9/11 traveling exhibit offers ‘heart-wrenching’ history lesson at Erie County Fair

Betsy Andrews remembers coming out of a meeting and seeing news of the attack on the World Trade Center on the TVs at her office. A colleague turned to her and said, “We’re going to war.”

And John Gasper, 75, compared 9/11 to the feeling he had decades earlier when he learned of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination

“It shut down the country for days. Everyone was focused on news. It was 24/7 news. And it was like a huge shock: How could this possibly happen?” Gasper, of Jamestown, said of the attack. “Now, it’s history.”

That terrible history was brought to life in recent days at the Erie County Fair, which hosted the 9/11 NEVER FORGET Mobile Exhibit. Putney, Andrews and Gasper were among the hundreds on Sunday who stopped by the exhibit trailer that travels to far-flung fairs, festivals and schools.

“We bring a part of that day out to them,” Billy Puckett, the exhibit’s field manager, said Sunday. This is the exhibit’s first time stopping in Buffalo, he said.

The mobile exhibit holds artifacts from the World Trade Center site – such as turnout gear worn by a firefighter killed in the terror attack and a piece of concrete taken from Ground Zero – as well as emergency radio transmissions recorded that morning and documentary videos about 9/11.

The exhibit, sponsored by the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, also provides background on the World Trade Center and information on the attack at the Pentagon and the crash of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania that same day.

In all, nearly 3,000 people were killed, including Siller and 342 other firefighters in New York City, and many first responders continue to suffer from 9/11-related illnesses. The United States invaded Afghanistan and, later, Iraq following the 9/11 attacks.

Peter Chadwick was a firefighter with the New York Fire Department’s…