CAMPBELL, Wis. (WLAX/WEUX) – Boy Scouts of America troops 15 and 515, along with the Campbell Police AND Fire Departments hosted a memorial service and flag retirement on the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

For assistant scoutmaster Lee Donahue, the events hit close to home, “I worked at a satellite office at the Pentagon, and our son actually was having his nine-month well-baby checkup that morning, which meant that I was on Fort Meade instead of down at the Pentagon, and he had his checkup at 7:00 and took him back to the daycare. And the minute I walked in the door, my office phone was ringing that something terrible had happened and I turned on the radio and the TV. For us, it was personal. It’s still personal.”

Most of the scouts who were assisting the event today weren’t even born yet when the attacks happened, Donahue hopes younger generations are able to recognize the significance of 9/11. She says, “The young people here today have no connection to this event if they didn’t have a family member or somebody else. So, I think that there is some risk of forgetting, of not recognizing what that day was in the history of our country. it was our generation’s Pearl Harbor.”

Despite this, Donahue says there are still plenty of ways to make sure that everyone remembers the importance of this day in our country’s history, “I think one thing that we do is we teach our children. I think the other thing that we do is we take real time and effort every day, every year to thank all of our public servants, to thank our first responders, to thank the firefighters, to thank our police departments, to thank our government workers, our military service people who serve all over the world.”

It’s also events like this that will help the memory of this day remain strong.