On Sunday, the fifteenth anniversary of the attacks on September 11 2001, residents across Lubbock  were flooded with memories of where they were on the day nearly 3,000 people were killed after several acts of terror.   Hundreds of Lubbock residents spent the day visiting the public park in front of Miller Elementary School where 1,000 American flags stood in rows.

The flags were set up Thursday through an effort Prosperity Bank has orchestrated for over a decade. This year Prosperity Bank enlisted the help of fifth grade students at Miller Elementary to set up the flags, which honor the victims and first responders on 9/11.

For many, seeing the flags reminded them of the fear and pain they felt fifteen years earlier.

“I was working on a house that day and my dad came up and said, ‘Do you realize the United States  is under attack?’ and man I didn’t,” Breck Wofford recalled of that day. “Once I came home and I watched everything that was going on, man it scared me as a citizen I have never been scared like that, I was terrified and I will remember that for the rest of my life.”

He recalled heading to the gas station to fill up his vehicle on that evening, and finding long lines of Lubbock residents, all filling up their tanks because they didn’t know what to prepare for after 9/11.

“We didn’t know those people that perished on that day, but we felt connected as Americans, it was a big deal,” Wofford said through tears.

Breck and his wife Lisa have visited the flag display for many years. They were touched to see so many community members out walking through the flags.

“It’s cool, you come out here and you have a flag that’s furled up, and people just come up and unfurl it, just like they are taking a lot of pride in their country,” Wofford said.

“I hope that our younger generations can remember it and can learn about it, I hope it never happens again,” he added. “It’s changed our freedom and the way that we’re actually able to operate in the United States, it’s changed things worldwide, it has such a far reaching scope.”

Plenty of people from younger generations were striving to keep those memories alive Sunday.

“There are a lot of people out there just trying to remember what happened that day, and it’s just pretty neat that everyone’s doing something individually to pay their respects,” said thirteen-year-old Cheyenne Perez. Perez visited the flags with her Girl Scout troop.  She explained that in school, she’s already learned many details about what happened on 9/11, but the flags personalize the things she’s learned.

Eight-year-old Jack Esquibel went to visit the flags because his third grade teacher assigned him to. He was also instructed to interview his family about what happened on that day.

Esquibel said he thinks it’s important to remember the bravery of the people who lost their lives trying to save others on 9/11.He said being around all the flags Sunday made him sad.
“I hate to see innocent people die,” he said. 

Esquibel said he plans to someday tell his kids what he has learned about 9/11 and that maybe his children will tell the story to their children.

Benjamin Frost, an engineering and  ROTC student at Texas Tech, saw the flags while driving to pick up groceries and dropped by to pay his respects.

“It’s sobering,” Frost said of the display. “It reminds us a lot of what really happened on 9/11, the loss and the sadness. But it’s also kind of brings a little bit of pride because it’s nice to see any sort of patriotism.”

Frost was a small child when the attacks happened, he remembers being in the house, watching his mom do laundry when she heard the news.

Frost, who aspires to serve in the Air Force, said that he always wanted to be a pilot, but his mother told him that he stopped playing with toy airplanes for several months following the 9/11 attacks.

“I remember being surprised but not necessarily knowing the gravity of the situation, I just knew something bad happened,” he recalled.

Now he knows the what really happened on that day, he is also fully aware of the risks which come with serving on the front lines of international conflict.

“Being in ROTC it’s made [my commitment to serving in the Air Force] a lot deeper, I’ve kind of realized why I want to serve my country,” Frost said. “I want to protect our freedoms from the people who want to harm us and what we stand for. And 9/11 is just another reminder of why most people who join the armed forces do what they do.”