Angelic Suarez feels the pain of 9/11 every day of her life, but that didn’t stop the Princeton resident from attending a Patriot Day commemoration Sunday morning of the event 21 years ago that forever changed her life – and the lives of millions of Americans.

Suarez’s constant pain comes from the death of her brother, Anthony Rodriguez, who on Sept. 11, 2001, was a 36-year-old New York Fire Department “proby” assigned to an engine company out of Brooklyn, N.Y. He answered the call when the terrorists flew a hijacked jetliner into one of the towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. Suarez said her brother’s unit was among the first to arrive at Ground Zero on 9/11.

“My brother was in the first tower that collapsed,” Suarez said, adding that “they never recovered his body.”

Suarez said she is unaware of what her brother was doing the moment the tower fell but acknowledged the bravery that FDNY personnel and other first responders displayed “by rushing into the burning buildings.”

Rodriguez had served 11 years in the U.S. Navy before joining FDNY.

“I am grateful and glad that we still remember that day,” Suarez said.

Suarez’s brother is survived by his wife and six children – the youngest of whom was born three days after Rodriguez died in the rubble of the WTC, according to Suarez, who said she was able to attend the 20-year commemoration in New York City. Suarez’s brother was among the nearly 3,000 people who died in Manhattan on 9/11.

For the full story, see the Sept. 15 issue of The Princeton Herald.