Remembering 9/11 Victim From Gwinnett 20 Years Later

GWINNETT COUNTY, GA — Anyone older than 25 in Georgia likely remembers where they were on 9/11.

Americans felt a collective trauma as first one and then another plane flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. As the truth dawned on people watching from their TVs that America was under attack, another plane took aim at the Pentagon. A fourth was brought down in a field in Pennsylvania in a final act of heroism by passengers who realized their flight had been hijacked.

Nearly 3,000 Americans, including two from Georgia, were killed in the suicide attacks carried out by 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaida.

One of the victims was 30-year-old Harshad Sham Thatte from Norcross. Thatte, a consultant with Marsh & McLennan's Atlanta office, was at the World Trade Center for a meeting.

On the 20th anniversary of the attacks, our state remembers and mourns these Georgians in addition to Thatte:

• Claude Michael Gann, 41, of Roswell
  • Died at the World Trade Centers
• Maj. Stephen V. Long, 39, of Georgia
  • Died at the Pentagon
• Maynard S. Spence, 42, of Douglasville
  • Died at the World Trade Centers

All 9/11 victims will be remembered at memorial services planned across the nation on Sept. 11 to mark the 20th anniversary of the attacks.

At the 9/11 memorial in Lower Manhattan, New York — an area known for years after the attacks as "Ground Zero" — the names of the fallen will be read aloud.

"Throughout the ceremony, we will observe six moments of silence, acknowledging when each of the World Trade Center towers was struck and fell and the times corresponding to the attack on the Pentagon and the crash of Flight 93," the 9/11 Memorial & Museum wrote on its website.

The annual "Tribute of Light," which are lights pointed to the sky in the shape of the Twin Towers, will go on that night.

Most 9/11 victims were from either New York or New Jersey, where many who lived across the Hudson River from the World Trade Center recall the horror of watching the twin towers collapse from their homes in Hoboken and Jersey City.

More than 2,700 people died at the World Trade Center alone on 9/11, including the passengers of American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175. Another 184 were killed when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into The Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and 44 died on United Airlines Flight 93 near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.