9/11 Remembered

http://news.yahoo.com/behind-the-scenes-look-at-9-11-memorial.html

To understand more about the 9/11 Memorial, one may look to the person who designed it. Ten years ago, Michael Arad was a young, idealistic architect designing police stations for the New York Housing Authority -- the kind of buildings that most people pass by and never really notice. But the World Trade Center terrorist attacks would soon stir a vision in Arad that will forever be part of America and its history.

Arad, now 42, was born in London, lived much of his childhood in Mexico and the United States, and served in the Israeli army. He had moved to New York City in 1999 from Atlanta and says he still felt like an outsider in his new hometown on Sept. 11, 2001.

On the day of the attacks, Arad was working at home when he heard on the radio that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. He assumed, as did thousands of others, that it was an accident.

"I remember walking across my apartment and looking through the bedroom window and seeing smoke billowing up from the North Tower," he recalls. "So I grabbed my camera and went up to the roof of the building to take a picture of that and witnessed the second plane swerve around and crash into the South Tower in this enormous fireball and explosion of glass -- a horrendous thing to behold."

He jumped onto his bicycle to go find his wife, Melanie, who worked in Lower Manhattan. "I remember that morning pretty clearly," he says. "It was almost apocalyptic, the quality of the city, biking through throngs of people, who were all transfixed and staring at the towers and wondering what was going on."

He eventually found his wife. They evacuated the downtown area, weaving through Manhattan’s urban canyons, when the towers began to crumble. "I didn’t realize the tower was falling," he recalls. "I could just hear people yelling, 'It’s falling! It’s falling!' I didn’t know what they were talking about."

The city’s response to the horrors of 9/11 affected Arad deeply. "What really struck me was how New Yorkers reacted to that day, how much courage, and compassion, and care, and love people showed in the aftermath of that attack, how people really came together to support each other in ways big and small."

There were the rallies on the West Side Highway to cheer on the recovery workers; the lines that formed around hospitals to donate blood; the makeshift memorials and candlelight vigils; the impromptu gatherings at Washington, Union, and Times squares. All of these memories and impressions flowed through Arad's growing sense of belonging.

"I think New Yorkers realized that day how much they need each other," he says. "And for me, that was really the day I felt I became a New Yorker, through the crucible of that experience."

Michael Arad at the National September 11 Memorial site, Friday, July 9, 2010. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

Michael Arad at the National September 11 Memorial site, Friday, July 9, 2010. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

In the months after 9/11, Arad daydreamed about a memorial for the city that would honor New Yorkers' shared sorrow and fidelity. He thought about the kind of place he would want to visit, that would nurture the community.

"I started sketching this idea, it was sort of this image in my head of the surface of the Hudson River being torn open and two square voids that the water would rush into and they wouldn't fill up," he says. "It was a very inexplicable image, something that doesn't make any sense. It just kind of stayed in my head."

He made detailed drawings and models. He then set his designs on a high shelf and went on with his life. But a couple years later, a competition to design the 9/11 Memorial was opened to the public. Arad returned to his designs and refined his concepts. He titled it "Reflecting Absence."

"I thought about my own experiences of going to Washington Square and standing around that central fountain in the presence of other people and the tremendous relief that provided," he says. "It was a way of looking at the future, not alone, but as part of a group. I stood there for a few moments in the presence of others, and that changed the way I thought about it. And I wanted to create a space like that."

For Arad, public places are vital to our lives. He points to a famous Life Magazine photo from 1945 of a sailor kissing a nurse on V-J Day in Times Square as a classic example. He also cites Tahrir Square in Cairo, the focal point of Egypt’s recent revolution.

"Public spaces are this incredible glue that binds us together as a civilization," he says. "There's nothing new about that. That's been the case for thousands of years. Increasingly today, we forget that. We try to think all this can happen in a mediated environment, like online, or in a shopping mall. It can't. We need true public places in a city."

