My Experience Volunteering at Ground Zero, September 11, 2001

The dust stayed on my work boots for months after it happened. A light gray dusting clung to the laces and tongue and burrowed deep into the soles. The small corner of the closet where I threw them after it was over was otherwise unoccupied, as though the other inhabitants of the closet, random sneakers and skates, all fell back in reverence, giving wide berth to my boots. My clothes went through life normally, though, washed and dried, freed of the dust. They were rolled or folded with no ceremony, put into a drawer, only to be pulled out again when a t-shirt or boxers was called for. But it was my boots that I had trouble putting back on. They were there, privy to the sad and intimate moments that tatooed the days that September. They were on my feet, pushing away debris, moving piles of broken rubble and Red Cross crates. They were scuffed and gouged by twisted scraps of metal that were scattered randomly around the street, nicked by bricks and granite that refused to yield to a kick, and stained by tears and dust that were ever present at Ground Zero. I wore them while volunteering down at the World Trade Center in the days after September 11, 2001.

New York was violently changed that morning. Her skyline, once anchored by the grand monarchs of the city, The Twin Towers, shifted off balance, now just another silhouette of skyward reaching buildings at dusk. The Empire State Building, once the jewel of a bygone era, was now struggling to regain her prominence after years of laboring in the shadow of the Towers. Her people were momentarily ice water shocked out of the daily grind that the city yokes them with. But when the call came for volunteers, her brood responded mightily, with grit and determination. For those weeks and months after, there were no colors, no religions, and no dividing lines. Yankee and Met fans rallied shoulder to shoulder, Brooklyn-ites and Staten Islanders dug together while trading encouraging shouts instead of inter-borough catcalls. There were only New Yorkers that day, no matter where they came from.

The outpouring of volunteers, as well as food and water donations for the rescuers, was tremendous. Lines of people stretched around the Jacob Javits Center on the West Side of the city by 3 AM every day. Hopeful volunteers, feverntly wanting to do something to help their stricken city, were directed to various areas. The search for survivors was done by the New York City Fire and Police Departments and assisted by the construction and steel workers unions, all well equipped to deal with the grim task that lay ahead. The Red Cross started an ad hoc training of food delivery teams, equipped with vans to drop off donated food and water at sites around the city. Mental health professionals were sent to chapels and sites where some of the rescuers and the grief stricken gathered, both needing a moment away from the devastation to collect their thoughts and talk to someone who might help ease some of the pain they were bathing in daily. Restaurants sent trays of food to the rescuers, along with pallets of water and Gatorade. Cases of gloves and face masks, donated from local hardware stores, were carted all over the city to be worn by those in and around Ground Zero. The depth and sheer volume of the charity was humbling.

I joined the Red Cross after being told that the construction unions weren't allowing non union workers to work on the pile at Ground Zero. I sat through a small class with other volunteers that covered the basics of disaster relief and was assigned to a team of five people. Our job was to stock, deliver and off load food, water and supplies to the fire and police men working around Ground Zero. Occasionally, we were called upon by a fire crew or policemen to help them move debris and open up the streets for emergency vehicles. Every day we rode back down to Ground Zero, and every day we saw the same grim faces and mind numbing sights. Firemen, working well through the night and into the day, stoically searching the pile for their lost brothers and any survivors. Buckets of debris handed gently along a river of waiting of hands eager to make a small dent into the acrid, smoking pile that was Ground Zero. Shouts and calls for more help echoed around the site. All the while, a constant,choking metallic smell burrowed into your nose, and flooding quickly behind it the ever present chalky gray ash that parched your throat and felt like sand paper in your eyes. Coughing fits punctuated the din of the digging but the pace never slowed. In the background was the constant rumble of trucks carting away debris. And every once in a while, we would witness a heartbreaking scene. Around the pile, firemen would assemble in 2 rows, helmets removed and a somber tone of reverence taken as an American flag was placed atop a litter bearing one of their own. Salutes were given stiffly as the litter was slowly marched off the pile, heads bowed in a bottomless grief as it passed by. An ambulance silently carried another fallen hero away. It seemed like the entire city stopped for those moments, eyes downcast and solemn, bearing witness to yet another tragic loss. Those moments happened frequently in the first few weeks, slowing as the time went on. But the pain never abated.

The work continued on for weeks after September 11. The determination of those on the pile never faultered. Both the daily and national news, with its self proclaimed authority on all things disaster, began calling the effort a recovery effort and no longer a rescue operation, the hope fading for finding any survivors. The arbitrary change in wording never slowed the determination of the rescuers. The digging went on, buckets still streamed away from the pile, tears still fell and the city began to sure up her wounds slowly. Our efforts for the Red Cross eventually were taken over by full time Red Cross crews. We started to transition back to being on the side lines, joining the throngs of people lining up on street corners down in Lower New York cheering wildly for the Fire and Police crews coming and going from Ground Zero. I felt a little differently seeing those men and women, faces etched with exhaustion and grime, heading back down to the pile. I had seen their anguish first hand, and with it, their resolution and fierce solidarity. I cheered a little bit harder each time, wishing I could be with them, even trade places with them, anything to mitigate some of guilt I still felt about not being able to do more.

My time working at and around Ground Zero has stayed with me long after I biked home over the Williamsburg Bridge for the last time that September, dusty and sweaty. The people I met and worked with kept in contact for a few years after. We got together for a few beers and made promises to always remember our time there on that hallowed ground. But we are all starting to move on. The memories seem to linger on, though. I can still see the overwhelming sight of tears streaming down distraught firemen's faces as they watched a silent ambulance take their brother away with the twisted iron skeleton of the Towers reaching skyward in the background. Other grim sights come up in dreams on occasion, but they are fading slowly. I can still smell that faint, burning metallic odor lingering about. And everywhere the dust, leaving a gritty feeling in your mouth and a parched throat. I kept the gloves they gave us to move debris with in a shoe box. They were light brown leather, scuffed around the fingers and palm with a small dusting of gray coating them. I feel as though I may have touched something sacred down there, something deeper than the rocks and ash. To use them again would be wrong

It will be 6 years this September 11. I have come a long way away since 9-11, from holding onto it as a day of mourning and guilt that I couldn't have done more, to seeing it as a day that helped me appreciate the things that make New Yorkers, and Americans, the finest people in the world. It is a day to look at my wife and see the shining path stretched out ahead of us and to remember that which is behind us. It is a day that made me incredibly proud to be both a New Yorker and an American. I go to work everyday and am always reminded of the day. I have it sewn on the luggage strap of my suitcase. I wear my Red Cross 9-11 pin on my uniform proudly. The day will, as it always does, take on a somber tone when it comes, each year a little less painful, the memories a little more faded and yellowed around the edges. These too, may one day wash away, time having healed most wounds. But it is an old pair of dusty boots that will never let me forget my time at Ground Zero, September 11, 2001.