Lt. Ray McCormack was running late to work the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

A lieutenant for the New York City Fire Department, McCormack had worked the night before but went home early after his wife called him with worries.

“I’m going to tell you two things: First off, my wife rarely calls me at work and, second of all, nervousness is not a real excuse to leave work,” he told a crowd of about 100 at a memorial service for the 14th anniversary of 9/11 at South King Fire and Rescue Fire Station 64.

He was supposed to work throughout the night and the day of 9/11 but after his wife’s friend called, echoing her concerns, he left the firehouse with slightly high blood pressure, expecting to be in the next morning.

In addition to being late, McCormack was pulled over for speeding and had to rely on his scanner because his radio wasn’t working that morning.

But his morning quickly worsened when he heard a peculiar thing on the scanner.

“I thought I heard somebody say that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center,” he recalled. “I was like, ‘No, that can’t be it.’ But the next message I heard was ‘send every available ambulance you have.’”

McCormack looked up and there was smoke.

“I broke a few more traffic laws to get to work,” the Harlem lieutenant of Ladder 28 said.

The first plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, marking the worst terrorist attacks the United States has ever endured. Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda later crashed three other hijacked airplanes — a second into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and one into a field in Pennsylvania, which was heading to Washington D.C. but was rerouted after a passenger takeover.

The firehouse was chaotic. Televisions blared, rumors flew and everyone was directed not to use phone lines unless absolutely necessary.

Itching to help before the second plane had even crashed, McCormack got his chance until midnight.

“We worked throughout the night and the next afternoon and we finally got relieved,” he said, noting many firefighters returned to the site after their shift ended.

For the first two weeks, McCormack and others’ job was to find survivors in void spaces.

“But it turned out, I don’t think any — there were some survivors but they were found initially,” he said.

After that, it was recovery mode.

For one month in the beginning of 2002, McCormack and his team found deceased people and returned them to their families.

“It was a very difficult month, emotionally and physically,” he said.

Gig Harbor resident Ken Lee was on the other side of the country when he found out his uncle Dong Lee died on American Airlines flight 77, the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.

“I didn’t even know my uncle was traveling because he lived in Virginia, he was going from Virginia to Los Angeles that day,” Lee said. “And then it was after, a day after, that I got a call from my aunt that he was on the plane. The last thing, after talking to my aunt, the last words he said was that he’ll miss her and be careful.”

Lee’s uncle was traveling for a business trip with Boeing. Only nine years older than Lee, Lee described his uncle as more like a brother to him.

He immigrated to America in the 1960s from Korea after having lost both of his parents at a young age.

“He was a person you really wanted to be around,” Lee said. “The reason I looked up to him was he was rock solid in his conventions … He always went out of his way to make other people happy.”

The memorial service, meant to honor the 2,977 Americans and 343 firefighters who were killed by the attacks, showcased a year-old memorial structure with the names of the police and fire personnel and citizens whose lives were lost.

The memorial is built in the shape of a pentagon with the names of the World Trade Center victims on the inside of the south wall. In the center of the pentagon-shaped memorial is a 1,200 pound, 10-feet tall steel beam from the World Trade Center.

The steel is mounted on a pedestal that displays the names of the police and fire personnel and it is pointed 102 degrees east towards Ground Zero.

On the southeast wing is a rock, which was excavated from the Shanksville, Pennsylvania crash site with names of victims above and on the southwest wing, there’s a 250 pound piece of Indiana limestone from the face of the Pentagon with victim’s names above.

On the other side is two three-ton basalt columns that rise out of the words “Never Forget,” which represent the World Trade Center twin towers. The columns are next to a single Callery pear tree, which represents the lone surviving tree at Ground Zero and the grass area, tying the two sections together, represents the field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

“Many thanks go out to those that helped make this memorial a reality, especially Lt. Chris Burdyshaw and the crews at [Station] 64,” South King Fire and Rescue Chief Allen Church said. “Let’s never forget the firefighters, police officers and citizens who lost their lives that horrific day 14 years ago. Never forget.”

Photos by Carrie Rodriguez, the Mirror and courtesy of Randall Smith and Bruce Honda.