Serving on 'sacred ground'

by Lounsbury, Guy

GROUND ZERO

The first thing that hits you in lower Manhattan since Sept. 11 is the smell. It was evident as soon as we exited the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. It was haunting, but it wasn't exactly what I anticipated.

We arrived here two weeks after the terrorist attack. With so many of the dead still in the wreckage, it only seemed natural that decay would be the most pervasive odor. Instead, we encountered the stench of burning garbage.

It was probably due to all the cable insulation still smoldering in the wreckage. I know we all described the smell the same way. And it is also how I will always remember it. But it was only one of many things I will never forget about "Ground Zero."

I had the honor of serving along with many other members of the New York Air National Guard's 109th Air Wing at the site of the collapsed World Trade Center twin towers. We were there from Sept. 22 to Oct. 6. I kept a journal of what we did, what we saw and what we felt. This description is based on that journal.

The 109th handled a variety of missions in support of the recovery efforts at Ground Zero. My particular part was to help secure the site perimeter. This provided me the opportunity to see for myself the devastation the terrorists left behind. I also had the privilege of witnessing Americans at their very best.

My first assignment was the main entry control point leading into the work site. It was two blocks northwest of the collapsed twin towers. Our orientation included a tour of the entire area. It was my first of six or seven trips through Ground Zero.

I thought I was prepared for what I was about to see. The site had been shown countless times on television, and in newspapers and magazines. I was wrong. Nothing can prepare you for the sheer magnitude of the devastation. My mind still recoils at the images.

Workers by the thousands milled about the site. Most were firemen, policemen and construction workers, but there was also a fair amount of military personnel. All of them had the same tired, vacant look. There is so much death at Ground Zero. Everywhere you look you feel it staring back. It is an incredible testament to human determination that these people were able to continue on as they did.

The actual area of destruction is far greater than I imagined. Not being familiar with the area, I had envisioned only two collapsed buildings. That's the way it looks on television. In reality, however, all of the surrounding buildings were also damaged, most of them severely. And it takes an hour to walk around the work site.

Dust covers Ground Zero like snow. It shades everything gray, even the workers. The dust seems like it should be gritty, but it is actually quite fluffy. I pinched off some from a smashed car and was surprised how light it actually was. Our best guess was that it was mostly gypsum from all the pulverized drywall.

I am sure there are other things in the dust. The workers all cough, sneeze and have burning eyes. We all thought we were coming down with colds, but the feeling would subsides a day away from Ground Zero.

Not far from the former twin towers is a full parking lot, None of the cars had been moved since Sept. 11. Some are smashed and twisted hulks while others only had their windows blown out. Just a matter of where the debris landed.

At the work site, mountains of rubble 5 or 6 stories high are all that remained of the towers. Construction crews worked around the clock, filling an endless stream of dump trucks. They never stopped, but the mounds of debris never appeared to be getting smaller.

Smoke constantly poured from the peaks. One fireman told us that there was still molten steel at the heart of the towers' remains. Firemen sprayed water to cool the debris down but the heat remained intense enough at the surface to melt their boots. Massive steel girders were sandwiched in with crushed concrete. Someone told us that they weighed 1,000 pounds a foot. The collapse left them all blackened and twisted. They are among the few recognizable items in the rubble. You find scant evidence of the hundreds of offices that were once part of the twin towers. Most the furniture and equipment was pounded into dust.

Small portions of the outer shells of the buildings remain standing. I don't know what was holding them up. They look ready to fall at any second, yet the workers were having a difficult time trying to bring them down. It was as if the towers had one little spark of life left that refused to die.

All of the surrounding structures are also damaged. Whole corners of skyscrapers are missing. One building had a gash running down its face. It was literally stabbed by a 60-ton piece of one of the towers. The projectile continued to dangle from the other building. No one was sure what was holding it in place.

Enormous sheets of nylon cover the damaged buildings. One, World Trade Center Four I believe, looked like a giant hand had reached out and smeared part of it away. It was all burned out. Structurally, however, it didn't appear quite as bad as some of those further away from the towers.

Toward the end of my duty, I had the opportunity to view the site from the roof of an adjacent skyscraper. From this perspective I could see that the only thing left of World Trade Center Four was its outer walls. The rest was completely gone.

Such sights make you also wonder about all the people in the surrounding buildings Sept. 11. Did they evacuate, too? At Ground Zero, you hear the words "body parts" all the time. It seems that the workers find them everywhere. They must be inured to this or else they wouldn't be able to continue the work. It was a gruesome task.

We happened by the morgue during our orientation just as the body of a firefighter was brought out. Everyone in the area immediately gathered. A police officer called us to attention as the dead fireman was placed into an ambulance.

As the ambulance left under motorcycle escort, the order was given to present arms. It was the most meaningful salute of my 19-year military career. Signs everywhere at Ground Zero read, "You rushed in when others were rushing out." On Sept. 11, the New York fire and police departments were the bravest of the brave.

You see the worst imaginable things at Ground Zero, but you also see the best.

All the workers were extremely polite. No one passed by without offering a greeting. There was a feeling of being on sacred ground. Many heroes gave their lives here Sept. 11 and we were all respectful of that.

And never have I experienced such camaraderie. I cannot even begin to describe the feeling I had when an exhausted, filthy fireman would pass me on the street and sincerely inquire how I was doing. How trivial my condition was when compared with his.

There always seemed to be something to lift your spirits. Among the best were letters from school children. They were posted everywhere. I saw grimy, solemn workers stop and read these simple messages. They then would walk away with a smile. It's a memory I will never forget.

Relief workers and comfort stations were everywhere. There were places to rest, places to eat, counselors, doctors, clergy and massage therapists available. People from all over the country rushed in to do whatever they could to help. Some walked the streets all night, offering coffee and snacks to the perimeter guards. They are angels on earth; they are Americans at their absolute best.

My time on the perimeter was mostly at night, when the streets were fairly quiet. We covered stretches of Broadway and Nassau Street. The entire area was bathed in floodlights, illuminating the smoke to create a ghostly, surreal environment.

Perhaps this set an appropriate mood. From this vantage point, you could see, only two blocks away, an unfathomable world of complete devastation. I watched people stare at it motionless for a half-hour or more. They seemed transfixed. Who could blame them? It is cruelly fascinating to see the results of man's inhumanity toward man.

Even late at night we had people stop by and talk. I heard so many stories of loved ones lost. I shook so many hands and heard so many people say, "Thank you for being here." I listened to people sobbing over their loss and then immediately ask what they could do for me.