‘A PLACE TO GO FOR HIM’
Daughter of a victim of the 9/11 attacks now has a headstone honoring her dad
Anewcomer to Albuquerque will have a long-lasting place to honor her father, a New York City firefighter who perished in the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Lynette Rodriguez was 17 and had just started her senior year of high school in Staten Island, N.Y., that day in 2001. Her father, 36-year-old Anthony Rodriguez was six months into his job with New York City Fire Department. A Navy veteran, Rodriguez had previously worked as a police officer in South Carolina.
Rodriguez moved to Albuquerque a little over a year ago for a job. And on Monday — the 16th anniversary of the attacks — a plaque and headstone honoring Anthony Rodriguez were unveiled at Vista Verde Memorial Park during its annual 9/11 ceremony in Rio Rancho. It’s a new addition to the 9/11 Memorial there.
The memorial gives Rodriguez and her young children a place to go to remember her father.
Anthony Rodriguez was one of five firefighters
who charged up the South Tower during the attacks and were near the top of the building when it collapsed, she said.
“Their bodies were never found,” Rodriguez said. “We never really had that closure . ... It (is) nice and important to have a place to go for him.”
At the park’s 9/11 ceremony, Rodriguez shared her story with a crowd honoring those who died in the attacks, as well as local law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty and are laid to rest at the cemetery.
Rodriguez is the oldest of six children. Her mother was nine months pregnant at the time of the attacks. She gave birth days after the attacks, and news stations nicknamed the child “Baby Hope” because at the time there was still hope that survivors would be pulled from the rubble.
Rodriguez said for years she shied away from 9/11 ceremonies. She said that changed in 2016, the first year she attended a ceremony. She said so many young people don’t have a firsthand memory of the day, so it’s important to keep remembering.
“Each time I see those towers go down, I watch my dad being killed. And I don’t have any control of when I have to see that,” she said.
A crowd of more than a couple of hundred held candles at the site when the memorial for Anthony Rodriguez was revealed.
“Police and fire and military are a brotherhood, and it’s an overwhelming spirit and everybody comes together,” said Cheryl Moser-Howard, who comes from a family of firefighters and attends the ceremony every year. “Sixteen years is a long time and if we’re not teaching (younger people about 9/11), it will be forgotten. It’s your history.”