The Scoop on Oliver Stone's 9/11 Film

By David Helwig Soo

Oliver Stone on his 9/11 filmNEW YORK, July 30 - "The consequences of 9/11 are enormous to this world, not just to America," says World Trade Center director Oliver Stone in the current issue of Newsweek. "This movie is made for the world, and if it's what I hope it to be, it transcends 9/11. It's about anybody, anywhere, who feels the taste of death, whether it was a bombing in Madrid or an earthquake or a tsunami. It's the same theme of being trapped. And you are dependent on others for rescue ... It is all these things you're aware of at the last moment. I appreciated the chance to illustrate it," says Stone. As part of Newsweek's August 7 cover story, "Oliver Stone's 9/11" (on newsstands Monday, July 31), senior editor and film critic David Ansen speaks to Stone in an exclusive interview about his thoughts on his controversial film, and also looks at other 9/11-inspired art.Piercingly moving and utterly unpolitical, World Trade Center holds us in a fierce grip, writes Ansen. At the simplest level, it's a rescue movie. Port Authority cops Will Jimeno and Sgt. John McLoughlin were on a rescue mission themselves when the building collapsed around them. World Trade Center celebrates the ties that bind us, the bonds that keep us going, the goodness that stands as a rebuke to the horror of that day, writes Ansen."A lot of the conversation about 9/11 in the five years since it's happened has been motivated by a political agenda. From all sides," World Trade Center actress Maggie Gyllenhaal tells Newsweek. "What that's done is make everyone really wary of talking about it and thinking about it. Which is why I think World Trade Center is so special. Somehow, in the midst of all this, Oliver has made a movie that doesn't seem to have an agenda, either political or personal. It really is about honoring people."Also as part of the cover package, Senior Editor Jeff Giles speaks with officers Jimeno and McLoughlin who, although they inspired the film, would rather shine the spotlight on everyone else. Giles asks officer Jimeno about one of his fellow policemen, Dom Pezzullo, who died right next to him. His widow has said she's upset that her husband's death is being portrayed and that the officers are consultants on the movie. Officer Jimeno responds, "Would you rather have a story be told incorrectly or correctly? I don't think there's any easy getting around this issue. John and I respect the [Pezzullo] family. But as police officers, our first lineis to remember our fallen comrades. When Dom was dying, he said, 'Willie, don't forget I died trying to save you guys.' And I said, 'Dom, I would never let that happen.' This film is a way to honor him. We're not the heroes of the film. I want America to know this: Dominick's for real, he was a real person. He was a schoolteacher who became a cop, and his heart was big, and he ran into those buildings. If you don't show what actually happened that day, what's the use of making this film? In America, we need to be honest with ourselves. People died that day. And many people in uniform and in civilian clothes died doing the right thing. We're just one small slice of thousands of stories."After seeing the movie, Officer Jimeno tells Newsweek, "When I walked out, I gave Oliver a big hug and a kiss, and I said, 'You kept to your word. You told the story as accurate and as true as you could.' The main thing is that when you leave the theater, you leave with a sense of hope and love. I went to see United 93 the night it came out. When I walked out, I walked out empty."When the Twin Towers came down, they brought with them more than a million tons of concrete, steel - and 2,769 human beings. Oliver Stone's new movie ends with a chilling reminder: just 20 made it out. As part of the cover package, Newsweek includes a photo of 14 of the survivors.Elsewhere in the cover package, assistant managing editor Evan Thomas and reporter Andrew Romano report that nations need a good storyline to learn how to cope with their national tragedies. All nations need myths to understand crises that shock, the wars and riots, assassinations and natural disasters that wrench history, writes Newsweek. The story of workaday men and women rising to greatness is one of America's most cherished myths. As a term, myth is much misunderstood; hearing it, manypeople take the word to mean "lie," when in fact a myth is a story, a narrative, that explains individual and national realities - how a person or a country came to be, why certain things happen in the course of a life or of history, and what fate may have in store for us. Myths are a peculiar hybrid of truth and falsehood, resentments and ambitions, dreams and dread.Another, less admirable myth that Americans concoct to explain crises and disasters is rooted in the paranoid streak that runs through pop culture, the conspiracy theories that blame some sinister (and usually make-believe) Other for whatever went wrong. One might expect Hollywood's Oliver Stone to drum up a conspiracy theory to explain 9/11. He is, after all, known as the director of a movie, JFK, that essentially accused Lyndon Johnson, the CIA, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff of killing President Kennedy. That Stone did not go to the dark side to explain the attacks of September 11 tells us something about the American sensibility towards that day. True, Stone was under pressure from the studio not to make the story political or conspiratorial. It is also true, though, that public-opinion surveys show that many Americans (42 percent in a recent Zogby poll)believe the government must be covering up something about 9/11, and many blame Bush for using the attacks to justify invading Iraq.Nonetheless, 9/11 has become a kind of sacred day in American life.Stone's movie will stand as a civic elegy, a statement that the events of 9/11, and the memories of the nearly 3,000 people who died that day, should not be degraded or sullied by politics or the fevered imaginings of people who see tragedy and assume scheming and betrayal.