Arad’s design, which was picked in 2004 by a select jury, keeps social bonds top of mind. The two square "voids" with waterfalls fill pools that fall again into two smaller voids, all set in the original footprints of the Twin Towers. Working with landscape architect Peter Walker, Arad deepened what he calls a "permeable feeling." Trees cushion the experience, Arad explains, giving mourners comfort and a sense of calm. Visitors can approach from any number of directions, including from two streets that intersect the site.

"If this was a scar, and the fabric of the city was scarred, I felt it should be mended back to the life of the city, not erased," Arad says. "Not celebrated as a scar but allowed to heal back."

The waterfalls themselves mark the passage of time, he says, endlessly flowing into the earth. The moving water is meant to be cleansing and its sound soothing. The recessed pools are designed to allow the sky and sun to shine about.

"You walk up to the edge of these voids, you see these voids that are tangible emptiness," he explains. "It's not an emptiness that's devoid of meaning. It's an emptiness that's full of meaning. It's about the persistence of this absence in so many ways, absence of these people, absence of the towers that stood here."

The 9/11 Memorial has taken about six years to complete. Construction has entailed pitched battles between competing interests and desires. Arad has at times fought hard to preserve the spirit and tone of his original vision.

"I don’t think I had any idea of what I was about to face, what a long and difficult process it would be," he says. "At times it has been incredibly trying. But I'm very proud of the memorial we have today, and the memorial emerged through this process, through a public process."

Arad believes the back and forth has made his design better than he ever imagined. For example, insistence by Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office that visitors in wheelchairs be able to easily see the smaller voids pushed him to devise a design with chamfered corners.

Arad is especially proud of the presentation of the victims' names, which are cut into bronze panels that hang at the waterfall edges. The 9/11 Memorial Foundation worked with all of the victims' families to place names in meaningful clusters or "adjacencies," so that one victim's name may be placed near a best friend who also perished, or neighbors who rode into work together every day are in close proximity.

"I always wanted a design that was stoic and defiant, but also quiet and respectful," Arad says. "I didn’t want a design that felt the need to scream loudly. I felt the site was freighted with so much history, anything we say here is amplified a thousand-fold."

"It's hard to come to terms with something like close to 3,000 dead in an attack," he says. "But when you hear a personal story, everyone can relate to that, to what it might be like to lose a family member, to lose a friend. I thought it was important to maintain that in the design, to find a way to amplify the nature of this collective loss through these stories of individual loss. That's what the memorial is about, individual loss and a communal loss that we all experienced together."

Just as the memorial itself captures a sense of loss and renewal, of impermanence superimposed on the immovable, Arad’s own journey since 9/11 has combined the private and the public. What started as a shared experience turned into a personal odyssey -- one that will now flow back into shared reflection.

"We found, through efforts of people at my office, my partners, the efforts of the people at the Memorial Foundation, the efforts of many family members, of people at City Hall, and many people, the challenge was always to guide it through these rough waters and bring it to completion," he says. "And we were able to do that."

 

Thanks for appreciating it, Pixie. It doesn't matter how much time passes, 9/11 always moves me. I think the memorial was done beautifully, & I appreciate the effort, heart & dedication that was put into creating it.

 

Widow accepts Afghanistan mission after 9/11 twist of fate
By Laura Rozen


Sgt. Maj. Larry Strickland and Sgt. Maj. Debra Strickland
Sgt. Maj. Larry Strickland was less than a month from retirement when he went to work on Sept. 11, 2001. He already had his retirement speech stored on his office computer. But it was a speech he would never give. He died that day when terrorists crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon.

“We had a middle-aged love story,” his wife, Sgt. Maj. Debra Strickland, says. It was a second marriage for him and a first for her -- and an extremely happy one, she says, based on friendship, compatibility, and a shared love of the Army. “It had to do with knowing the whole is more important than the individual,” Debra, now 56, says. His death left an “empty space” that the past 10 years have not filled.

“You don’t move on. You adjust your life,” she says. “I have not adjusted my heart to his loss.” But Debra says she has reached a point where she’s calm.

Her husband’s job – serving as the senior enlisted officer advising the Army deputy chief of staff for personnel -- “was about making soldiers look knowledgeable and good,” she says. Hers – as the command sergeant major for the Army’s Installation Management Command -- “was about correcting things.”

