As Adam Kovaly walked through a 9/11 memorial in Parker on the 20th anniversary of the attacks, his three children walked alongside him, peering at printed-out photos from that day.
“That’s so sad,” one of his children remarked while looking at a photo of the rubble.
Kovaly, a Parker resident and a veteran, went to the memorial in O’Brien Park on Sept. 11 because he wanted to teach his young kids about the attacks, he said.
“I went to Afghanistan twice and I had all my kids while I was in the military,” he said. “So I just wanted to come here and show them what the whole thing is about.”
His kids — ages 4, 6 and 8 — weren’t alive when the attacks occurred. Now, he’s working on explaining to them the significance of that day.
“It definitely is a difficult conversation,” he said. “On the way here we put on a YouTube video of remembering 9/11 and had other people explain the whole, how it happened, when it happened. But they know that I deployed, they know that I fought for the country and they appreciate it and they appreciate a lot of the service members.”
Kovaly and other Parker residents had this local opportunity to commemorate the lives lost during the 9/11 attacks, thanks to a group of residents who put up hundreds of American flags in the park for the 20th anniversary of the event.
“It’s a no brainer,” said Tony Denning, one of the organizers, who said he had been working on the project for about six months.
The memorial honors first responders who were killed that day and those who later died due to health complications from the event. Denning and others organized a bagpipe performance, a flyover and other elements during the event.
Bruce Hicks, an Elizabeth resident who often finds himself in Parker, also attended the memorial. As he walked among the flags, he thought about the close relationship he had to the events of that day.
At the time of the 9/11 attacks, Hicks worked in crisis public relations with American…