A True Hero: In Vietnam in 1965, in New York in 2001

By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
FORT BENNING, Ga.

The word "hero" has been so debased and over-used in our modern society that it is almost meaningless when applied to the real thing.

This past week, here at the U.S. Army home of the infantry, several hundred people gathered for the dedication of a larger-than-life bronze statue of a real American hero named Rick Rescorla.

The statue is iconic: the young infantry 2nd lieutenant platoon leader leading the way in combat, his M-16 rifle with bayonet attached ready for use. It is based largely on the photograph on the cover of the book "We Were Soldiers Once... and Young," written by Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and me, which tells the story of the deadly battles in the Ia Drang Valley in the dawn of the Vietnam War.

Rescorla was a hero of the battles of Landing Zone X-Ray and Landing Zone Albany. He earned a Silver Star, the third-highest military medal for heroism, for his sterling leadership of a platoon of Bravo Company 2nd Battalion 7th U.S. Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) in those battles in November of 1965.

But that statue in the home and headquarters and training ground for the mud-foot infantry was the result of unvarnished heroism long after the British-born Rescorla left the Army, became an American citizen and retired from the Army Reserve with the rank of colonel.
The statue of the young Rescorla was born out of what he did as an older, heavier, civilian vice president for security for Morgan Stanley in New York City. The brokerage firm occu- pied 22 floors of the south tower in the World Trade Center.

Ever since the failed terrorist truck bombing in 1993 in the basement of that building, Rescorla was convinced that the terrorists would come back to finish the job. He urged Morgan Stanley to build its own low-rise high-security headquarters across the river in New Jersey where most of its employees lived. Not possible, he was told, because the firm had a long-term lease on those 22 floors.

Rescorla fought for the time and money needed for half a dozen surprise full evacuation drills each year. And, yes, he knew how much it cost to pull a couple thousand stockbrokers off their telephones. He knew and didn't care.

On September 11, 2001, Rescorla stood at the window of his office on the 66th floor and watched the tower across the way burn. The Port Authority Police squawk box on the wall urged everyone in the other buildings of the Trade Center to remain at their desks and not panic. You are safe, the reassuring voice said.

Rescorla responded with a curt word: "Bull--!" He grabbed his bullhorn and moved floor by floor ordering Morgan Stanley's 2,700 workers to evacuate immediately. They knew where to go and how to do that, thanks to Rick. Two by two, the old buddy system, they began the long walk down the stairs to the street.

Halfway down the second hijacked airliner plowed into their building. The building shook and swayed. Smoke began filling the stairwells. People were frightened. Rick Rescorla used his bullhorn again. This time he sang to the evacuees, just as he sang to his soldiers on a long night in Vietnam. He sang "God Bless America." He sang the songs of the British Army in the Zulu Wars. He sang the old Welsh miner songs.

He got them all out and headed for safety down the streets away from the World Trade Center. Four of his own security people were still up clearing the Morgan Stanley floors so Rick Rescorla turned and headed back up the stairs with New York City firemen. None of them made it out alive and neither did Rick Rescorla.

His widow, Susan, spearheaded the drive to raise $100,000 to create that bronze image of her hero and ours. Eventually it will occupy a spot on the Walk of Heroes in a new $76 million Infantry Museum being built at the gates of Fort Benning. More than 500 people turned out to see it unveiled outside the Infantry Museum on the old Army post.

Among them were plenty of other real American heroes. There were three recipients of the Medal of Honor for heroism above and beyond the call of duty. Scores of veterans of America's wars of the past half-century and more. Also, Gen. Moore and his sidekick Sgt. Maj. Basil L. Plumley.