Their conflicting missions initially led to some contentious interactions at the Pentagon, Debra laughs, with her investigating alleged mismanagement and Larry standing up for the personnel.

At the suggestion of a female friend and supervisor, however, Debra eventually accepted – with reservations -- Larry’s invitation to try to ease their differences over a round of bowling.

That was followed by more bowling and four years of dating, and they were married on Oct. 6, 1995, in Occoquan State Park, outside of Washington, D.C. She was 36, he was 42.

“Larry had yet to pack up his office, there were so many gifts that I would not let him bring home,” Debra laments. “It was such a mistake. Tons of wonderful photos and everything in the office, was moved to the new section [of the Pentagon that was struck], not a month before.”

Also lost: the speech for his retirement ceremony. Debra says she had so eagerly waited to hear what he would say about her in the speech.

“I knew he was going to say something … important for me to hear,” Debra says. “I spent more energy trying to resurrect it. …. I wanted to know what he was going to say.”

Debra Strickland
When some of Larry’s friends realized Debra was so distraught about the speech, they “flew in, and started telling me stories,” Debra says, about how happy he had been with her.

On Sept. 11, Debra was working not far from the Pentagon at Ft. Belvoir, Va. “We were doing access control exercises on the day he died, looking at what to do if we need to close the gates, practicing that” sort of thing, Debra says, remembering with a break in her voice: “It was a gorgeous day.”

In shock after Larry was killed, Debra thought she would retire immediately from active duty, but colleagues and commanders encouraged her not to make a sudden change.

“I am not clear how it happened, but I stayed on,” Debra says, serving eight more years active duty before making two tours in Afghanistan.

She says the three years after Sept. 11 —and the constant reminders of the 9/11 terrorist attacks at the Pentagon as the nation entered wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- were a nightmarish blur. “The imagery, the conferences…. It was an exercise in Groundhog Day. For three years. I prayed every day.”

The agony eased after three years, she says, but it still didn’t get easy.

Her two tours in Kabul were “the most fulfilling experience I ever had, in all my years. I got to serve with the soldiers, with what I associated with the work my husband did before his death,” Debra says.

Debra finally retired last year after serving 35 years. Recently, she has been helping her mother in Florida deal with a health crisis and is finally getting a chance to consider what she will do next do in her career. Debra also serves on the board of advisors to the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial Fund.

Debra says the country and its elected leaders have lost sight of their sense of national focus in the 10 years since 9/11, and she urges a restoration of balance and accountability.

“Someone needs to hold the process accountable,” she says.

But Debra has not lost her sense of optimism and hope in the past 10 years.

“I certainly believe we can get the nation back on track, and we can do it fast,” Debra says. “We need to cooperate. When things are so hopeless and are so desperate for so many people, we need to find common ground.” And the tone of her voice makes it clear she believes we can.

---

Larry Strickland’s parents, Lee and Olga Strickland, of Puget Sound, Washington State, died in 2008, eight months apart. Besides his wife Debra, he is also survived by his younger sister Donna Marie, by his three grown children: Julia, Matthew and Chris, and three grandchildren: Brendan, Sammy and Levi.

 

Soldier Reflects on Three Heroes He'll Never Forget


If things had gone differently in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, I might be able to see a row of white tombstones and not get emotional. I might not tear up whenever Memorial Day comes around. I wouldn't look for names on memorial walls.

If it weren't for the events of Sept. 11, 2001, I wouldn't miss Jim, Eric and Greg.

If not for that day, they might all still be alive.


I enlisted in the U.S. Army in the summer of 2001, and I was in basic training the day the twin towers in Manhattan fell. Our drill sergeant told us the "towers were down," which I couldn't process at first. Then, suddenly, being in uniform meant something different than it had when the summer began. I ended up going to Iraq twice in the following years.

I'd met Jim the year before I enlisted -- after multiple tours, he was killed by an IED in eastern Afghanistan. He was there because he'd turned down a headquarters assignment so he could be with his team.

Greg was my platoon sergeant. He died in Baghdad during a mortar attack while guiding others into a bunker.

