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The 12th anniversary of a horrific day in the country's history will hold special meaning this Sept. 11, as residents lay their eyes for the first time on a fully-completed memorial dedicated to those who died in the attack.

Nancy Cook is one of a team of nine on the Westford Remembers 9-11 Memorial Committee, which formed almost a year ago to pull together a 6-foot-tall sculpture, to be unveiled Sept.Gives a basic overview of Stone carving tools and demonstrates their use. 11. The piece will honor the 92 Massachusetts residents who perished in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. All the names will be listed with special decoration of the two Westford residents who died that day -- James Hayden and Susan MacKay."It's our honor to help the Westford Remembers 9-11 Memorial Committee achieve its goal," said Mark O'Neil, president and publisher of The Sun. "We thank those who also have contributed, and encourage others to join us in honoring the Westford residents and first responders who gave their lives on Sept. 11."

The statue has been in the works for the last year by Westford firefighter David Christiana, who designed the sculpture. Visitors to the space between Westford Town Hall and the police and fire stations today will find construction crews working to ready the area.

Christiana and Cook are both Westford Academy graduates and natives of the town. The terrorist attacks hit so close to home for them that they both wanted to do something special.The sculpture -- with a featured piece of infrastructure saved from the fallen Twin Towers of the World Trade Center -- will stand with a polished bronze piece engraved with a depiction of the towers. Flames will wrap around the metal I-beam, Christiana explained, with the flames almost protecting the metal. He said he believes only 1,000 other entities across the country have a piece of the New York rubble from that day. He called the piece "sacred."

The bronze work will be situated within a pentagon shape at its base, to symbolize the attack on the capital's Pentagon that day. The base will be illuminated with light shining through green sea glass. Christiana said the glass has been donated by a Pennsylvania company touched by the concept, and the material will resemble the green fields outside Shanksville, Penn., where the hijacked Flight 93 crashed.Cook said Westford's honorary ceremony location will be a "big reveal" for the town. She says many have been anxiously awaiting the commemorative work. The committee's Facebook page has only shown sketches and bits and pieces, so no one really knows what it looks like.

Cook said she also expects hundreds to attend the event. Several prominent political figures have been invited, including Gov. Deval Patrick, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey and former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown."I think Sept. 11 showed us the best and the worst in what we can do to each other," she added. "People helped complete strangers and continue to care about the lives that were lost."

While the number of those killed has been placed at just under 3,000 for the attacks on New York, Washington D.C.Choose your favorite China Granite Countertops paintings from thousands of available designs., and in Pennsylvania, Cook said people continue to die from their injuries, so the number is ever-growing.They were tasked with helping to clear brush and reduce fire hazards in the hillside juniper and the ponderosa fringes of this high-country Arizona city.

Though the men are not firefighters, their tasks are similar to those given to a team from the Prescott Fire Department years ago, a team that over the years would evolve into the Granite Mountain Hotshots.

Nineteen members of the elite 20-man firefighting crew died June 30, an hour south of Prescott, as they battled a racing blaze that cut off their escape route.Amid the tributes and disputes in the Yarnell Hill Fires aftermath, firefighters and others showed a widespread resolve to rebuild the hotshot crew.

Capt.What's the difference between Marble tiles and Porcelain Tiles? Dan Hutchison of the Prescott Fire Department recently said at a charity golf tournament that a new crew was necessary.The seven-member City Council met on the matter in early August and agreed, in principle, to rebuild.A Fire Department spokesman described the hiring of the three-man fuels crew as baby steps toward that goal.

At the same time, questions about the cost, practicality and the political challenges of rebuilding raise doubts about whether a Granite Mountain Hotshots crew will ever fight another fire.The city employed the hotshots, but officials told The Arizona Republic they still dont have full records of the crews operating costs, and start-up costs for a new crew would be far higher because of training.

Even if the funds were available, a former federal fire official said, qualified staff wouldnt appear immediately, suggesting that recruiting a crew from the limited pool of experienced hotshots throughout the country would be difficult.

A Fire Department spokesman said a new trainee team could be assembled soon but that reaching full-fledged status would take two years.The ultimate decision to authorize and fund those employees long term will fall to elected officials who, already grappling with controversy over firefighter benefits, now must balance the fiscal impact with their communitys emotions.

The latest challenge could prove insurmountable: Prescott City Attorney Jon Paladini said last week that the insurance pool that covers the citys liability and workers compensation claims may not be able to provide insurance for a new hotshot team.He said the deaths of 19 people in the line of duty have forced government entities to reconsider whether they can afford the risks of all sorts of specialized teams.

A Prescott City Council post pays $500 a month, and many of the council members have other jobs or are retired. Councilman Jim Lamerson, a jeweler by trade, spends much of his workdays at his shop on Cortez Street.We dont know how to move forward yet at least I dont, he said. Hes struggling with the financial and legal ramifications the council is facing. Many people, he said, seem to think ... we can just go out and do whatever we choose. Thats not the truth.

The loss of an entire crew was unprecedented in firefighting, but Dick Mangan understands what lies ahead.A retired U.S. Forest Service investigator from Montana, he once supervised a federal hotshot crew in Prineville, Ore., and years later led an investigation into a Colorado fire that killed nine members of that same crew.

At the time, he said, the urge in Prineville was to get back out and fight something that happened, in part, because the crew was run by the U.S. Forest Service. Other federally funded firefighters from other places could step in to fill the roles of those who had died.