Twenty years ago today in Chattanooga, on Sept. 10, 2001, the day before the world changed here and across our country, the public already was mourning.
It was the day Hamilton County Sheriff’s Deputy Donald Bond, shot to death while on duty four days earlier, would be laid to rest at the Chattanooga National Cemetery.
“It’s a sad thing we have to be here,” Tri-Community Fire Department member Alec Long said at a candlelight vigil the night before the burial. “When I went to bed Thursday night, I was safe because we have people like Don Bond protecting us.”
The next day, Sept. 11, and the days following, the country would be reminded over and over just how brave, dedicated and hearty its first responders were.
But elsewhere on a partly cloudy Sept. 10, with temperatures almost identical to what they would be 20 years later, it was business as usual.