Mike Devereaux (top right) is a member of the Patriot Guard, a branch of the American Legion composed of bikers who stand guard at the funerals of fallen soldiers. Devereaux said the group generally attends two or three funerals each week across the state.
But on Tuesday evening, Devereaux wasn't at a funeral.
Instead, he attended a service held in downtown Columbia to honor those who died on Sept. 11, 2001, and in the days that followed.
Held at the 9/11 First Responders Remembrance Memorial, which was unveiled last year, the service was a somber, patriotic affair.
As bagpipes played "Amazing Grace," Maj. Gen. Robert E. Livingston Jr. and Dawn Yamashiro, a family member of a 9/11 attack victim, presented a memorial wreath to the families of those who died in the attacks and the soldiers who have since perished in the war on terror, including Sharon Meador of Lexington (bottom), the mother of Sgt. John Meador II.
Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin captured the solemn mood Tuesday, as he quoted Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
"From these honored dead, we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth."