THOMASVILLE — It wasn’t Manhattan’s Financial District on a sunny September Tuesday but rather a high school football stadium on a South Georgia Saturday. But firefighters in full gear and regular citizens trudged up, across and down the The Jackets’ Nest stadium steps, all to mark the flights of stairs New York City firefighters ascended in the doomed World Trade Center towers on 9/11.

The Thomasville Fire and Rescue Department took part in the annual 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb for the fourth straight year. 

“I came out here to show remembrance for those who gave the ultimate sacrifice and just honor in remembrance of them,” said Frank Mitchell, donned in bunker gear.

Each participant n the 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb has to climb or walk the equivalent of the 110 flights of the World Trade Center towers, which were felled when terrorists hijacked airliners and slammed the planes into each of the buildings. Another passenger jet was overtaken by terrorists and crashed into the Pentagon and another was diverted from its intended target as passengers fought back against terrorists, causing the plane to plummet into a Pennsylvania field.

Each participant, firefighters included, carried a badge showing the name and photo of one of the New York City rescuers who didn’t make it out of the towers before they imploded.

Ernest Moore, a Thomasville Fire and Rescue member, carried the photo and name of Joseph Agnello from Ladder Company 118.

Moore was in social studies class that day when Agnello and 342 other firefighters were killed in the towers’ collapse.

“At first, I didn’t know what was happening until I saw the plane hit the second tower,” Moore said. “I knew that was an attack.”

Going up and down the steps at The Jackets’ Nest in full gear meant a lot to Moore, he acknowledged.

“It’s all about the fallen firefighters,” he said.

The event, sponsored nationally by the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, was sponsored here by Thomasville Fire Rescue, Thomasville YMCA and CNS.