Daily News

Ground Zero Flag Comes to Springfield Today

SPRINGFIELD — The community is invited to view the Ground Zero flag when it comes to Springfield’s September 11th Monument in Riverfront Park today, August 9, at 11 a.m.

Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno; Springfield Fire Commissioner B. J. Calvi; Springfield Police Superintendent Cheryl Clapprood; Jordan Lemieux, retired Holyoke firefighter and member of the Massachusetts chapter of Honor and Remember; and public-safety officials will greet the flag as it arrives. It will be escorted into Springfield over the Memorial Bridge by the Springfield Police and Fire departments, American Medical Response (AMR), the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department, and the Massachusetts Patriot Guard Riders.

The flag was flown between the World Trade Center’s North and South towers following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, outside the New York Port Authority makeshift office trailer, deployed to Iraq, and flown around the country. It has numerous signatures and can be touched only by white cotton gloves to protect it from being damaged.

The flag arrived in Massachusetts on Aug. 7 and was presented to the Massachusetts Honor and Remember chapter, led by chapter director Brian Miller. After it departs Springfield, it will go to Northampton as it prepares to be carried in the New England Run for the Fallen on Aug. 19-21, from Bernardston to Kittery, Maine. The New England Run for the Fallen is a tribute to every fallen service member from New England who died as a result of serving from any circumstance during the war on terror.