Since 2009, Wimberley’s Veterans of Foreign Wars, Oldham-Cummings Post #6441, has remembered the 2,977 people who died and the thousands who were injured on Sept. 11, 2001.
“Besides honoring the memory of those who died and recognizing the suffering of those who were injured, our observance on this date provides us the opportunity to honor veterans and first responders within our own community,” said Mike Lukowiak, Director of the Veteran’s Memorial Plaza at EmilyAnn Theatre and Gardens where the Post’s Patriot’s Day ceremony was held. This year, the post honored Crow Wilson, retired Air Force Colonel, and Don Montague, Hays County Constable for their service to their country and community. Honorees in 2022 were Wimberley Fire Chief Carroll Czichos and the late John Thompson.
Speaking at the observance was Laura Ferguson. Ferguson was a flight attendant for an airline flying military charters that was scheduled to be in New York the morning of September 11, but had been grounded in Chicago the night before due to heavy fog. Because she shared her itinerary with her family, they expected her to be there, and it would be hours before she could get through to them to tell them otherwise.
She continued to fly military charters until 2005 when she returned to her home in Wimberley. For some time, she’d contemplated joining the army as a medic and when she found that age restrictions for joining had relaxed after 2001, she signed up with the Texas National Guard.
She completed training in 2007 and, in 2008, her unit was called up for the troop surge to Iraq. She served as a medic in Iraq for a year and then, for the next five years, completed her commitment at Camp Mabry in Austin. With a son in the Navy, she chose not to renew her contract, leaving service to “younger bodies.”
Ferguson’s son likes to tell her that she “had a unique seat in the theatre of history that few people have.”
“I still get choked up thinking about the flight crews on that day,” she said, and is reminded how she was changed by everything that happened.
In her remarks to assembled guests, Ferguson emphasized several things. “I think it is important to remember the date, to honor those who died the day of the attack and to honor those who died afterward,” she said. “I also want people to remember to practice love, seek unity and to believe in our resilience because we are stronger together than we are apart. We have more things in common than we have differences.”