Eric led his squad into a house in Iraq that, unknown to them, was wired to explode, killing him and several others that day.

I'm different today because of their sacrifice and that of others I never knew.

I know what it means to lose a brother in arms, to see their faces again when we bow for moments of silence at baseball games, concerts and on the 4th of July. When I hear the words, "Live a life worthy of their sacrifice," I remember those fathers, brothers and sons, and I am proud to have known them, however briefly.

If not for 9/11, and for those men, I would still think of the word "hero" as something abstract, but, instead, I can say I have known heroes, those who answered the call to serve their country long before the war came and took them away.

To honor them, brothers in a way that family never could be, I will tell their story and the story of that day to my children and, someday, their children. We will find their names together, we will stand when the flag goes by, and we will never forget the meaning of their sacrifice.

My today is different because of that day -- worse, and better, too. Worse because we lost them, better because I knew them at all.

 

Canine hero retires after 9/11 rescues
By Piper Weiss


Eleven days after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Debra Tosch arrived at Ground Zero with her partner Abby to search for survivors.

“We turned this one corner and there it was: the collapsed towers. It was overwhelming, like, where do you even start?” Tosch recalls.

Abby, a black Labrador trained to lead rescue teams to trapped victims in disaster areas, was more assured. “She knew it was time to search,” says Tosch, the executive director of the Search Dog Foundation.

As one of 13 SDF teams deployed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency after the Trade Center attacks, they traveled from the West Coast to New York City on a military transport with the San Diego Task Force. At that point, Abby and Tosch had been a certified rescue team for almost three years, but they had never experienced anything approaching the scope of the World Trade Center devastation.

“As we were going to and from the site, people were calling out ‘can you find my daughter? Can you find my son?’” Tosch says. Her normally cheerful demeanor grows markedly more solemn as she recalls the mission.

Abby also had a unique reaction to the devastation.

“At the site, the dogs definitely picked up on something from the handlers and from the environment that said, ‘this is for real,’” Tosch says. “They were more in-tune and sharper in their obedience and listening than we had ever seen them."

Abby searching at Ground Zero.
Trained to detect the scent of live humans buried under the rubble, Abby scurried off-leash when Tosch shouted the green-light command -- “search” -- climbing between twisted metal and under sharp, steaming slabs of concrete. “The dogs go to the places where humans can’t go and as handlers we stand nearby and communicate with the dogs about where they should go,” she explains. “If I want her to go in a certain direction, I step in that direction. We also use voice commands and whistles.” Over 10 days, they worked tirelessly in 12-hour shifts. They didn’t find anyone alive.

"In some areas, Abby indicated somebody was there who had passed away," Debra says, her voice quieting.

In their line of work, finding a human alive is rare, and Abby and Tosch have never experienced it. "You always hope you do find someone but it’s just as important to make sure nobody is left behind.”

Abby was born to search. The only female in a litter of seven black Labs, her mother was a search dog and her mother’s master was Wilma Melville, founder of the Search Dog Foundation. At 10 months old, Abby went to a professional training facility in Gilroy, Calif., to hone her craft and meet her human handler and master, Tosch.


Training involves multi-tiered certifications and can take several years. Much of the time is spent at recycling centers, where volunteers are buried under rubble. When a dog finds them and alerts the handler with a bark, they're rewarded with a tugging toy from the volunteer who was buried. "They learn that they have fun with the people they find so they can’t wait to go out and look for them," Tosch explains. Learning to climb ladders (something Abby always loved) and navigate difficult obstacle courses is another important factor, as is the ability to respond to key human words.

A year after 9/11, Abby and Tosch flew to Salt Lake City for the Winter Olympics —they were on-call in case an athlete was buried in snow. In 2005 they went to La Conchita, Calif., to help with rescue efforts after a deadly mudslide. They also flew to Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina to search through flooded, ravaged homes for stranded victims.

In 2006, when Tosch’s role as SDF’s executive director became too consuming to continue working as Abby’s handler, Abby paired up with another member of the program, Ron Weckbacher. Together Weckbacher and Abby worked as first responders until September 2008. During Abby’s last mission, searching for victims of a commuter train crash in Chatsworth, Calif., it became clear she was getting ready to retire.

