Retired Army Major Bradstreet to speak at Patriot Day ceremony

Retired U.S. Army Major Ron Bradstreet, the recipient of the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce’s 2017 Freedom Award, is scheduled to be the keynote speaker for the city of Hoover’s 2017 Patriot Day ceremony.

The primary ceremony — held annually to remember the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001 — is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 11 at Hoover Fire Station No. 2 off Patton Chapel Road.

Bradstreet, 67, served more than 40 years in the U.S. Army, including more than 20 years of active service and two tours during the Vietnam War, and more than 20 years as a Junior ROTC instructor in high schools. 

He retired in January 2014.

For the past 11 years, he has served as commander of the American Legion Post 911, which in February 2015 was renamed the Ryan Winslow Post 911 in memory of the 19-year-old Marine from Hoover who was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq in April 2006.

In addition to Bradstreet’s talk, the 2017 Patriot Day ceremony will include a bell tolling roughly at the time of day the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed, said Rusty Lowe, the Hoover Fire Department’s EMS Officer and spokesman. He also hopes to have patriotic music provided by a school choir, he said.

Also, shorter bell tolling ceremonies will be held at the flagpole of every other Hoover fire station at about 8:50 a.m., Lowe said.