On Sept. 11, Clarke Central High School and Athens community members stand in silence for a 9/11 commemoration held by JROTC members in front of the main flag site at CCHS. This event was started in 2008 by JROTC senior instructor Lieutenant Colonel William McMickle. “(The JROTC) want to pause and reflect and thank (the first responders) for their service, and on this day it’s an opportunity to teach young people what happened on 9/11,” McMickle said. Gallery by Ana Aldridge
Members of the Clarke Central High School JROTC will hold a 9/11 commemoration at the main flag site at the front of Clarke Central High School at 9 a.m.
For the first time in three years, members of Clarke Central High School’s JROTC program will be hosting a 9/11 commemoration in front of the main flag site at CCHS.
“Last year it rained because of Hurricane Irma, and then a year before that it was on a Sunday and so we couldn’t have (the commemoration ceremony),” Cadet First Sergeant Jordon Butler, a senior, said.
This JROTC tradition started in 2008, and honors those affected by the event, including JROTC instructors Sergeant Donald Hollman, Sergeant Raymond Bentley and Lieutenant Colonel William McMickle.
“It will be a ceremony for (our instructors) because they were alive during the time of 9/11 and know what happened, what they had to do and how many friends or people that they lost during that time,” Butler said.
McMickle remembers his experience as a senior army officer at Fort Bragg, N.C., where he was stationed prior to his at CCHS in 2007.
“We were immediately put on deployment orders and I wasn’t back home for six days. I was locked down on post carrying a loaded rifle and you just didn’t know what was going to happen, where the next target was going to be,” McMickle said.
Butler was only a month old at the time of 9/11, but had family members who were affected by the tragedy.
“(My aunt) was working for the (Transportation Security Administration) and the military at the time so that was a really hard day for her because they put all the airports on lockdown and all of (the) military bases,” Butler said. “(The military) didn’t know who else was getting attacked or who was coming for them, so they had to make sure (military personnel were) on steady.”
McMickle believes the school and the Athens community should learn and understand what happened on 9/11.
“It’s an opportunity to stop and pause and reflect on what happened on (Sept. 11, 2001). I think we just continue to pick up and move on and we just think it’s any other day, and it’s not,” McMickle said. “It’s an opportunity for us to gather at the flagpole. We raise the flag to full staff and then we drop it to half mast or half staff in honor of the people that gave their lives that day.”
