Events commemorate 9/11 terror attacks Though the numberof events has declined, many strive to preserve memory of victims 22 years after terror attacks, Nebraskans commemorate 9/11 losses

Several people from Nebraska and western Iowa died in the 9/11 attacks. They include:

Julie Geis, 44, formerly of Beaver Crossing, lived near Kansas City, Missouri, but also worked in the World Trade Center for Aon Corp., a Chicago-based risk management, insurance brokerage, reinsurance and consulting company. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln later retired the softball jersey of Geis, who played for the Huskers from 1976 to 1979.Navy Capt. Larry Getzfred, 57, formerly of Elgin, worked as the senior watch officer in the Pentagon's Navy Command Center, where he would have been monitoring the attacks in New York City on the morning of Sept. 11. Getzfred enlisted after high school, received two college degrees and served his country for 38 years. He was married with two daughters.Monte Hord, 46, formerly of Central City, worked as vice president for institutional equities at Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center. The 1977 University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate - voted "best looking" and "best dressed" by his classmates in high school - moved to New York after working in Chicago. Hord and his wife had three children.Jennifer Dorsey Howley, 34, a Lincoln Southeast High School graduate, worked as a director for Aon Corp. at the World Trade Center. She had a lifelong love of music, and in her honor, Southeast opened the Jennifer L. Dorsey Howley Performing Arts Center in February 2009. On Sept. 11, she was pregnant with her family's first child.Michael Tinley, 56, formerly of Council Bluffs, was a vice president for the insurance brokerage firm Marsh McLennan. On Sept. 11, he was preparing for a business meeting at Marsh's offices on the 100th floor of the North Tower, immediately above where American Airlines flight 11 hit the building. He was a graduate of Creighton Prep and Creighton University and had two daughters. He was planning to have lunch that day with his sister, Suzanne, who lived just a few blocks from the World Trade Center.Jerrold Paskins, 57, formerly of Omaha, graduated from Omaha Central High School and the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He lived in California but was in New York City to conduct an insurance audit at Marsh McLennan on the 94th story of the North Tower when the first plane hit that floor. His wife, Inez described him as a stickler for routines with a strong work ethic who taught Sunday School and coached youth sports, according to VoicesCenter.org, a memorial site for the 9/11 dead.

More than two decades after terrorists struck America on Sept. 11, 2001, the shadow of the smoking Twin Towers is getting smaller.

For years, people flocked to somber "Patriot Day" ceremonies on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks - to honor the memory of the 2,977 who died in the attacks in New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania, and to support the thousands of service members fighting the "Global War on Terror."

Twenty-two years later, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have ended, messily, and the sense of unity that followed the attack on America has long since frayed. Youths and young adults are too young to remember 9/11. There are fewer Patriot Day commemorations and fewer people who feel the need to attend them.

But some people in the Omaha metro are working to make sure the sacrifices of those who died on 9/11, or in the wars that followed, are not forgotten.

Bill O'Donnell of Bellevue said he felt "a strong compulsion" after 9/11 to preserve the memory of those who were lost. So the retired Air Force lieutenant colonel came up with an idea for a memorial.

"When we aren't actively involved in an armed conflict, the tide of patriotism and loyalty tend to ebb," said O'Donnell, who served with the Strategic Air Command at Offutt Air Force Base during the Cold War. "Any vet will tell you, they hate the thought that nobody remembers them. Nobody wants to be forgotten."

His idea featured a scaled-down replica of the Pentagon - the scene of one terror attack - with a "93" in the center, signifying the passengers who gave their lives fighting back against the hijackers of United Flight 93 to stop another attack in Washington.

The memorial was flanked by two flagpoles, representing the twin towers of the World Trade Center that burned and collapsed after hijackers flew planes into them.

Contributions poured in from the Bellevue community, and he easily raised the $17,000 cost of constructing the monument in the city's Haworth Park. (Later, it was moved across the street to American Heroes Park.)

More than 2,000 people attended the first Patriot Day commemoration at the memorial in September 2002. People remained until midnight - a memory that makes O'Donnell tear up.

The ceremony - now backed by the Kiwanis Club of Bellevue - has remained an annual event. This year it will begin at 6 p.m. Monday and will feature the Air Force Junior ROTC from Bellevue West and East High Schools, Bellevue police officers and firefighters, members of the Nebraska and Iowa National Guard, and airmen from the 55th Wing.

The centerpiece will be a roll call of 147 service members from Nebraska and Iowa who died in the post-9/11 wars.

O'Donnell said crowds have gotten smaller over the years.

"I would love to see a couple of thousand people out again," he said. "But as long as I draw a breath, as long as my wife draws a breath, we will be out there, remembering the names of those who fell."

'I just watched my brother get murdered'

For Lynn Castrianno of Omaha, remembering those who died on 9/11 is personal.

That morning, she watched the World Trade Center towers burn on television. She frantically tried to call her brother, Leonard, 30, a securities trader who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 105th floor of the North Tower, about 10 floors above where American Flight 11 struck.

He never had a chance. The inferno below him cut off all escape for those on the uppermost floors.

Lynn Castrianno's knees buckled as she watched the North Tower collapse.

"I remember saying, 'Oh my God, I just watched my brother get murdered,'" she recalled a week ago. "I was devastated."

Castrianno channeled her grief into the creation of a memorial to Leonard and the others who died on 9/11. Beginning in 2004, with the help of friends, she attached the names, ages and locations of each of those who died to small individual flags. Then they placed them together in the ground, a field of flags flying in their honor.

The location changed in the early years, but eventually the event settled in Omaha's Memorial Park. Now the Rotary Club of Omaha coordinates the event. On Sept. 2, about 100 volunteers - including Castrianno - turned out to place the flags. They will remain in place until Wednesday.

"I'm thrilled that it still goes on, 19 years later," she said. "I want this to continue, even if I'm not here."

FBI remembers its fallen

Castrianno will tell her story, and her brother's story, at a small, private ceremony Monday morning at the Omaha field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Eugene Kowel, the special agent in charge, said the 9/11 attack was a pivot point in the FBI's history. The investigation occupied the agency for years, and it forced the FBI to boost its cooperation with other intelligence agencies.

Monday's service will commemorate 23 FBI employees who died as a result of the attacks. Their names will be read, and a bagpiper will play in their honor.

Kowel will tell his own 9/11 story. He was a local prosecutor in Manhattan and rushed to the World Trade Center after the first plane hit. He witnessed the second plane slam into the South Tower.

"I feel like it's really important to keep this day in the public consciousness," he said. "It no longer gets the attention. We hope other people hear about (the FBI service), and remember."

'It's so painful to look at those faces'

In Omaha, or maybe anywhere, almost no one has done as much as Bill and Evonne Williams to remember those who have fallen since 9/11.

Through their nonprofit, Patriotic Productions, they created a set of memorial posters commemorating the service members who died in Iraq and Afghanistan and have circulated them around the country.

They also sent 3,500 veterans, from World War II to the present, on memorable "flights of honor" from Nebraska to visit patriotic sites in Washington, D.C. The veterans were feted with a banquet before they left, and throngs of well-wishers greeted them on their return.

Bill Williams said their national "Remembering Our Fallen" tribute was in Wattage Township, New Jersey, over the weekend - directly across the Hudson River from New York City, where the memory of 9/11 remains raw.

He thinks the chaotic American exit from Afghanistan two years ago has made people want to forget.

"People have just turned the page," Williams said.

But it is hard to turn away from men and women on the memorial wall, smiling and clowning in carefree moments with with friends and family before their lives were cut short.

"It's so painful to look at those faces," he said. "We want them to be remembered, not forgotten."

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