As I sat there looking at the statue of Rick my mind carried me back 40 years to that terrible November in Vietnam and the words of the young Rescorla as he and his battle-weary soldiers strode into the surrounded position at LZ Albany to rescue their decimated battalion: "Good, Good, Good! I hope they hit us with everything they got tonight - we'll wipe them up."
You want a definition of the word hero? In my dictionary it says simply: Rick Rescorla.

Joseph L. Galloway is the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and co-author of the national best-seller "We Were Soldiers Once... and Young." Readers may write to him at: Knight Ridder Washington Bureau, 700 National Press Building, Washington, DC 20045.

Survivors' Work on 9/11 Film Leave Widows Feeling Betrayed

SURVIVORS' WORK ON 9/11 FILM LEAVES WIDOWS FEELING BETRAYED
Sunday, April 09, 2006
BY RON MARSICO
Star-Ledger Staff

Widows of two Port Authority Police officers killed on 9/11 say a pair of surviving officers who served with their husbands that day are cashing in on the tragedy by working as paid consultants on Oliver Stone's upcoming movie, "World Trade Center."

Jeanette Pezzulo and Jamie Amoroso said they are upset retired officer Will Jimeno and Sgt. John McLoughlin will earn more than $200,000 each to help the director re-create the heroic efforts of five officers who formed an impromptu rescue team. The widows said they are especially angry with Jimeno and contend he befriended them after 9/11, picked their brains for tidbits about their husbands' lives and failed to tell them until last summer he was working on the movie project for two years.

Pezzulo said Jimeno's decision to make the movie is particularly hurtful because her husband, Port Authority officer Dominick Pezzulo, died while trying to free Jimeno and McLoughlin, both of whom were pinned under wreckage. Officer Christopher Amoroso also died while trying to rescue people at the scene.

"My thing is: This man died for you. How do you do this to this family?" said Pezzulo, who has a son, 12, and a daughter, 8, and lives in the Bronx.

The widow of the fifth officer, Antonio Rodrigues, generally has shunned discussing the issue, said a publicist for Paramount Pictures, scheduled to release the film Aug. 9.

Jimeno, a Chester resident, said "the film only holds the truth and has nothing to do with their personal lives. I've never crossed the line. ... Not one thing have I ever asked them about their husbands' personal life.

"It's our story too," Jimeno added. "We're also victims of this."
McLoughlin, a Goshen, N.Y., resident, declined to be interviewed for this story. But in a previous statement released by Paramount, he said, "I feel someone had to tell the story of the people who were in the Trade Center before and after it collapsed."

The wives -- who also are upset with Paramount -- said they do not want their children to see or hear about their fathers' final moments and they do not want details of their husbands' lives aired before an audience of millions. Paramount plans to show Pezzulo's death scene, though not Amoroso's.

"I did not need a movie to tell me what a hero my husband was," said Jamie Amoroso, who has a daughter, 6, and lives in Staten Island, N.Y.

Amoroso and Pezzulo were among the 37 Port Authority officers who died as a result of the terrorist attacks.

Jimeno and Paramount defend the movie, calling it a truthful story of bravery. Though both wives asked that their husbands be excluded from the movie or their names changed, Paramount and Jimeno say either action would dishonor their memory.

"People are going to go to the film and say, 'Wow, that Dominick Pezzulo was a hero,'" Jimeno said. He also agrees with Paramount's decision to show the officer's death scene.

"The honest truth is, 9/11 is raw. ... If you want to candy coat things, that's not a good thing. I will not allow people to forget how Dominick passed."

A Paramount publicist first denied Jimeno and McLoughlin were paid when contacted March 27, but two days later the publicist and a studio producer acknowledged each received "less than" $250,000, calling it a payment of "life rights" to use information about their families.
Jimeno, 38, in a telephone interview with the publicist on the line on March 31, declined to discuss the payment, saying only, "This was not done for money or fame."

HOLLYWOOD AND 9/11

Stone's movie will star Nicolas Cage as McLoughlin and Maria Bello as his wife, while actor Michael Pena will co-star as Jimeno and Maggie Gyllenhaal as his wife. Actor Jay Hernandez will play Pezzulo and John Bernthal will portray Amoroso. Rodrigues will be played by Armando Riesco.

The film is one of several with 9/11 themes expected in the coming months as Hollywood begins exploring the tragedy after treating it as largely off limits for nearly five years.

Already, controversy has tracked an upcoming release. Recently, previews for this month's release of "United 93" -- a film that depicts passengers' attempts to retake a hijacked plane on 9/11 -- upset moviegoers in New York City theaters.

The director of "United 93," however, gained the approval of all flight victims' families before proceeding, according to a Universal representative.

