Six Years, More Tears

It is once again Sept. 11. Six years later, and it still hurts. This year, I watched the reading of the names. And it seems to be getting easier. I was able to watch names being read, something I could not do last year...
It is painful. You can't help but getting choked up. Again this year, I spent the morning choking back tears and mumbling curses to myself. The idea of 9/11 fatigue is abhorrent to me. Maybe I am a masochist, but that feeling of anger and outrage and sorrow is something that I never want to forget.

I was in NYC that morning. Working in the Village, before becoming a Dad. I will never forget it. I was walking on 9th Street, between 5th Ave. and University Place, when I heard a plane roar overhead too low. It was gone by the time I turned around and looked up. I remember joking to a stranger walking past me who also heard the roar, "That's not good. That is going to be a problem for somebody."

I kept walking to my office on Broadway. I got to my desk and the phone rang it was my wife. Telling me a plane had hit the World Trade Center. At first I thought it was a small plane and an accident. A terrible shame but the FDNY will take care if it shortly. But, she told me it was a jumbo jet. I hung up and walked over to University Place and joined a small group of people looking at the WTC, which was about 2 miles south. I saw the gaping hole and smoke pouring out of the north tower.

While I was standing there. The second plane hit the South Tower, creating a huge fireball. I could not see the plane, but the fireball was enormous. I knew that it couldn't have been caused by the first plane or the ensuing fire. I knew it was a separate incident. And I knew it was an attack. I knew the world was going to change. After standing there for few minutes, I went back to my office and tried to call my wife. Who worked a few blocks away from the World Trade Center, and would walk through the ground level mall at WTC from the PATH train. She told me that she wasn't sure what to do, but it seemed like they were getting ready to evacuate the building.

A few minutes later, my office told us to go home. And as we were gathered for the announcement the news came over the radio that the first tower had collapsed. After that I could not get my wife on the phone. Shortly, thereafter the second tower collapsed.

I hung around the office, not knowing what to do. Listening to the radio. Learning about the attack on the Pentagon and the plane going down in Shanksville, PA. I kept trying to get in touch with my wife, with no luck.

About 1 p.m. I decided it was time try to go home. I had to walk up to 34th street to get a ferry. It was the most surreal things walking through New York City. There were no cars allowed on the streets, so no cabs or buses, no trucks. The only thing on the streets were people walking. Many covered with a white dust, who had walked up from the Trade Center. The subways weren't running. Everybody was walking. I remember walking up the middle of 7th Ave. On any other day, it would be hard enough to just get across 7th Ave., never mind walk up the middle of the street. Very strange indeed.

In a city surrounded by three major airports, you can look up and see as many as five planes in the air, without turning your head. But on that afternoon, the only thing in the air was the F-18s flying air-cover over New York City. There were fighter jets flying air-cover over New York City. That was more unsettling than comforting.

Eventually, I got on one of the ships, which usually takes tourists one for dinner-cruises around New York. These ships had been pressed into service to ferry people off the island of Manhattan. I remember standing on the bow of the ship and looking north at one of the jet fighters, outlined by a beautiful blue early Autumn sky. Then I looked south to the tip of Manhattan and it was engulfed in a huge billowing cloud of smoke and dust, rising 70 to 100 stories into the sky and obscuring skyscrapers. It looked like the world was on fire. I remember thinking, "This happened in America."

I was reunited with my wife, who had the good luck to get on an early ferry from the South Street Seaport to Hoboken, and was safe in New Jersey, all the while I was walking up to 34th Street. I remember getting back to our house and both of us crying until well into the night.

I knew only one person, lost on 9/11 and only as an remote acquaintance. Leonard Hatton, 45, of Ridgefield Park. We were both firemen in the town I grew up in. I knew him but we weren't friends.

Every year, I try to watch at least one name being read. I feel I need to honor one victim. That name is FDNY Firefighter Kevin O'Rourke. I didn't know him, we never met. We only shared a name. He lived in Hewlett, NY. He was 44. I lived in New Jersey. But, I am connected to him. He was a FDNY firefighter. I was volunteer firefighter for five years. I remember getting phone calls from friends and acquaintances asking if the Kevin O'Rourke that died in 9/11 was me. As a result, I reconnected with a bunch of people that I lost touch with over the years.

I feel compelled to somehow honor this Kevin O'Rourke, by taking the time to hear his name read at the 9/11 anniversary ceremony. I feel I owe it to him. I guess, I feel I owe it to all of the victims, and Kevin O'Rourke from the FDNY is my conduit, my connection to all of these poor folks.

Once again this year, Tiernan caught me choking back a sob with tears on my cheek and asked why I was crying. I told him it was a sad day, and just as I did last year, I told him that on this day six years ago, very bad men did very bad things. But this year, Tiernan asked me, "Did we go beat them up?"

And I stumbled, I thought, "Well, no they all died in the attacks. They were cowards. But we bombed the hell out of their friends. And we are at war with other people who supported them." But I couldn't get into any of that with a three-year old. I just said, "Yeah, we did." And he gave me a big hug.