At 11 years old, her athletic ability was waning and she struggled to climb over metal and concrete wreckage she had easily navigated at the World Trade Center. To officially mark her retirement, they held a search at the training facility where Abby “found” Tosch buried under a rubble pile and got to celebrate with her master and best friend with a big tug.

These days, Abby is far from the frontlines. The 14-year-old still has the mind of a searcher, but her back legs are weak. Tosch sees her heading towards possible paralysis, a condition common for her breed. But she remains at her master’s side, accompanying Tosch to the office and sharing her Ventura home. A plush dog bed has replaced the training crate she slept in when she was on-duty, and now she gets to enjoy long walks and tug-toy games without the pressure of missions.

If Abby’s memory of her rescue mission at the Trade Center is gone, Tosch’s is still strong. She will never forget the sleepless nights, scrubbing Abby of toxic debris after her searches, the profound devastation of the families of victims and the desperate need to keep searching. It was a true test of their partnership.

“When you go to something like the World Trade Center, you need to be able to trust each other,” Tosch says. “I needed to trust that she’s not going to leave anybody behind in the areas we searched and she needed to trust that in the areas I was taking her to, [that] she wasn’t going to get hurt.” That trust proved steady in the days and years after September 2001. “Abby has taught me so much,” says Tosch, in a moment of reflection. “She’s taught me about patience and what it means to really trust someone.”

 

For some, post-9/11 life meant leaving NYC
APBy DEEPTI HAJELA

Karen Cooney poses for a photograph at her home Friday, Aug. 19, 2011, in Upper Southampton, Pa. Cooney moved from Staten Island, N.Y., to her home just outside of Philadelphia. As vivid as the confusion and fear of Sept. 11 remain for Cooney, she knows it would be worse if she still lived in New York City. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Karen Cooney poses for a photograph at her home Friday, Aug. 19, 2011, in Upper Southampton, …
Karen Cooney poses for a photograph at her home Friday, Aug. 19, 2011, in Upper Southampton, Pa. Cooney moved from Staten Island, N.Y., to her home just outside of Philadelphia. As vivid as the confusion and fear of Sept. 11 remain for Cooney, she knows it would be worse if she still lived in New York City. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Karen Cooney poses for a photograph at her home Friday, Aug. 19, 2011, in Upper Southampton, …

NEW YORK (AP) — As vivid as the confusion and fear of Sept. 11 remain for Karen Cooney, she knows it would be worse if she still lived in New York City.

The only way to move forward, she continues to believe, was to move away.

"Every time you would leave the house, there were reminders," said Cooney, who relocated in 2004 to Upper Southampton, Pa., with her husband. "You'd relive that whole day."

While New York has bounced back from Sept. 11 in many ways, with the population growing in the past 10 years even in the area where the World Trade Center collapsed, living there became impossible for some people traumatized by the attack.

There are no good numbers on how many people left the city because of the attacks, but an analysis of census data by the Empire Center for New York State Policy found that 1.6 million New York state residents moved to other states between 2000 and 2010.

Among them were residents who absorbed a huge emotional toll or the resulting economic hit that cost them their jobs.

Cooney lived on Staten Island, home to many firefighters, police officers and others who died that day. Her husband lost a cousin who was in the fire department. Cooney and her daughter even attended funerals for people they didn't know so that the families would see people coming out to support them.

But over time, it just became too much.

"I think if I had not left, I'm not sure I would have handled it as well," she said.

LaShawn Clark vividly remembers the days after attacks: Heightened security in her neighborhood in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. Living amid so much tension that the sound of a car backfiring would make people run.

And, worst of all, the constant grief over the loss of Benjamin Clark, her husband and father of her five children, who died in the collapse of the World Trade Center's south tower.

In early 2003, Clark packed up her children and left for Allentown, Pa. She has never regretted it, or the new life she has built, which included getting remarried and giving birth to a sixth child. It's been better for her children, too.