"World Trade Center" follows the fates of the five Port Authority Police officers who teamed up after the first plane hit the Twin Towers.

Officer Christopher Amoroso, 29, was stationed there that morning; a news photographer would capture the stocky officer, a nasty welt under his left eye, shepherding a woman to safety before he headed back to the towers.

Sgt. John McLoughlin, then 48, based with the three others at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown, quickly commandeered a vehicle and rode with officer Dominick Pezzulo, 36, officer Will Jimeno, then 33, and officer Antonio Rodrigues, 35, to the site before the second jet struck.
The four quickly gathered equipment and met up with Amoroso by chance, forming their rescue unit. All five were traversing the concourse one-story beneath and between the Twin Towers when the first skyscraper fell.

Pezzulo, Jimeno and McLoughlin were pinned in a tangle of steel and concrete. The trio called off their own names, roll-call style, but heard only silence in the whiteout of debris and dust, according to Jimeno's accounts. They also shouted frantically for Amoroso and Rodrigues, but the officers were already dead.

In the moments after the first tower collapsed, Pezzulo managed to pull himself free and then began clawing at the rubble to get Jimeno and McLoughlin out. As he dug, the second tower came down and Pezzulo was struck by a hurtling piece of concrete. He was conscious briefly before he died.

"Willie, don't forget I died trying to save you guys," said Jimeno, recalling Pezzulo's last words.
" 'Dominick,' I said, 'I'll never let anybody forget,"' Jimeno said.
Rescuers eventually freed Jimeno late that night before getting McLoughlin out the next morning. They were the last two people found alive at Ground Zero.

Both men were hospitalized with grievous injuries that ultimately forced them to retire on disability. Port Authority Police brass made McLoughlin a lieutenant; Jimeno was elevated to detective.

LINGERING PAIN
After numerous operations and a stay at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange, Jimeno still needs a leg brace and has trouble walking. McLoughlin remained in the hospital until January 2002, with severe leg injuries, as well as kidney and lung problems.

Two months after the attacks, Jimeno said he was finally well enough to reach out to Pezzulo and Amoroso's wives, explaining he wanted them to know how courageous their husbands had been after the attack.

Both wives said they embraced Jimeno, who got to know their children.
"Now, I feel like he gathered this information of how my husband was just to make a movie," Amoroso said.

"All he said was, 'I'm doing it for the kids,'" Amoroso said. She said she responded, "'You're not doing it for the kids. You're doing it for yourself.'"

Jimeno said he remains "here for their children" if needed.

"I can tell them one thing, their dads are bigger superheroes than anyone can create," Jimeno said.

It was not until the summer of 2003, Jimeno said, that he was approached by movie executives about the possibility of making the film. He said he told the widows about the project last summer, after it finally had been approved by Paramount for filming.
Pezzulo immediately balked, but said Jimeno was curt in his response, saying: "Well, you don't own the rights and it's a done deal. ... So it's going to happen no matter what."

Jimeno disputed Pezzulo's account, saying she told him she did not like the movie but would not go public if the account was truthful.

"I'll take my blows," said Jimeno of his decision to help make the film. "But it's the truth."
Paramount invited the two women to meet with studio officials about the film last summer; Amoroso went, Pezzulo declined.

Amoroso said she conveyed both women's desire that their husbands not be included in the film. She also said she asked for a script, but never got one.

Stacey Sher, one of the film's producers, said studio officials did not learn until months later of the women's opposition to having their husbands portrayed in the movie. At the wives' request, Sher said, Paramount agreed not to refer to the women or their children in the film. Additionally, Sher said the studio always has been willing to let the wives see a copy of the script in either New York or Los Angeles.

Paramount also said Jimeno and McLoughlin did not determine what ultimately will be shown on the screen.

"Hollywood sought out Will and John," Sher said. "Will and John didn't seek out Hollywood."

Ron Marsico covers the Port Authority. He may be reached at rmarsico@starledger.com or (973) 392-7860.

Firefighters' Watch Found in WTC Rubble Returned

NEW YORK_Jay Winuk lost his brother Glenn in the Sept. 11 terror attacks. More than four years later, he got back an important keepsake: the victim's wristwatch.

Winuk retrieved the gold Ebel watch Friday at a property room in lower Manhattan, where the New York Police Department is nearing the end of its effort to return personal items recovered from the World Trade Center site to the victims' families.

