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Local veterans are asking area residents to light a candle at 7 tonight as a sign of the nation's mourning and solidarity.
By BRIDGET HALL GRUMET and CARRIE JOHNSON
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 14, 2001
LECANTO -- Like many local veterans, Ronald Neubauer spent much of Thursday calling and e-mailing everyone he knew.
The message: Light a candle on your porch at 7 tonight as a sign of the nation's mourning and solidarity after Tuesday's terrorist attacks.
It may seem like a small gesture, Neubauer said, but the collective glow throughout the country will help anguished Americans grieve as a nation.
"You feel so helpless," said Neubauer, a retired Navy bosenmate seaman who lives in Lecanto. "You just want to do something."
Word of the candlelight vigil spread Thursday through veterans' units and passed among friends and neighbors. Beverly Hills retiree Ray Raphael persuaded a Hernando AM radio station to announce the vigil over the air.
"When it hits home, the veterans really, really understand," said Raphael, who fought on a Naval destroyer in the Pacific during World War II. "It's got us absolutely irate.
"This would be a very nice tribute to all the people who died," he added.
Meanwhile, President Bush declared today a day of "prayer and remembrance." He asked Americans to spend their lunch hour at their church or house of worship.
The attacks this week on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have resonated with Citrus County's men and women in uniform: the soldiers who fought aggressors in other wars, the police and rescuers whose jobs entail running toward disaster.
While veterans organized the candlelight vigil, officers with the Inverness and Crystal River police departments and the Citrus County Sheriff's Office strapped black bands over their badges to show their solidarity with officers who are missing or dead in New York.
The black band is a sign of grief, a symbol understood by everyone who has had to rush toward a burning building or an armed assailant.
Crystal River police Sgt. Kat Klyap will always remember driving into the Florida Panhandle during Hurricane Opal in 1995 and seeing a steady stream of cars traveling the other directions.
"That's our job," said Klyap, who was sent to the storm as a part of her duties for the U.S. National Guard. "We get paid to go toward the things other people want to get away from."
She said she felt the same way when she saw thousands of people fleeing Manhattan on the Brooklyn Bridge on Tuesday afternoon, knowing it was up to law enforcement officers and firefighters to stay behind and help the injured, possibly risking their own lives.
"We know what they're going through," Klyap said. "We know what it's like to work a lot of hours without sleep. You don't care about sleep because you want to help."
"We are the people who push past the others to get there because that's what we do," she said.
- Times correspondent Gail Hollenbeck contributed to this report.