SEPT. 11 MEMORIAL Fear then, sadness now

Staring at four gnarled steel beams taken from the wreckage at ground zero, Oak Lawn firefighter Chris Karpluk on Tuesday morning remembered the hopelessness he felt on 9/11.

“I was working at the village firehouse and it brought back every emotion,” Karpluk said. “It was fear then, and today it was sadness.”

Karpluk was one of many firefighters, police officers and local officials who gathered early Tuesday at Oak Lawn’s 9/11 memorial at the Patriot Metra station to remember the first responders who died 11 years earlier in the terrorist attacks.

Two hijacked jetliners crashed into the World Trade Center in New York and one into the Pentagon. A fourth plane crashed in a Pennsylvania field after passengers overpowered the terrorists.

Nearly 3,000 victims died in the attacks, including 343 firefighters and paramedics who rushed to the Twin Towers to help before the buildings collapsed.

“We remember their courage and commitment to serving their fellow citizens at such a high cost to themselves,” said Catherine Fairfield, the executive director of Oak Lawn Family Services and an American Baptist pastor. “We thank you, the first responders of the community.”

Christina Finn, who sends homemade patriotic pillows to military overseas, added to the somber mood by reading a poem, “Sleeptember 2001,” that she wrote earlier in the morning.

“‘Sleeptember’ 2001 slapped us in the face and woke a sleeping giant,” Finn said. “Disbelief only to be re- placed by disappointment.”

The four beams at the center of the ceremony were donated to the village for its memorial sculpture. The Oak Lawn Rotary Club raised $85,000 for the creation of the memorial.

Artist Erik Blome used the beams to create a sculpture that pays tribute to the police officers and firefighters who died on 9/11. The faces of firefighters and police officers are sculpted into the steel, and one of the beams is adorned with a pair of wings.

Adam Woodworth, the executive director of the Oak Lawn Rotary Club, said the memorial not only recognizes the police and firefighters who perished when the Twin Towers fell but also the ordinary Americans who died rushing to help.

“We don’t know how many lives were saved because of a young girl who grew up and said, ‘I want to be a firefighter or an EMT,’ ” Woodworth said.

| JOSEPH P. MEIER~SUN-TIMES MEDIA PHOTOS Oak Lawn Police Officer Dan Miller carries in the American flag during a ceremony Tuesday at the village’s September 11 monument. The monument includes four beams from the World Trade Center towers.

Hands reaching out to one another and the image of a firefighter are part of the sculpture in Oak Lawn.