<\/p>\n
Every September, as the first signs of fall creep in, Durango resident Rebecca Marchand\u2019s husband is heavier on her mind than usual.<\/p>\n
Alfred Marchand was 44 when he died aboard United Airlines Flight 175, the aircraft that hit the World Trade Center\u2019s South Tower on Sept. 11, 2001. It was the second jet to crash into the towers \u2013 just 18 minutes earlier, American Airlines Flight 11 had slammed into the North Tower.<\/p>\n
He was among 2,977 people who were killed that day when 19 terrorists hijacked four airliners, two of which were flown into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and one that crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, when passengers tried to overtake the hijackers.<\/p>\n
Alfred, known as \u201cAl,\u201d was a United Airlines flight attendant, retired police officer in New Mexico, father, stepfather and husband. He was a man who joked with strangers that his job was to turn the light on for the K-Mart \u201cblue light specials,\u201d and with a straight face would recite the story told in the \u201cBeverly Hillbillies\u201d theme song to his kids.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was such a clown,\u201d Rebecca said. \u201cHe was always laughing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two met when Rebecca was 17, living in Alamogordo, New Mexico, and a detective came to her door to question her about a neighbor who was in trouble. Al was with the detective as a trainee. Because Rebecca was a minor, her mother was livid that the two police officers had spoken to her daughter.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe made a big deal of that, and every time I heard his name, I just thought, \u2018Ew, he\u2019s a cop,\u2019\u201d Marchand said. But Al was a regular at a local restaurant where she waited tables, and through his \u201cpatient persistence,\u201d they eventually married.<\/p>\n
Early on Sept. 11, 15 years ago, Rebecca was in Boston, visiting Al, who was scheduled to work Flight 175 from Boston to Los Angeles. Rebecca was flying too, back to New Mexico. When the couple said goodbye that morning, they didn\u2019t realize it was for the last time.<\/p>\n
Rebecca was waiting for her connecting flight to take off from Denver, when a kid sitting next to her read from his palm pilot that planes had crashed into the World Trade Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a small-town girl from New Mexico,\u201d said Rebecca, who later moved to Durango. \u201cI didn\u2019t even know what the World Trade Center was. It wasn\u2019t until I heard the term \u2018terrorism\u2019 on the radio the next day that I realized he had been murdered; it wasn\u2019t just a plane crash. Terrorism? I knew what it was, but we didn\u2019t use that term in our country. It didn\u2019t seem real.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fifteen years later, Rebecca said it\u2019s no easier to remember that day.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think they\u2019re going to get easier,\u201d Rebecca said of the anniversaries. \u201cBut when the fall weather starts to set in, we start to struggle. You know it\u2019s going to be televised.\u201d<\/p>\n
Al\u2019s death changed not only her world but the worlds of her two sons, Dakota and Trae, and Al\u2019s son, Josh. Rebecca said Al was a \u201cgreat stepfather,\u201d teaching her boys one of his favorite hobbies: how to waterski barefoot.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a lovely man. I wish everyone could have known him,\u201d Rebecca said. \u201cBut the motto is: Never forget. It\u2019s America\u2019s story, and it was everyone\u2019s tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n