"I've seen them grow and I've seen them heal," she said. "And I've seen them heal much quicker than they would have in New York."

Making such a change gives people who've lived through traumatic events a modicum of control, and that can be positive, said J. William Worden, a clinical psychologist who has written books on grief and grief counseling.

"Anytime you can assert your sense of agency, that's a good thing," he said. "One of the ways you can make meaning is find something positive or redemptive in a situation."

Charles Petersheim did just that. A construction manager, he saw his job disappear when commercial construction dried up after the attack. With his lease expiring, the Lancaster, Pa., native decided it was time to say goodbye to New York.

"Post-9/11, New York was not the most fabulous place to be," he said. "It was very easy to get out of the city and forget about it for a little bit."

He did that by going north to Eldred, N.Y., in Sullivan County, where he had bought a ramshackle property originally intended as a getaway house. He soon saw an opportunity and started a company fixing up homes, then started building old-fashioned houses with modern conveniences.

In the past 10 years, he estimates, he has built 100 homes, selling many to families leaving New York City for a quieter life. He has built his own life in Sullivan County, as well, and now has a wife and small child.

"For me, it was totally the right choice to make," said Petersheim, 41.

Also relocating to Sullivan County was yoga instructor Cheri Brasseale, who lived near lower Manhattan. As a pregnant Brasseale watched the towers burn, she felt her water break — right on time.

Sept. 11 was her due date.

She made it to her birthing center, where she watching the news on and off as she waited for her child. She gained perspective on the pain of childbirth.

"If people are dying and grieving, then I can birth a child," she said.

Her son Kai was born at 1 a.m. Sept. 12. She left the city for a time a couple of days afterward, heading up to her and her husband's weekend home in Cochecton Center. It's now their permanent home.

Part of the draw of their current home is that it gives her a sense of community, something she said was lost in New York in the years after Sept. 11 because of the country's polarized political climate.

Now, instead of the urban jungle, she spends her days on a 10-acre spread with chickens, sheep and goats, in a place where she knows the people who own the theater and the bakery.

"I'm happy with my choice," she said.

For Clark, the mother of six, part of the tension stemmed from the constant presence of Sept. 11 even afterward — the news accounts, the day-to-day living in a place where everybody had been affected in ways large and small.

"You've made history and you've haven't even tried to make history," said the 45-year-old chef, who this month moved to Charlotte, N.C. "You never expect death will come in a way that it's continuously repeated."

Some of the effect of the attacks followed Cooney and her family after they left Staten Island. She made sure she familiarized herself with her new home by figuring out ways to get back in case of an emergency, something she wasn't able to do in the panic of Sept. 11, when she couldn't contact her family.

But the years since they moved have been good for them.

"It was a good decision," she said. "It was the healing process, and that's how we coped."

 

Mural artists remember 9/11

 

Mural artists remember 9/11 continued

 

That whole day seemed so surreal. I was at work when it happened, & they were reporting it on the radio. I remember just staring at the radio & trying to comprehend what the hell I was hearing, but my mind didn't want to accept it. My heart aches & my eyes well up just thinking about it.

 

Gwyneth Paltrow thanked for 9/11 intervention
By Kwala Mandel

In an unusual twist of fate, one grateful New Yorker credited Gwyneth Paltrow with her survival on Sept.11. In an interview with The Morton Report titled "How Gwyneth Paltrow Saved My Life on 9/11," Lara Lundstrom Clarke explained the domino effect of a chance encounter with the actress.

Clarke says she was hurrying to her office in the twin towers, where she was an account manager at Baseline Financial Services on the 77th floor of tower 2. In order to catch the train on time, she jaywalked across 7th Avenue. "It was one of those mornings that felt good -- you had a little skip in your step. What the heck — I always cut across 7th Avenue. Then all of a sudden a silver Mercedes SUV came barreling down towards me," she told The Morton Report.

After the car screeched to a halt, she and the driver fell into a "who-goes-first" situation, and Clarke looked up and saw it was Paltrow behind the wheel. Clarke says Paltrow waved her across the street but the incident cost her valuable minutes. She reached the subway just in time to watch the doors close.

