Americans will pause Saturday to remember the lives lost 20 years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
In North Texas, volunteers with Carry the Load turned out at Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery. A National Day of Service and Remembrance was held at 65 national cemeteries across the country to honor and remember the lives lost in the wars that followed as a direct result of the attack on America.
"On 9/11 we seem to forget that people were called into action immediately and there are a lot of people who lost their lives and we're to the age now where people are reading history books and that's the only way that they know it," said Beau York with Carry the Load. "And so we really need to stop and remember what this weekend is all about."
Volunteers fanned out to clean headstones of service members killed in combat and their family members buried alongside them, as well as beautify the sacred grounds.
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For some volunteers, the headstones belong to strangers they never met, for others, it's a labor of love.
Chris Board's son was just 10 years old on Sept. 11, 2001, but Army PFC Cody Board, of McKinney, was killed in Afghanistan eight days shy of his 20th birthday.
"He had always talked about he wanted to be an Airborne Ranger and when 9/11 happened I knew that set in motion, as he got into high school, that's what he wanted to do, he wanted to go serve," said Board, a Gold Star father. "So 9/11 in fact that affected my family in a great way."
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York and Board both said they hope on Sept. 11, everyone at the very least takes time to consider the lives lost that day, as well as the efforts of those who lost their lives in the days, months, years and decades that followed the attacks.
