GRANBY — While making its journey to the Barnes Air National Guard Base in Westfield, a piece of a New York fire truck that melted and warped from the flaming aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks snapped in half from the vibrations from travel.

Matt Bail, a retired firefighter, requested the artifact — a piece of a first or second truck to arrive at the scene of the collapsed World Trade Center — for a memorial at the Barnes Fire Department, where he served. When the artifact broke, Bail instantly knew the other half would go to the other department that served as his home for the first part of his career: the Granby Fire Department.

“These artifacts symbolize not just a piece of machinery, but a strength, sacrifice and legacy of those who serve,” Bail said.

The 9/11 artifact sat in the Granby Fire Station for nearly a decade until last Saturday morning, when the Granby Firefighters Association unveiled a memorial in honor of the 343 firefighters, 72 law enforcement and eight emergency medical technicians who lost their lives extinguishing fires and searching for missing people trapped under the rubble.

Granby’s 9/11 memorial is one of five in the world to use a piece of the New York fire trucks rather than a piece of World Trade Center steel, paying tribute to the first responders who, as state Sen. Jake Oliveria expressed during the ceremony, ran toward the violence while everyone else ran away.

“9/11 is a tragedy in every sense of the term, but it was also a moment for the nation to see our first responders,” said Jordan Lemieux, a retired firefighter who responded to the Sept. 11 attacks. “Their efforts were not just about rescue and recovery, but also about providing hope and support for a grieving nation. The legacy of 9/11 first responders is one of courage and selflessness.”

A five-person committee consisting of retired Granby fire chief George Randall, committee Chair Edward Chapdelaine, EMT Steve Leocopoulos, firefighter Todd Carpenter and Bail organized the ceremony and memorial. They began the project in January 2023 and spent eight months debating designs before finally landing on the memorial’s current form.

Most of the labor and materials for the memorial were donated by 10 businesses and five residents. Valley Welding in Belchertown, Randall said, donated the steel beam the artifact sits on and offered to mount the artifact for free. Engraving business American Specialty Designs in Granby designed and engraved the plaque, and Pleasant Street Auto Body in South Hadley added the preservative coating.

“This plaque is dedicated to all first responders who gave their lives that tragic day, and days and years following that watershed day in U.S. history,” Chapdelaine said. “It reads, ‘In memory of all first responders past and present were there on 911,’ and with the two following quotes: ‘The hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men,’ Henry David Thoreau; and also ‘All gave some, some gave all,’ Howard William Osterkamp, U.S. Army, Korean War.”

A firefighter uniform covered the plaque for most of the ceremony, which started with the tolling of the bell, three sets of five bell rings which Randall said signifies the death of a firefighter. He also gave a nod to the fire departments in Hampshire and Hampden counties that responded in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, including Holyoke, Chicopee, West Springfield, Ludlow, Wilbraham, Amherst and Northampton.

“Our world was shattered by an unthinkable act of terror: the twin towers, symbols of our nation’s strength and resilience, were ruthlessly attacked,” State Fire Marshall Jon Davine said. “Amid the chaos and destruction, it was the courage and selflessness of our first responders who shone the brightest.”

Local and state officials spoke about their recollections of the attacks 23 years ago. Select Board Chair Crystal Dufresne remembers walking onto Bay Path University campus as a 17-year-old, only for the campus to shut down later that day. Many of the staff and students had family members who worked in the World Trade Center, and the grief was palpable.

“It was very scary for a 17-year-old at that point,” she said. “I had not heard of anything coming to our side of the country or to the United States. I do remember in the couple weeks after 9/11 that the country came together and they worked together to try and help with the aftermath.”

Olivera was also in school during the attacks, sitting in his second-period Portuguese class at Ludlow High School. He heard about the fall of the first tower from a radio in the front office, and rushed downstairs to inform his father, a teacher who was preparing for his next class. But Oliveria’s father didn’t believe him, unable to grasp the plausibility of such an attack.

“In this community, Granby, one of the few communities in the entire country that has a piece of a truck that was there on 9/11, not a piece of the steel like other communities have, really calls attention to how special this memorial is,” Oliveria said.

The ceremony featured a procession with accompaniment from the Holyoke Caledonian Pipe Band, and the national anthem sung by Alexis Anamisis. Carpenter preformed a song on the bagpipes to commemorate the memorial. Refreshments sponsored by the Granby Council of Aging were served in the station after the ceremony.

Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettenet.com.