The reunion of property with people still in mourning can be emotional.
"It's really important," Winuk said. "To be able to connect with something my brother was wearing that day is hard to describe. ... It closes the loop in some way."

Police say they recovered roughly 135,000 personal items from ground zero and Fresh Kills landfill, where investigators sifted through tons of debris from the terrorist attack. So far, 113,400 belongings have been returned to victim's families.

Of the 1,779 pieces of jewelry found - including wedding bands, watches and necklaces - only 430 remain unclaimed. Working with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the department expects to return nearly 400 to victim's families.

Last year, the department introduced a new link on the NYPD Web site that encouraged families to fill out an electronic claim developed with the help of Tiffany & Co. It asked for detailed descriptions of the missing jewelry, so it could be cross-checked with items held by the department's property clerk division.

Attempts by an NYPD contractor to develop software that would speed the electronic claims process failed, and the department has withheld a $17,000 payment to the vendor. So the work has continued manually.
Winuk's 40-year-old brother was wearing the watch while working at his office near the Trade Center when terrorists struck on Sept. 11, 2001. A volunteer firefighter in his hometown of Jericho, N.Y., he was helping people evacuate one of the towers when it collapsed.

The brother's remains were recovered - minus the watch - in March 2002. In late 2004, the medical examiner's office contacted Winuk saying they had come across a watch that matched a description he had provided shortly after the attack.

That wasn't the end of it.

The police department told Winuk he would have to produce a receipt or other documentation with the watch's serial number to claim it. Last week, while sifting through his brother's records, he found what he needed - a photocopy of the watch's warranty.

The family, Winuk said, has no idea what his brother paid for the watch. And it doesn't care.
"It wouldn't matter if it was a Mickey Mouse watch," he said. "To us, it's priceless."

<>

Parents of 9-11 Hero Attend High School Graduation

Parents of 9-11 hero attend high school graduation at school named for son

Last Update: 6/22/2005 2:44:46 PM
FEDERAL WAY, Wash. (AP) - The Jacksonville Beach parents of a Nine Eleven hero have attended the first commencement ceremony for a two-year-old high school in Washington named after their son. Todd Beamer was one of the passengers on Flight 93 who kept it from being used in an attack on Washington, D-C. The plane crashed in Pennsylvania, killing all on board. His last words in a phone call to his wife before passengers attacked the hijackers were "Let's roll." David and Peggy Beamer were featured at last night's ceremony.

Heroes of Sept. 11 Finally Get a Voice

Aug. 13, 2005, 1:50AM
RELIVING THE HORROR
Heroes of Sept. 11 finally get a voice
Under a court order, the New York Fire Department releases crews' recollections

By ROBERT LEE HOTZLos Angeles Times
RESOURCES
Audio:• Emergency services in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. (Large mp3 files)
Reports:• Sept. 11 panel final report • Sept. 11 panel June 17 report (Acrobat Reader required)• Report on Iraq from June 2004 hearings (Acrobat Reader required)• Transcripts from April 2004 hearings • August 2001 report to White House on Osama bin Laden
Other:• 9/11 commission Web siteNEW YORK - Each of these city firefighters was a prisoner of memory.

The weeping paramedic who feared that his wife was among those still inside the inferno; the deputy commissioner who fixated on falling aircraft parts because he could not bear to watch the falling bodies; the fire chief who could not stop a new recruit from staggering back into the collapsing ruins; the firefighter who hid under the car and buried his face in his helmet when the first tower fell.

In the confessional of a closed administrative hearing, 503 New York firefighters and paramedics tried one by one to make sense of the call they answered to the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001. For more than three years, their testimony had been secret.
But under a court order on Friday, the New York City Fire Department unwillingly bared its soul.

The department released a massive archive of radio calls and oral histories compiled by the firefighters who rushed into the chaos of the Twin Towers, where 343 of them ultimately died.
Through 12,000 pages of oral history transcripts and recordings of emergency radio traffic that filled 23 compact discs, a day that became a patriotic talisman of national resolve dissolved back into the irreconcilable fragments of carnage, horror and heroism on a September morning when two hours seemed an eternity.

The New York Court of Appeals ordered the edited material made public in response to a lawsuit by The New York Times. The tapes and transcripts were withheld on the direction of the U.S. Attorney's office, which had been prosecuting Zacarias Moussaoui, said Virginia Lam, spokeswoman for the New York Fire Department. Moussaoui pleaded guilty in April to charges in connection with the 9/11 plot.
The department began collecting oral histories in October 2001, when memories were sharp and recriminations raw.

