More than two decades after his tragic death during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Al Marchand’s remains are finally home with his family through the help of science and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Marchand, 44, was working as a flight attendant on United Airlines Flight 175 when it was hijacked by terrorists and crashed into the World Trade Center. He was the only New Mexican to die in the 9/11 attacks.
For years his friends and family had no burial site for the man they mourned as a father, a retired Alamogordo police lieutenant, as well as a cook, master brewer, barefoot skier, and satellite entrepreneur.
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Twenty-one years later, on Sept. 20, 2022, Marchand’s remains were returned to his son, Josh, at the Canadian-U.S. border after being identified and sent to a Canadian cousin, Bernie Chabot.
Josh Marchand said the remains were originally identified by the New York City coroner’s office in 2018. He’s one of 1,644 out of 2,753 victims identified through the process of using DNA testing to examine the World Trade Center wreckage.
The coroner’s office alerted Josh’s stepmother to the discovery of the remains in 2018, but she asked Chabot to take care of them instead. Chabot called Josh Marchand shortly after receiving the ashes to let him know that he had his father’s remains in Canada.
“I said ‘I have your dad’s ashes,’ and he was pretty overwhelmed, and I said, ‘They belong to you. They’re not going anywhere, whenever you’re ready,'” Chabot said.
Josh Marchand said he was in shock when he got that call — and at first, he didn’t believe it.
“Once I talked to my family and started praying about it, you know, I just got like such a relief,” Marchand told the Washington Examiner in an exclusive interview. “I’m so thankful, and it’s like a heavy weight has been lifted off my shoulders. It’s given us a lot of closure.”
Eventually, on Sept. 11, 2021, he and others began making calls to begin the process to bring his father home. A year later, Josh Marchand was presented with the ashes in a solemn repatriation ceremony at the U.S.-Canada border. CBP said it wanted to return “an American hero to his family, who can finally lay him to rest.”
Josh Marchand said he was grateful to his friend, Border Patrol Division Chief Zach Crosson, and other law enforcement officials for helping with the transfer, which had been delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
His father deserved more than just being sent through the mail, he said.
There currently are no plans to do anything with the remains, Josh Marchand said, as he is happy to just have his father sitting on the mantel overlooking where his children play.
“As of right now, I’m just enjoying having him around,” he said. “You know, there’s a peace about it.”
Josh Marchand plans to hold a ceremony in Alamogordo to give his father’s hometown friends and former colleagues a chance to pay their respects.
Alamogordo station officer Kerry Jarrett, who is a former field trainee of Marchand’s, said he knew the ceremony at the border would mean a great deal to friends and family who never had any closure.
“Josh and everybody had nothing from Al, other than the memories,” Jarrett said. “And then they finally got his remains back, and that was just a great feeling, for sure.”
Doyle Syling, a retired Alamogordo sergeant and another of Marchand’s field trainees, said that hearing Marchand’s remains were back home with Josh brought sadness, but also a sense of joy in knowing that Marchand returned to his only son.
Syling had the unique experience of being arrested by Marchand for jumping a hotel pool fence when he was 17 years old. Five years later, the Alamogordo police department hired Syling with Marchand as his training officer.
The two eventually became close friends.
“You know, as time goes on, wounds heal,” Syling said. “But when I got that phone call, I just broke down in tears. It opened up the doors again. Knowing the joy that his son had in receiving [the remains] shut those doors again.”
Theo Livingston, a retired Alamogordo lieutenant, said his relationship with Marchand was more than friendship — it was familial.
He was the best man at Josh’s wedding, filling in for Marchand, he said. He and his wife serve as godparents to Josh’s children, as well.
“If you met [Al], you couldn’t help, so to speak, ‘fall in love’ with a friendship with someone like him,” Livingston said.
On his right shoulder, Livingston has a very important tattoo: a memorial to Marchand, with two planes flying across the destroyed towers along a Manhattan skyline, an up-and-down cross, and a tombstone.
“I kind of gave him a burial place, if that makes sense, on me,” he said.
Marchand left a positive impact on the Alamogordo community, so much so that the City of Alamogordo declared Sept. 11, 2021, as “Al Marchand Day.”
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Over his many years in law enforcement, and despite only being a flight attendant for approximately six months, Marchand touched so many people’s lives, Syling said.
“We would find out after we lost him just how many people loved him, how many people said his presence made the difference,” Syling said.
