Talbot County, Maryland

09/11/2025

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Talbot County Council Vice President, Pete Lesher gives opening remarks at 9/11 Day of Remembrance event in Easton, MD. September 11, 2025.

The following opening remarks presented by Talbot County Council Vice President, Pete Lesher at the 9/11 Day of Remembrance Event on September 11, 2025. The event marked the 24th anniversary of the attack on September 11, 2001.

Good morning and welcome. I’m Pete Lesher, Vice President of Talbot County Council, and I have the honor of offering these words of welcome.

We come together today with unity of purpose. It is a unity we recall we had in those days and weeks following the tragic events of 2 years ago. When attacked, Americans pulled together. We gathered together in churches. We gathered with friends and colleagues.

Our national security and intelligence professionals did the painstaking work of finding the clues, of interpreting them, of beginning to understand just who attacked us and how. Most of the evidence came from the fragments of Flight 93 on a field in Pennsylvania. There were no useful fragments that survived the crashes in New York and Virginia, and certainly no flight data recorders or cockpit voice recorders. We learned the nature of the threat we faced—people who despised our open society, our individual rights to express ourselves freely and worship as our conscience guides us. They took advantage of our free and open nature to do us harm.

As we pulled together in unity, we knew that we could not sacrifice the values they were attacking—that we settle our differences in court, not in violence; in legislatures, not in violence; in elections and the rule of law, not in violence. Yes, we made it a little slower to pass through airport security. Yes, it became a bit harder to obtain a driver’s license. But fundamentally, we unified around protecting our American values.

Most of all, we elevated our gratitude for first responders—our police, our firefighters, our emergency medical personnel—the ones who ran toward danger, many of whom paid the ultimate sacrifice. Today as we gather, we continue to salute those first responders in our own community. Thank you to our first responders for your service. Thank you to all who are in attendance today, in person or in spirit, for continuing to remember that tragic day, and the sacrifices of so many. Thank you to all who are participating in this event—starting with the wonderful Easton Middle School Band. And a special thank you to the unsung hero who works behind the scenes to organize this event every year—Susan Moran.

Welcome all, and thank you.

remarks 9/11 day of remembrance