Sept. 11, 2001.

A day that many will never forget.

It was a beautiful, sunny day, much like it was Monday, as families said what turned out to be their final goodbyes, never expecting that their loved ones would never walk through the door again.

Twenty-two years have passed since that fateful day, where planes became bombs in the worst terrorist attack on American soil.

It was devastation.

It was disbelief.

It was horrific.

Now, 8,035 days since the towers fell to terrorism, Carbon County officials and residents gathered Monday morning in Josiah White Park in Jim Thorpe to honor those who lost their lives in the attacks; as well as remember those who have fought to defend this country after it was rocked.

“On Sept. 11, 2001, an unforgivable and horrific attack,” Christine LeClair, director of Carbon County Veterans Affairs and a veteran who served following the attacks, said. “Terrorists robbed America of more than 3,000 lives and quite simply Sept. 11, 2001, hit our nation in a way that we had not known since the shock of Pearl Harbor, with bringing down the World Trade Center, damaging the Pentagon and downing an airliner in Pennsylvania. The day was the most devastating in our nation’s history.”

LeClair said that hundreds of families lost someone, “a mother, a father, a brother, a child” and more than 300 emergency service workers perished trying to save lives.

Keynote speaker Denise VanSickle, a U.S. Coast Guard veteran and owner of FireFly Farms Kennels in Franklin Township, said that there are days that generations never forget.

Pearl Harbor.

The assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Martin Luther King Jr.

But for her, Sept. 11, 2001 shaped her generation.

She said that it was through this event that she furthered her career.

“I say that 9/11 changed the course of my life,” she said. “Most of that day, I decided I wanted more. I needed to make a difference. I needed to do something.

In January 2002, VanSickle volunteered to become a company commander and help train more than 700 men and women in the military.

She retired from the military in 2010 and nearly a decade later, began training dogs as service and therapy dogs for people with medical conditions, as well as veterans, working with the Vet 2 Vet Service Dog program.

“On this day we remember and reflect on 9/11,” said state Rep. Doyle Heffley. “We all have our own personal stories of where we were and how we experienced it.”

He spoke about how the effects of the day shaped the following days.

“We were all united. We were one nation and it didn’t matter who were Democrats or Republicans or Libertarians. We were all American.”

Carbon County Commissioner Rocky Ahner broke it down, highlighting the times in which the planes hit.

“8:46 a.m., the North tower. 9:03 a.m., the South tower. 9:37 a.m., the Pentagon. 10:03 a.m., a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

“This foreign enemy thought they could break our economy, spirit and freedom but they were wrong,” he said. “We stood strong, picked up the pieces and showed the entire world why we’re the greatest country on earth.

“To the heroes who gave their lives, let it be known that you are missed but not forgotten.”

The event also included an honor and color guard by the Lehighton UVO and Jim Thorpe American Legion Post 304 and Angela Nardini, who sang the national anthem.