As the firefighters, paramedics and administrators responded to laconic questions from a panel of three department officials, there appeared to be little effort to conduct a postmortem on operational matters.

Instead, each delivered an intimate, often emotional, account of the day's events, as if the department intended only to give its personnel an opportunity to purge themselves of whatever memories might be haunting them.

Often resorting to the cryptic language of emergency management — in which a "1040" is an airplane hitting a building and an "evulsion" is a slashed scalp — the firefighters unburdened themselves.

It was the office workers leaping from the towers to escape the flames that firefighter Maureen McArdle-Schulman could not block from her mind.

"Somebody yelled something was falling. We didn't know if it was desks coming out. It turned out it was people coming out, and they started coming out one after the other."

Emergency medical technician Mary Merced was transfixed. The images remained vivid. "I see debris drop. And I look, and it was people. I could tell you almost every color clothing all the people that I saw fall had on, how they fell, if they tumbled, if they swan-dived."

Merced gripped the hand of a co-worker to keep him from running into the burning tower. "Everything is in like slow motion, like time stood still." Then the south tower collapsed, the first to fall. "It was like in dark hell, like a nuclear blizzard."

Firefighter James Curran remembered that he made it to the 31st floor of the north tower and forced the door open. "You smelled jet fuel right away, so we shut the door." He retreated to the 30th floor with about 60 other firefighters. There, lighted only by the emergency strobes and flashlights, they huddled to catch their breath.

Trying to evacuate a women with a broken leg, FDNY Lt. Spiro Yioras sought shelter underneath a pedestrian overpass. Even so, he was pummeled by debris. "A couple of things hit me ... bricks or wood. But it hurt. It hurt," he recalled.

"We couldn't see anything. We couldn't breathe. I mean, I thought I was going to buy it. I really thought I was going to die in there."

When fire Chief Mark Steffens pulled his car onto West Street adjacent to the site, the destruction stunned him.

"It was just like nothing I have ever seen in my life. All the apparatus, the fire trucks, everything all blown out. The windows were all blown out, body parts lying on the street, mud, soot, people walking around dazed."

Steffens could not shake the memory of a lone probationary fireman he encountered on the street.

"I saw one proby — he had 'proby' on the helmet — by himself, walking by himself. I tried to get him to come with us. He said: 'No, no, I've got to go back.' We washed his eyes. I gave him something to clean his face. Then he turned and went back into the cloud. I never saw him again."
"Do you recall his name?" a member of the administrative panel asked.
"No, young, young guy. I didn't want him to go back, and he wouldn't listen to me," Steffens said. "He just walked back into that big black cloud."

Sept. 11 Archives Show Heroism Amid Chaos

By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press WriterSun Aug 14, 4:20 AM ET

Radio communication broke down. Commanders lost contact with their squads. Noise and dust obscured the senses. One paramedic likened it to being in an infantry unit overrun by enemy troops. Yet, in the confusion at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, firefighters and emergency medical technicians improvised, and kept working.

Without direction from superiors and no plan to guide their actions, they followed their instincts and extinguished blazes, triaged casualties and comforted the injured, at a time when they could have surrendered to panic.

More details of their rescue efforts that day have emerged in an archive of interviews and audiotapes released by the city this week as a result of a court order.

Among the hundreds of pages of transcripts are scores of instances where trained rescuers realized they were on their own.

Frank Pastor, an EMT who lost his helmet and his equipment running for his life as one of the towers collapsed, recalled finding himself in the lobby of a building surrounded by hundreds of survivors crying, "Help me! We can't breathe," in the cloud of dust.

"I'm looking around to see what I can do," he said. "I remember opening up this door. There was a slop sink. There was clothes hanging. I took the clothes and I started soaking the clothes, wetting them, started cutting out strips, giving it to kids, giving it to the mothers."

Firefighter Tiernach Cassidy dusted himself off after the second tower collapsed and found a command post.

"At first we started asking, 'What are we doing? What are we doing?'" he said. "Nobody really had a specific answer."
He salvaged rope and some tools from parked emergency vehicles and began looking for ways into the mountain of rubble.

After hours of searching, he and a companion lowered themselves into a deep pit, where they found a pocket of trapped civilians, firefighters and a Port Authority police officer who had survived.

Cassidy described who he used his body as a bridge to help the dazed officer climb up to a girder and reach clear skies.

"He gets up on my leg and then my shoulder, and he's up on the girder," Cassidy said. "He lies there on top of the girder and he gives me the biggest hug and he starts crying.

