MANCHESTER, N.J. – Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Manchester Township Police Department is looking back at a part of its own history: the local police officers who left Ocean County and deployed to Ground Zero to help in the aftermath.
Manchester officers first traveled to the World Trade Center site on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, according to the department. More officers returned the following month, joining the enormous response and recovery operation underway in Lower Manhattan.
Manchester Officers Headed to Ground Zero on Sept. 11
The assignment placed officers from the Manchester Township community at the center of a national catastrophe only hours after the attacks.
Manchester Police said its officers assisted with search-and-rescue efforts and perimeter security at the World Trade Center site that evening.
Their involvement did not end with the initial response.
Additional Manchester officers traveled to Ground Zero in October 2001. Their duties included search-and-rescue operations, distributing equipment and supplies and providing food to people working at the site.
“Those officers, most now retired and others who continue to serve Manchester Township, witnessed firsthand both the devastation left behind by the attacks and the extraordinary strength that followed,” the department said Thursday.
The officers were part of a response that drew police, firefighters, emergency medical personnel and other workers from communities across the region.
Department Remembers What Its Officers Witnessed
In reflecting on the 25th anniversary, Manchester Police focused not only on what its officers did in New York, but what they saw while they were there.
“They saw Americans from every background come together,” the department said. “First responders traveled from communities large and small to help people they had never met. Neighbors supported neighbors. Strangers supported strangers.”
The department said the unity witnessed after the attacks remains part of what its officers remember a quarter-century later.
“In one of our country’s darkest moments, we were reminded of what can happen when Americans stand together as one and not divided,” police said.
For younger residents, Sept. 11 is an event known through history lessons, photographs, memorials and stories passed down by those who experienced it. For the Manchester officers who were sent to Ground Zero, the department said those memories came from witnessing the aftermath firsthand.
Manchester Marks 25 Years Since Sept. 11
The Sept. 11, 2001 attacks killed 2,977 people after hijacked aircraft struck the World Trade Center and Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers and crew fought back against the hijackers.
Hundreds of first responders were among those killed that day. In the years that followed, first responders, recovery workers, survivors and others also died from illnesses connected to their exposure following the attacks.
Manchester Police said the anniversary is an opportunity to remember those lives while also recognizing everyone who responded when the country was attacked.
“Twenty-five years later, we remember the 2,977 lives lost on September 11, 2001, as well as the many first responders, recovery workers, survivors, and others who later lost their lives to 9/11-related illnesses,” the department said.
For Manchester, that remembrance also carries a distinctly local connection. Some of the officers who answered the call that night have since retired, while others remain in service to the township 25 years later.