She was forced to catch the next subway train, which kept her from reaching her office before the attack that killed four of her coworkers. "If I had made that train, I would have been at my desk on the 77th floor of 2 World Trade Center," she told The Morton Report, adding that she wrote a letter to Paltrow to thank her.

Paltrow's publicist confirmed the story and told People that Paltrow was "deeply moved" by it.

 

Wow. That definitely provides an eerie mental image, Pixie. It was similar here, but not quite that intense. No matter where it was though, no one seemed to know how to respond to the shock of it all. I know when I got home & turned on the TV, I still couldn't accept what I was seeing.

 

It sounds like something from a nightmare or horror movie to me.The sense of helplessness & not knowing what the hell was going to happen had to be pushing folks close to the point of losing it. One day life is normal & the next day nothing is as it was & you know life will never be the same again.

I can't even imagine going through what they went through in NYC or the Pentagon.

 

Elite group of 9/11 first responders still battling illness, 'WTC Cough'
By Brad Williams

http://news.yahoo.com/elite-group-of-9-11-first-responders-still-battling-illness.html

Harold Schapelhouman, fire chief at Menlo Park Fire Protection District, is breathing heavily.

The posted speed limit is 15 mph, but when you're fighting respiratory infection by way of mountain biking, rules go out the window. Your lungs need it. You have to push it.

Schapelhouman has been pushing it for years.

As the former captain and task force leader for California Urban Search and Rescue, Schapelhouman has responded to disasters all over the country. He's seen what both man and Mother Nature can do, from the Oklahoma City bombing to Hurricane Katrina.

He knew what he would see when his team headed to New York to assist in the cleanup and recovery efforts after the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001.

"It's like working in a graveyard. But somebody has to do it. Somebody has to go in there and pick up the pieces. … We're an elite team, and we were honored to go," he says.

What he did not anticipate is the long-term impact of his time on "the pile," at the World Trade Center.

Harold Schapelhouman
Schapelhouman and his team members are only some of the thousands of first responders who have shown signs of debilitating illnesses from breathing the dust at the site.

Seventy percent of his team got sick from their time spent at Ground Zero. Some of their symptoms include bloody noses, skin rashes, pneumonia, upper respiratory infections, and what is known as the WTC Cough.

Schapelhouman often wakes up in the middle of the night unable to breathe. "It reminded me of going out on a call for an 80-year-old emphysema patient who'd smoked all his life. This can't be happening to me. I'm too young for this to happen. I'm in the best years of my life. I'm in my 40s; I'm at the top of my game."

Schapelhouman is not only an advocate but also one of thousands of workers and residents from the Ground Zero area enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Registry. The registry was created to monitor the health effects of people involved in the recovery, or those who lived near the towers. It is the largest registry to track the health effects of a disaster in American history.

Late last year, Congress passed the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which provides financial aid to sick workers. Joe Daniels, president of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, says that although it took time to get the bill passed, it was the right thing to do. "The people that worked here on the pile, the construction workers, the volunteers, the trades, the first responders, they did it selflessly. They did it without thinking anything other than 'We need to come here, we have the skills to help out, we want to help out.'"

Schapelhouman says this attitude is echoed by almost all of the personnel that helped with the recovery.


"It's a very conflicting thing. You wish it didn't happen, but if it's going to happen, I know most firefighters or even police officers would say, 'I want to be there.' Because that's what we do. That's our job.'"

Schapelhouman has taken up a strenuous exercise regimen to combat his respiratory illness. It's not a choice. He knows if he doesn't exercise hard, he won't live the life he would have lived had he not gone to Ground Zero.

Once again, he's pushing it. Not just for himself, but for his family.

Schapelhouman wants a normal life. He wants to see his 11-year-old daughter grow up and get married. He wants to live long enough to play with his grandchildren.

He also doesn't want to forget Ground Zero, although part of him has to.

"You can't help but come back from one of these events and feel as if, when the sun's out, the day is a little bit brighter. When you're with the family and your friends, it's sweeter and it gets better...It's realizing how fragile life is."