GEORGETOWN, Ky. (LEX 18) — The Scott County library was given quite the gift recently and it’s on display now inside the building’s gallery.
“The exhibit is trying to extract the personal tragedies and experiences from people who were there at the time,” said library Marketing Manager, Mingyoung Bowling.
Bowling is referring to the 9/11 exhibit that was opened this morning and will run through the end of September, before being returned to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.
The gallery consists of pictures and verbal accounts of what transpired on the day America changed forever. Included are quotes from those who were able to make contact with relatives before those four airplanes were hijacked and crashed. Other accounts are from those who were in the vicinity and survived.
It won’t take very long to observe the exhibit but as we approach the 20th anniversary of 9/11, it’s a very well-pieced together reflection.
“This is the whole reason we are having the exhibit,” Bowling said. “They want to make sure we continue to educate.”
Mr. Bowling was working in Lexington at the time, and remembers exactly what that day was like.
“Just walking around like zombies. It was unreal. Unreal,” he recalled.
Bowling has taken a particular interest in the exhibit, 9/11, and the events that followed, including the twenty-year war in Afghanistan, which the United States recently concluded by withdrawing troops from the nation. But that action wasn’t without consequences. 13 United States Marines were killed in a suicide bombing attack. Bowling’s daughter, Ally is an active Marine stationed in Hawai’i who knew them all.
“She’s part of intelligence and she’s affected like anyone else. Those were her sisters. They went through training together,” he stated. “So it hits personally, and hits as a father,” he continued.
That’s why it’s so important to know the history of 9/11. We’ll never forget the day itself, but it’s also important to remember the twenty years that ensued, and the events that preceded the attacks. (Remember, The World Trade Center was a bombing target in 1993.)
Even the 9/11 memorial located on the Twin Towers footprint in lower Manhattan has been expanded to include the names of the hundreds of first responders who we’ve lost over the last two decades to cancer, and other diseases they contracted by inhaling the toxins created by those explosions.
“You’ll see there’s a poster out there that shows the end result after the dust had settled. Personal experiences of the first responders who passed away because of breathing the toxins,” Bowling said.
