The city of Cape Coral’s 9/11 remembrance is always poignant and dignified.

This year’s ceremony again focused appropriately on the victims — all those who died in New York at the World Trade Center, in Washington, D.C., at the Pentagon, and in a field in Pennsylvania in the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001.

Nearly 3,000 Americans died, including first responders — firefighters, paramedics and police officers — who put duty first as they climbed the stairs of the plane-struck Twin Towers to save others.

Each — all 2,977 — was remembered on the front lawn of City Hall Wednesday.

American flags, each bearing the name of an innocent or hero lost, was planted to honor their memory.

As a community, as a country, we appropriately vow to never forget, not only the fallen of 9/11 but all those who have followed — the more than 800,000 who enlisted and voluntarily served in Operation Enduring Freedom, including the near 2,400 who did not come home from that fight in Afghanistan; the more than 20,000 who returned wounded in the effort to prevent another such attack on American soil; survivors who continue to die each day due to suicide, addiction, cancers and other ailments directly linked to 9/11 and its aftermath.

We remember. Their families and loved ones remember.

Those speaking at Cape Coral’s remembrance also urged us to remember one other thing — who we were the day after.

Cape Coral Police Chief Anthony Sizemore, who then was starting his career with the CCPD, summed it up succinctly.

“When I came in for duty the next day on Sept. 12, along with my shiftmates, there was a little bit of uncertainty of what was to be expected. But it quickly came into focus as we talked, and knew what our new mission was. And what we found in the city of Cape Coral on Sept. 12, and throughout the country, was an extraordinary spirit of duty. Only in a post-hurricane have we even come close to that type of spirit. Coming together. Helping one another. Being there for your neighbors.”

Sizemore remembered seeing a Cape Coral fire truck drive by with a newly attached American flag. He recalled it prompting him to buy a flag and mount it at his home.

“To this day, I still have an American flag on the front of my house. I don’t have a flag of a candidate that I like, or a candidate I really hate, just simply the Stars and Stripes. Our divisions melted away that day, and there was a resolve to stand strong and support one another. And it became crystal clear to police and firefighters in our city what our mission was, and what true community service was all about. And that mission carries on.”

Words to live by.

And a fitting remembrance, indeed.

— Breeze editorial