Twenty‑five years after the 9/11 attacks, city leaders shared the importance of not letting the day’s meaning fade into history.
The Reading Fire Department’s annual remembrance ceremony in City Park drew city officials, school board members and state lawmakers, all gathered to honor the nearly 3,000 people killed and the first responders whose actions inspired the nation.
Reading Fire Chief Robert Leonard II speaks during Reading’s commemoration of the 25th Anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, on Friday in City Park. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE)
For city fire Chief Robert Leonard II, the anniversary is personal. Leonard was a 16‑year‑old junior firefighter in Prince George’s County, Md., when his high school abruptly dismissed classes on Sept. 11, 2001.
“Someone came in the class and told us what was going on,” he recalled. As parents arrived to pick up students, his sister asked him, “What are we gonna do?”
Leonard drove her home, then headed straight to the firehouse. Within minutes, he said, firefighters told him.
“As soon as I got to the firehouse, they said, ‘Rob, get your gear together. We just got transferred to D.C.’” Leonard recalled.
When the seventh alarm sounded at the World Trade Center, Leonard heard Prince George’s Engine 11 respond. Soon after, his crew was sent to the Pentagon.
“The things that I saw and the things that I smelled I will personally never, ever forget,” he said.
Rage and confusion followed him home that night, but the experience cemented his calling.
“That’s what made me want to become part of the fire service,” he said.
Leonard, hired in Reading in 2025 after a 20‑year career in Maryland, became the first city fire chief to speak at the ceremony who wasn’t serving in Reading on 9/11.
Reading Police Assistant Chief Aaron Demko speaks during Reading’s commemoration of the 25th Anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, on Friday in City Park. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE)
Deputy Police Chief Aaron Demko also traced his career to the attacks. The Berks native was an 18‑year‑old “navigating my way through society” when he watched the towers fall. Within days, he enlisted in the Marine Corps as an infantryman.
“I knew a fight was coming,” he said.
He deployed to Iraq during the initial invasion and again during the mid‑2000s surge.
Demko said what remains clearest to him is the unity that followed.
“Police and fire personnel ran into the chaos that day together, shoulder to shoulder,” he said.
Seventy‑two police officers and 343 firefighters died on 9/11, the deadliest day in U.S. history for both professions.
“Their sacrifice and resolve unified this country,” he said.
Mayor Eddie Moran, who lived in Brooklyn and worked in Manhattan in 2001, described the lasting impact on New Yorkers. “When that day was over, things never really went back to normal,” he said. He recalled calling his wife to tell her to take their twins to safety, then phoning his workplace to ask where he should report. The aftermath, he said, became part of daily life—constant security, constant vigilance. But he also remembered “how a city and a nation came together” in the days that followed.
Speakers emphasized the responsibility to ensure 9/11 does not become just another chapter in history, especially as a generation of young adults has grown up with no memory of the day.
State Rep. Manny Guzman noted that some attendees were schoolchildren in Reading classrooms when teachers struggled to explain the images on TV, while others weren’t even born. He urged the crowd to remember not only the attacks but “the choices that were made”—from office workers carrying strangers down stairwells to the 40 passengers and crew of Flight 93 who voted to fight back.
Reading Fire Marshal Jeremy Searfoss reads the names of the 343 New York firefighters who died on Sept. 11, 2001, during Reading’s commemoration of the 25th Anniversary on Friday in City Park. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE)
Fire Marshal Jeremy Searfoss detailed the ceremony’s traditions, including the striking of the four fives, a historic fire‑service honor signaling a firefighter’s death in the line of duty. He recited the Reading Fireman’s Prayer before reminding attendees that the 343 FDNY members who died
“The 343 members of the FDNY didn’t set out that morning knowing that they would become part of American history,” he said. “They were firefighters doing what firefighters have always done: protecting their communities and helping people in need. Their sacrifice reminds us that the fire service is built on something bigger than an individual. It is built on brotherhood, it is built on trust, and it is built on courage.”
Searfoss concluded with a reading of all 343 FDNY names beneath the September Tree, planted in 2002 to honor the victims and symbolize, as its plaque reads, “the daring heroism of the FDNY firefighters and the sheer resiliency of the American spirit.”
From left, Reading Firefighter Union Local 1803 president Micahel Shoumliksy, Reading Fire Chief Robert Leonard II and Mayor Eddie Moran place a wreath at the Sept. 11 tree during the city’s commemoration of the 25th Anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, on Friday in City Park. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE)
Mayor Eddie Moran speaks during Reading’s commemoration of the 25th Anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, on Friday in City Park. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE)