{"id":397493,"date":"2026-09-12T01:48:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T01:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/397493\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T01:48:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T01:48:16","slug":"hillsborough-county-9-11-ceremony-youth-cadets-and-first-responders-honor-the-fallen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/397493\/","title":{"rendered":"Hillsborough County 9\/11 ceremony: Youth cadets and first responders honor the fallen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Veterans \"Veterans <\/p>\n

TAMPA, Fla – Veterans, first responders, active-duty military, and young cadets gathered Friday at Veterans Memorial Park for the annual Patriot Day ceremony honoring lives lost on the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.<\/p>\n

Veterans Memorial Park ceremony <\/p>\n

What we know:<\/p>\n

The annual ceremony at Veterans Memorial Park in Tampa brought together first responders who experienced the attacks firsthand and young JROTC members born after the tragedy.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Speakers delivered personal accounts of the tragedy while young cadets in full uniform listened.<\/p>\n

“I feel like it’s very important to keep talking about it and to keep telling people about it,” said Preston Shill, a member of Durant High School’s JROTC program. “Because one day, all the people who have experienced 9\/11 aren’t going to be here anymore.”<\/p>\n

Hillsborough County public safety <\/p>\n

Why you should care:<\/p>\n

Local public safety leaders emphasized the importance of younger generations maintaining the tradition of remembering the fallen.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Rob Herrin, the public safety chief for Hillsborough County Fire Rescue, expressed hope that the youth in attendance will carry the memorial tradition forward.<\/p>\n

“The pride comes in seeing the young that came to this,” Herrin said. “We see these younger folks, and they see what it means to us, and I hope that is an impression that they carry forward when this event is no longer run by folks who were alive during that time.”<\/p>\n

\"\" Twin Towers steel tribute <\/p>\n

Dig deeper:<\/p>\n

Between speeches, the ceremony featured a rifle salute, a ringing of the bell to honor fallen firefighters, and a solemn escort of a 135-pound piece of steel from the Twin Towers.<\/p>\n

Read: Woman set on fire by stranger at St. Pete gas station hospitalized for burns: SPPD<\/a><\/p>\n

Attendees also viewed military working dogs from MacDill Air Force Base, an Assault Battalion from the U.S. Marine Corps, and a drone demonstration by the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.<\/p>\n

After the ceremony, students could meet and talk with service professionals and take photos with them.<\/p>\n

The Source: The information in this story was gathered from interviews with Hillsborough County Fire Rescue officials and Durant High School JROTC participants who spoke at the ceremony.<\/p>\n

Hillsborough County<\/a>September 11<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla – Veterans, first responders, active-duty military, and young cadets gathered Friday at Veterans Memorial Park for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[47,629,115,21612,135,137,136,628],"class_list":["post-397493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-fl","tag-hillsborough","tag-news","tag-september-11","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}