Ground Zero

“Three-hundred and forty-three killed; ninety-one vehicles destroyed; two hundred and thirteen members of the senior command lost to retirement; $104 million paid out in death benefits; as many as 500 firefighters at risk of leaving the force because of lung damage suffered at ground zero,” this was reported at a site dedicated to the firefighters of 9/11. Mission NYC, a Christian organization, has been sending groups of people to the firehouses in New York since the attacks on 9/11 to talk with the guys and to try and help them cope with the aftermath of the events that day. I, along with thirteen other people from my church, went to New York City in the summer of 2004 to do just that; to talk with firefighters, homeless people, poverty stricken people, and others in NYC to try and help them cope with their situations and - if at all possible- give them a little hope.

We arrived in New York on June 27th and were staying until July 2nd. The group consisted of me, Crystal Joseph, Jackie Rodriguez, Jillian Rodriguez, Julia Rodriguez, Jackie Eaton, Claudia Eaton, Erik Hajek, Eric Silva, Christen Deane, Charisse Deane, Jason Judy, Brian Blomer, and Tony Caffey. In New York, we teamed up with a guy named Kumar and two teens named Jonathan and Martin. The nine original teens each received a nickname from Lord of the Rings for the trip because we wanted to establish a fellowship of our own that would bind us together in unity, similar to the firefighters in NYC – how they give each other nicknames. I was Samwise Gamgie, Crystal is my sister and her nickname was Frodo Baggins, Jill is my cousin and she was Pippin, Jackie – another cousin – was Merry, Julia – yet another cousin- was Aragorn, Erik H. was Gandalf, Eric S. was Gimli, Charisse was Legolas, and Christen was Borimir. Each leader also had a nickname. Claudia Eaton asked us to call her Chap, we called Jason ‘Judes’, Brian we called ‘Bloomier’, Tony we wrote “Toe Knee” and Jacqueline E. we called ‘Jax.’

A few days into our trip we finally found time to make our way to the Ground Zero site to pay our respects and see how huge the actual place was. When we arrived, a lot of us were in a very social mood and not ready to contemplate the events of that day. The site was surrounded by a fence. Inside the fenced area was the spot that the towers fell; the spot that thousands of innocent lives were taken. A cross stood somewhere near the fence and was displayed as a memorial. The cross was found in the debris and on the cross there was a white cloth that hung and blew in the wind. On the fence there was something written in black marker that read “God bless the US.” Across the fenced area there were a few buildings and the top few floors of those buildings were boarded up or covered with black tarp because they were blown out and still had not been replaced. The street near the memorial site also had boarded up windows and graffiti was written over some of the boards.

Stricken with guilt for not feeling anything but calm, I stood in front of the memorial for ten minutes - waiting for emotion to come. I turned to my cousin, Jillian – also known as Pippin – and whispered to her: “Yo, are you getting into this much?” She turned to me, also with a guilty look on her face and responded “A little bit, but not too much.” I nodded at this, feeling a little less guilty; partly because I knew I wasn’t the only one and partly because I had given up on feeling anything. I then turned and looked at Charisse and Jackie who had their arms around one another’s shoulders. They were leaning against the fence staring longingly between the holes, tears running down their faces. To the side of them I could see Eric Silva standing against the fence, his fingers gripping the wire as if he could picture the situation happening right before his eyes. Just as I was about to give up on feeling anything though, I remembered news broadcasts telling about the day that the twin towers were hit.

Images from the TV became fresh in my mind and I could almost see the events taking place right in front of me, four years after they occurred. The noise around me was plain chaos; everyone was screaming and crying, expecting the worst but hoping for the best. The sound of thousands of feet was pounding on the ground, glass was shattering in all directions, and the sound of fires erupting was all that anyone could hear. A gigantic cloud of black smoke was racing toward everyone and there didn’t appear to be anywhere safe to run to. For that reason, many just ran aimlessly. People referred to it as: “8:46 A.M., mayhem in Manhattan.” Soon though, the sounds and images began to fade and all I could hear was my own heart beating and my breathing getting a bit faster.

A song popped into my head: it’s a song by Kutless and it’s called “Sea of Faces.” The chorus raced through my head as fast as a thoroughbred racing horse: “I am not just a man, vastly lost in this world, Lost in a Sea of Faces, Your body's the bread, Your blood is the wine, Because you traded Your life for mine” After this appreciated, but unpredicted thought, my mind was placed in the right spot to fully realize what I was looking at. Another song soon took its place: New York by ‘The Kry.’ A potion of the song says, “And now the nights, they’re getting darker and it seems, that hope is gone, but hope is not gone.” My heart grew heavier and heavier as the seconds passed and I lost almost complete consciousness of my surroundings. Russel Brown and Ed Navetta were the two firefighters that I got to talk to most. They said they love the Yankees, police are the enemies, and that the pay stinks but they love their job Conversations that I had heard with firefighters earlier in the day rang clear in my mind and those lyrics evolved from just words in a song to reality.

When I was standing in front of the memorial, only a fence between me and the place where thousands were killed - for a reason that I can only describe as hatred – I began to understand, more than ever before, to the full extent, what the effects of 9/11 were. Not only were people killed, pride was lost, and buildings were destroyed, but also people lost family members, friends, and kids. Finally, I was fully focusing on Ground Zero and I could picture blazing fires in my head as I stood before the site.

A warm breeze was blowing as the sun began to go down but it was still almost 90 degrees outside. All day, many of us had commented on the heat, but standing there, remembering the firefighters, I couldn’t help but think about the heat they felt that day. In The Lord of the Rings, Gimli said “Certainty of death, small chance of success, what are we waiting for?” To me, this was a lot like the mind set that the firefighters had to have going into the two towers. The firefighters had to run up unimaginable amounts of stairs wearing clothes that weighed them down to protect them from the fire as everyone else ran out. Something I learned at the firehouses that day was that the men in each station were extremely close. They spent about half of their time with the men they worked with; they joked, cried, laughed, fought, and even prayed together, they were a family. After the attacks many were killed, and many who weren’t killed are currently suffering from traumatic memories. I learned that even though the attacks are passed and many have forgotten that they even happened, the pain left from them are still very much alive. I learned that after the September 11th attacks, firefighters became celebrities to America. People traveled to New York on vacation and visited the firehouses like a tourist attraction. MissioinNYC.org recently reported that “The members of the 10 house are adjusting to being back in their original location and the crowds are becoming manageable.” They also reported that several firefighters are currently struggling with post trauma; unable to sleep and sometimes not even able to go back to work. Chap, the leader of our group in going to NYC, told me a few weeks ago that people are no longer allowed to visit the firehouses because two visitors claimed sexual misconduct in a NYC firehouse.

“Three-hundred and forty-three killed; ninety-one vehicles destroyed; two hundred and thirteen members of the senior command lost to retirement; $104 million paid out in death benefits; as many as 500 firefighters at risk of leaving the force because of lung damage suffered at ground zero.” Many people do not realize that the firefighters of 9/11 are still dealing with the grief of the attacks, but for me, going to Ground Zero and talking to the firefighters was enough for me to not only realize it and understand it, but feel compassion for them. I learned that even though it is so easy for us to forget the September 11, 2001 attacks because we don’t see ground zero every day, – and even for people who do see it everyday but grow accustomed to its new appearance – it is not over for the firefighters --specifically because they are dealing with lung problems, memories of people screaming for help yet they were not able to save them, and being looked upon by society as heroes when to them it is only their job. The pain and grief is not over for the firefighters of 9/11.