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Volunteers clean headstones at Bay Pines National Cemetery 23 years after 9/11

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Published  September 11, 2024 6:14pm EDT
September 11
FOX 13 News

Volunteers beautify Bay Pines National Cemetery

Kailey Tracy reports

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - At Bay Pines National Cemetery, several volunteers cleaned veterans' headstones as part of the non-profit, "Carry the Load's" National Day of Service and Remembrance on September 11. 

Colonel Beverly Smith-Tillery, who served in the Army for more than two decades as an intensive care nurse and deployed to Iraq, said scrubbing the headstones had even more of a meaning on Wednesday, Sept. 11.

"Everybody that was affected, I pray for them, and I say we cannot let this happen again," Smith-Tillery said. "It made me know that there were terrorists out there who really intended to destroy the United States, and we needed to stop them."

READ: How 9/11 transformed air travel: TSA, security measures, and fees explained

Smith-Tillery, her husband and several others scrubbed veterans’ headstones at the cemetery on the 23rd anniversary of 9/11. 

"We all lost a day of our life that day, and I think it's important to be out here at this cemetery scrubbing these headstones," Ward Murphy, another volunteer, said. "These veterans that died for us, and we need to be out here today. I think it's really important."

"The country is still healing from it, and I think today is a perfect day to be able to do something like this," Murphy said. 

Carry the Load's volunteers at Bay Pines National Cemetery in St. Petersburg joined more than 2,000 volunteers nationwide, cleaning headstones at 67 national cemeteries. 

MORE: Hundreds pay respects at 9/11 memorial service in Palm Harbor: 'Really touching'

"The men and women who were here today helping to clean these headstones, they remember 9/11, and they are still touched by it," Kirk Leopard, the executive director for Bay Pines and Florida National Cemeteries, said. "They want other people to remember as well."

Honoring the fallen, the volunteers said, by keeping their memory alive and making sure no one ever forgets. 

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