attending the Naval Academy.
Bailey said it was fitting that the ceremony was held on the Yorktown, an aircraft carrier with a name forever tied to the horror of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Like Sept. 11, the date changed American lives instantaneously.
On that day in 2001, Bailey was serving in Hawaii and was awakened in the middle of the night. He left his family to be on the submarine USS Charlotte that he was commanding.
"I couldn't help but wonder what happened and what it would mean to this country ... Political commentator James Carville said it best when he told a reporter shortly after the attack that 'The world changed today. Everything is going to be different tomorrow.' He was right."
Captain Bailey's talk was followed by a ceremonial wreath laying by himself, his son Alex, a Webelos scout, and Patriots Point Executive Director Dick Trammell.
Read the Charleston Post and Courier article here...
The program concluded with a playing of Amazing Grace by piper Robert Kerr and a benediction by Rev. John Hage of Mt. Pleasant Presbyterian Church.
