Coast Guard in New York pays tribute to 9/11 victims

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - Dozens of members of the U.S. Coast Guard, The National Park Service, and their families gathered in Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island Monday morning to mark the 16th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

"Every year we remember this day, we remember the 3,000 people who lost their life because of the terrorist attacks," Coast Guard Sector New York, which is based at Fort Wadsworth, a National Park Service site, said in a statement. "[W]e remember the first responders who risked their lives, some of them who also lost their lives trying to save others."

At the ceremony, Coast Guard members raised the American flag to half-staff at Fort Wadsworth's overlook with One World Trade Center visible across New York Harbor on a clear morning.

A bugler from the group Bugles Across America played taps.

Capt. Michael Day, the commanding officer Sector New York, spoke to the gathering about his experiences on the morning of September 11, 2001, when he was a lieutenant at the sector offices.

Charles Blaich, a retired FDNY firefighter and the president of the New York Council of the Navy League, spoke about responding to the destruction in lower Manhattan that fateful day even though he was on medical leave at the time.

"We never forget," Sector New York said.