A Yahoo poster:
Re: My evening thoughts...
keithpack
(M/New York City)
9/14/01 9:54 pm
Obviously, I was unable to get in to Ground Zero today. I am planning to retry tommorow A.M. Thankfully, for many of you, unless insomnia sets in this and the next post will be my final ones for tonight... from yesterday
My early afternoon activity began by purchasing a bright yellow construction helmet, gloves and a breathing filter. Armed with that, my law partner and I dressed in jeans and overalls with construction boots. We drove to West 14th Street where we left our vehicle. We waited until we saw two helmeted gentlemen driving their Saturn motor vehicle. Hanging from the mirror was a mini construction hat. We told them we needed a lift to ground zero. When we were fairly close, we confided in our new friends that in fact we are NYC attorneys who wish to help but did not have any metal worker or other union membership.
As we passed a checkpoint the police stopped us. Our driver showed them his Union card and we continued fairly close to the site where we parked (illegally).
We walked .25 or .5 miles to the outside of ground zero and saw a sight I will never ever forget. There was glass and debris strewn throughout the area. I contemplate turning around and walking towards home out of fear!
Next, we came upon a group of police in a canine division who were reporting in to search and rescue. My partner and I (somewhat hysterically) picked up two shovels and simply followed the twenty police officers. We must have looked like the fellows or clowns who follow the elephants in the circus to pick up dung!!! At one point, my partner, David, began shoveling. When I asked him what the hell he was doing. He explained, “I’m trying to look busy.” I explained to him he look liked a moron counting grains of sand on the beach.
Next, we walked through a most ominous American Express Building. It was cold, dark and flooded. For the second time I could not believe I was there. We continued and followed this police unit back outside and into ground zero (I believe we were actually on the Westside highway).
After a stunned 20 minutes of doing nothing but gasping at my surroundings we went to work. A description is too difficult. However, it was like standing in the middle of the Roman Coliseum. There were erect walls of surrounding buildings but no actual buildings! There were windows but no glass. These erect walls rose to heights of at least 40 floors but looked like Swiss cheese as they were pocked through and through. The top of some of these buildings appeared jagged, as the cuts in their infrastructure were imperfect.
Most of my work today was on lines passing buckets of debris. Usually the lines were twenty to forty people deep. I spent most of my day amongst firefighters. These are the bravest, sincerest, greatest heroes ever. They also have a tremendous sense of humor. You should have seen their faces when I explained I am neither an electrician, nor a metal worker, etc. I am an attorney!!! They were hysterical.
The firefighters manned the lines tirelessly. They offered me their food and plenty of water which I could not take (at first) since I did not think volunteering eight to ten hours was worthy of these firefighters who had been working in most cases at least 36 of 48 possible hours. I kept waiting for them to brush me aside or somehow instruct me but they treated me as one of their own (at least I thought). I guess they are very accepting of volunteers. Informatively, one or two fire engines that had been burned to the ground, melted I think, were centers of operations. Firefighters across the world should know that since the firefighters were already exerting 110% effort, they summoned another 10% to retrieve their fallen brothers and sisters in the molten fire trucks.
In fact, when one particular body was found, one firefighter exclaimed, “it ain’t one of our’s it’s a civi” He seemed truly sorry that instead of a colleague it was a young girl. But I knew and certainly understood what he meant. I love being an attorney, however, yesterday showed me one thing I miss. It is the camaraderie.
Instances of heroics are indelibly written in my mind. First, we as a team had located a body. Unfortunately, you find these bodies by their smell all too often. Some demented part of you wants to view the body parts but another part of you wants nothing to do with it. Well, I witnessed a rather large fireman (hasn’t missed many firehouse meals) burrow into a hole and crawl into a tiny space for two minutes. He reported seeing body parts. Over the next ten to twenty minutes in 80 degree plus heat, he returned to the depths of the hole with a body bag and placed the individual pieces inside it so we couldn’t see them ourselves. Did he do that purposely? Based on what I saw yesterday, the answer most certainly is yes.
Another poignant moment came when the female firefighter I was next to saw my face as we discovered a body part. Her concise statement said it all, “This is real life.” As I enjoy a privileged life and watch other New Yorkers enjoying the beautiful weather and going about their business I am reminded that at all times our firefighters are living “real life.” Moreover, most of the heroics were the firefighters just doing their job.
While the same can be said of all the police, SWAT teams, INF officers, Marines, Air Force personnel, Navy, Pennsylvania police, Ohio teams, New Jersey ambulance teams, ATF officers, electricians, metal workers, etc., I spent most of my time with the firefighters and I will never forget them.
Other general observations stuck in my mind were the shoes. Shoes were all over the place. I kept thinking where were the bodies previously wearing those shoes? To this moment I don’t know the significance of my predisposition to noticing the shoes but there were other personal effects. I saw pocketbooks, pens, bags, and tons upon tons of legal books and documents and business “cash flow statements.”
While those who know me are aware of my interest in law and things financial, all that information was merely “dust in the wind” and trivialized by this weeks events. To think these deceased people spent hours upon hours writing these memos that would end up as their burial shrouds!
After about ten hours, I left the heroes behind. I had enough, as I am not battle hardened. Covered in the building’s white dust, physically beaten down by carrying loads and hungry, we left.
The last moments of my “tour of duty” were the best. A truck with an open fenced in top picked us up. Approximately fifteen people were on board. The vehicle transported us up the Westside highway. Why was this the best moment? At each major intersection on our route northbound, hundreds of cheering people yelled and clapped as if we liberated a European town in WWII. Signs stating, “Welcome heroes,” “Thanks for everything, etc.” were along the route. I felt funny about the whole thing until I noticed two firemen on our truck. |