"For me, it was like, 'All right. No time for sentiment. You've got to get going."

The failures of the day were apparent in the transcripts and radio calls, released as the result of a lawsuit by some of the victims' families and The New York Times.

Several city EMTs complained about their inability to communicate with the private ambulance corps. Some firefighters said they never heard the evacuation order. Many described difficulty keeping in touch with commanders or members of their own units.

But the chaos didn't stop rescuers from acting.
Fire Captain Bruce Lindahl recalled realizing, amid all the confusion, that someone needed to put water on the Trade Center's smoldering remains.

EMT Fermin Merrero described walking down the street, treating wounded people as they passed.

"Nobody was in charge," he said. "I know what they teach you at the academy about we're going to triage, we're going to do this, we're going to do that. One thing about it, everybody kept their head. Everybody worked as a team."

Paramedic Camille Marroncelli said that for many, the decision to keep going in the face of chaos came naturally.

"You react because it's second nature on this job and that's the only reason why people — a lot of people rose to the occasion, because it is second nature," Marroncelli said. "If you stood there and really had to think about what you had to do, you would have been more paralyzed than you were."

The Man Who Predicted 9-11 - Rick Rescorla

Press Release Source: The History Channel The History Channel(R) PresentsMonday August 8, 2:08 pm ET BROTHERHOOD OF TERROR (9/10 7pm ET/PT) THE 9/11 HIJACKERS: INSIDE THE HAMBURG CELL (9/10 8pm ET/PT) OSAMA'S HIDEOUTS (9/11 7pm ET/PT) THE MAN WHO PREDICTED 9/11 (9/11 8pm ET/PT) GROUNDED ON 9/11 (9/11 9pm ET/PT) WORLD PREMIERES Saturday, September 10th and Sunday, September 11th 7 p.m.-10 p.m. ET/PT NEW YORK, Aug. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- September 11, 2001 now serves as the infamousreference point for the climate of terrorist-induced fear that has become ahallmark of the modern world. A wave of Islamic fundamentalist anger that hadgained momentum for decades crashed upon the United States on that day fouryears ago, and the reverberations are still felt today and will be for yearscome. In five world premiere programs, The History Channel looks at the roots oftoday's Islamic Fundamentalist movement, the men behind 9/11 --- including Osamabin Laden and the hysteria and heroism that marked the most chaotic moments ofthe 9/11 catastrophe. ADVERTISEMENT BROTHERHOOD OF TERROR (WORLD PREMIERE Saturday, September 10th at 7pm ET/PT) For many Americans, the morning of September 11, 2001 made the threat of IslamicFundamentalism a grave reality. But long before al Qaeda, the roots of thisdanger grew from an organization called the Muslim Brotherhood. Journey to Cairo, Egypt where the Brotherhood was born in the late 1920s. Learnhow Brotherhood members passed radical ideologies to legions of followers,including Ayman Zawahiri, who would become Osama Bin Laden's right-hand man. Today, some experts claim that the Brotherhood has put an end to their violentways, while others believe that its dark history makes this movement one thatcan never be trusted. Executive Producer for The History Channel is Marc Etkind. Produced for TheHistory Channel by Towers Productions. THE 9/11 HIJACKERS: INSIDE THE HAMBURG CELL (WORLD PREMIERE Saturday, September10 at 8pm ET/PT) For years, they remained nearly invisible, a small group of dedicated menwaiting for the perfect chance to strike. Then, on September 11, 2001, aftermeticulous preparations, they took action. The men's full stories and thedetails of their ambitious plan have now come to light. THE 9/11 HIJACKERS:INSIDE THE HAMBURG CELL tracks the progress of this unlikely group of young menwho grew from unassuming college students into religious martyrs. The leaders ofthe Hamburg Cell were responsible for the cultivation of the al-Qaeda plotcode-named "the planes operation." The group's leaders were four well-educatedMuslim men who shared a common belief in radical Islam. Though Mohamed Atta,Marwan al-Shehhi, Ziad Jarrah, and Ramzi Binalshibh hailed from differentcountries, a spirit of brotherhood prevailed among them. In time, they committedto a singular purpose -- to translate their religious fanaticism intocatastrophic action. Executive Producer for The History Channel is Marc Etkind. Produced for TheHistory Channel by Towers Productions. OSAMA'S HIDEOUTS (WORLD PREMIERE Sunday, September 11 at 7pm ET/PT) The hunt for Osama bin Laden continues, but the leader of al Qaeda remains anelusive target. For over 25 years, Osama bin Laden has been in hiding --sometimes by choice, often