Township Ready To Honor Sept. 11 Victims

Frank Warholic still remembers where he was on the morning of Tuesday, September. 11, 2001.

So does Trudy Atkinson.

Warholic was making a deposit at a local bank when he happened to look up at a television screen and saw something strange.

"It looked like an airplane was flying into the World Trade Center," said Warholic, a Korean War veteran and member of Montville Township Memorial VFW Post 5481. "I thought it was an accident."

 Atkinson, the Montville Township clerk, thought the same.

"Someone came running in from outside the (municipal) building and said a plane had flown into the World Trade Center," she said

Of course, the incident proved to be no accident. Less than an hour later, a second plane flew into the WTC's second, or south, tower.

"I knew then, this was an act of war," Warholic said.

Warholic is chairman of this year's Sept. 11 memorial service that will honor the township's residents who died in the attack. The event will be held Saturday, September 11 at the community park, beginning at 11 a.m. Ceremonies will take place in the memorial grove behind the youth center.

Six Montville residents -- Thomas Lenihan, Gayle R. Green, James Martello, James Romito, Paul Skrzypak and Dennis Taormina -- lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001, according to Warholic. The service will also honor those who died in the crashes of United Airlines Flight 93 in Somerset County, Pa., and American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon, as well as two township residents -- John Flynn and William Giebler -- who died when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.

Other events scheduled for the ceremony include a poetry reading, speeches by members of the Montville Township Committee, a wreath laying, the placing of red, white and blue flowers at the memorial, the playing of taps, a ceremonial firing by the color guard and a bell tolling in honor of those being remembered.

"It will be a solemn day," Warholic said.

Atkinson said that on the night of Sept. 11, a "gigantic" candlelight vigil was held at the high school.

"It was a great event," she said. "A lot of townspeople turned out."

Saturday's event, she said, won't be quite as large,

"We average about 60 people every year," she said. "So it's not that big."

For the 10th anniversary in 2011, Atkinson expects something larger, however.

"We (the township) would like to do something more, but we really haven't discussed specific plans yet," she said. "We want to do something special."

The ceremony is expected to last about two hours.