Able Forces Couple Spearheads a Local Remembrance of 9/11

From 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Monday, September 11, 2023, Skip and Kathy Rogers of the Able Forces Foundation held a 9/11 Patriot Day memorial at the Front Royal Gazebo/Village Commons area to those lost and those who served as first responders at September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, with a fourth hijacked plane lost in a crash in a wooded area of Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people, 2,977 to be specific, perished in that deadliest terrorist attack on American soil 22 years ago.

We asked Rogers if he and his wife planned for this to become an annual remembrance of the sacrifice of that day 22 years ago. “We do,” Rogers replied, noting that it was his wife who pointed out the prior week that there was no local 9/11 memorial service planned for downtown this year. “She said, ‘We need to do something.’ And she took it upon herself and started gathering up a lot of mementos from our work. And I got up with Lizzie (Lewis, Town Director of the nearby Front Royal Visitors Center), and Lizzie said, ‘Go’.”

Sheriff Butler and deputies helped launch the event. Below, Skip and Kathy Rogers interact with interested passers-by. The first photo Courtesy of Chris Laurence, others by Roger Bianchini

Between greeting visitors to his display, Rogers told the Royal Examiner he looked at this inaugural of what he plans as an annual event as one with a two-pronged message, first a remembrance of those who died on this date in what was a national tragedy and secondly, getting engaged in your community to its betterment.

‘So, we’ve had just a wonderful little remembrance. It’s Patriots Day, and Kathy made up a bunch of brochures for things you can do today to celebrate Patriots Day — thank a police officer, a fireman, first responders in general. And as important, or maybe more importantly, to get engaged as a volunteer. We have a lot of needs in our community and most communities, and this is a day of not only unity but of service. We’ve been asking people to reach out to places like C-CAP (Congregational Community Action Project) … the Salvation Army needs volunteers, you can adopt a street (for cleanup), you can be a Royal Ambassador, but get involved in your community,” Rogers urged those he encountered between 9 and 11 a.m. Monday morning, as well as those who will read or hear about it after the fact.

As Skip greeted another visitor, Kathy Rogers directed our attention to the flag-draped across the Gazebo with some very unusual stripes. “That’s the 9/11 flag, it has all the names of the people that were killed on 9/11. I had a Flag of Heroes that had just the firefighters and those first responders on it. But I did an event once, and the guy next to me, his friend, was on the flag, so I gave it to him. So, I’ll have to order another one of those.”

The Flag of Honor with stripes composed of the names of all those who perished on 9/11 – far too many names.

Kathy noted that the casualty list consequential of that day actually stretches into the two wars fought in the aftermath of those terrorist attacks, Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. “The military lost over 7,000 and over 34,000 wounded,” she said, observing, “I mean these people, even the ones that were injured in the World Trade Center and all the firefighters, have inhalation injuries that will last all their life. And there are so many people who continue to suffer every day. I mean, look at all the wounded warriors, and that was all a result of 9/11,” Kathy reiterated of the consequences of that day.

“Our company started as a result of 9/11,” Mrs. Rogers pointed out. “Skip went to visit Walter Reed (Hospital) with a former Sgt./Major of the Army and saw all the injured guys and said we have to do something. And that’s when we started the (Able Forces) Professional Services to get them jobs. And then we started the Foundation at the same time to help with things of a financial nature.”

The conversation then turned back to the role of first responders as Skip introduced us to one visitor he had been conversing with who had his own 9/11 experience to share. “My name’s Doug Baker,” he said, introducing himself as a person with a volunteer firefighting first-responder background, continuing, “I was down there on vacation when it happened. And everybody was running every which way, and I jumped in and started helping people — I was just helping people out to my left and my right because God put us on this earth to help … They touched my heart. I was helping this one person up, and I looked up, and the thing started tipping like it was tipping over. And I said we have to hurry up and get you out. And I just kept on helping get people out with no gear.” That turned the conversation to the official NYC first responders on the scene with gear.

Doug Baker, center, with an expression of affection for the organizers of a remembrance of an event he stumbled into as a vacationing volunteer first-responder 22 years earlier.

“A lot of them didn’t get out, a lot of them got out, and a lot of them didn’t. It happened so fast, it was awful,” Baker said, recalling the escalating situation he had stumbled into with an ability to lend a hand. “If you were there and seen that in person,” Baker said of how fast things went from bad to worse that day in lower Manhattan. “I couldn’t imagine,” Skip offered.

Thank you, Doug Baker, for sharing your time and experience this day 22 years later, and thank you for your God-given impulse to help, not only while on vacation on 9/11, 2001, but throughout a life of volunteer emergency services to the communities you have lived in.

And that presents us with a nice segue back to Skip and Kathy Rogers hope that this annual remembrance of this date in 2001 and its ongoing consequences can be a stimulus for all of us in a position to do so, to become more involved in our communities by offering a volunteer’s helping hand to the betterment of our community and our neighbors in need in that community.

Some perspectives on displays at the 9/11 remembrance table, including of soldiers impacted in wars that were to follow as a direct result of that day in 2001.