out of necessity. As a result, he has lived most ofhis adult life like a bandit, moving from one hideout to another in locations asfar flung as Pakistan to the Sudan. Along the way, his terrorist organizationhas constructed guesthouses, bases and camps to train fighters. Using 3Dgraphics, this hour will examine the bin Laden hideouts, put into context howthe world's most wanted terrorist has stayed one step ahead of his pursuers forso long, and examine where he may be hiding today. Executive Producer for The History Channel is Dolores Gavin. Produced for TheHistory Channel by CBS Productions. THE MAN WHO PREDICTED 9/11 (WORLD PREMIERE Sunday, September 11 at 8pm ET/PT) In 2001, Rick Rescorla was the 62-year-old head of security at the MorganStanley Bank situated high up in the South Tower at the World Trade Center. For6 years Rescorla was convinced that terrorists would use jet planes to try anddestroy the World Trade Center. Long before September 11th, he developed anevacuation plan for the bank, unpopular amongst some city whiz kids who workedthere who thought he was mad. His evacuation plan however ultimately saved 2,700lives. Rescorla's evacuation plan was put into effect after the first jet hit the NorthTower. When the second jet hit the South Tower, he averted panic and organized arapid evacuation of Morgan Stanley staff. Rescorla sang Cornish folk songs tocalm nerves while thousands trooped down the stair wells. Rescorla went backinside to help those injured and trapped get out. He was still inside when thebuilding collapsed. His body was never found. THE MAN WHO PREDICTED 9/11 tells Rescorla's extraordinary story from his Englishchildhood, to his heroics in Vietnam to his work as a/the security officer atthe World Trade Center where he became convinced that an attack was imminent. Itfollows the dramatic timeline of what happened to Rick between 8:45 a.m. whenthe first plane hit Tower 1 and 9:58 a.m. when Tower 2 -- and 500,000 tons ofsteel and concrete -- collapsed on top of him. It features interviews with hisbiographer, Pulitzer Prize winning author James Stewart, his wife Susan, many ofthe men and women whose lives he saved that day, and footage of Rescorla makinghis predictions. Executive Producer for The History Channel is Marc Etkind. Produced for TheHistory Channel by Testimony Productions. GROUNDED ON 9/11 (WORLD PREMIERE Sunday, September 11 9pm ET/PT) In response to the attacks on September 11, 2001, the FAA orders all planes outof the air. U.S. and Canadian air traffic controllers face a calamity of epicproportions-how to safely re-route and land close to 5,000 planes carrying closeto a million people. GROUNDED ON 9/11 tells the story of the how the Air TrafficControl System works and how it handled the events of September 11th. For individual air traffic controllers, the work is chaotic, intense, anddeceptively simple: pick a new route for each flight; radio instructions toturn; listen for pilot confirmation; hold traffic to keep airways fromovercrowding. From Cleveland, Ohio to Gander, Newfoundland, to Anchorage,Alaska, controllers searched for alternate airports to land large jets even astheir traumatized colleagues stream back from break rooms after watching theattacks on TV. Executive Producer for The History Channel is Marc Etkind. Produced for TheHistory Channel by BellaSwartz Productions. Now reaching more than 88 million Nielsen subscribers, The History Channel®,"Where the Past Comes Alive®," brings history to life in a powerful manner andprovides an inviting place where people experience history personally andconnect their own lives to the great lives and events of the past. In 2004, TheHistory Channel earned five News and Documentary Emmy® Awards and previouslyreceived the prestigious Governor's Award from the Academy of Television Arts &Sciences for the network's "Save Our History®" campaign dedicated to historicpreservation and history education. The History Channel web site is located athttp://www.HistoryChannel.com .

A Street for Her Dad

A street for her dad

Tot never met the 9/11 hero
By DAVID SALTONSTALLDAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF

She shares her father's eyes, his face, even his name. But yesterday, little Terri Elizabeth Hatton gave New Yorkers another way to remember her hero dad.

The 3-year-old beauty is the daughter of FDNY Capt. Terence Hatton, who perished in the World Trade Center's north tower on 9/11 - robbing the city of one of its most revered firefighters, and little Terri of a father.

She was born eight months after his death, never knowing the man who collected 19 medals of valor in his 21 years at the FDNY.

Yesterday, the littlest Hatton helped Mayor Bloomberg rename W. 43rd St., between 10th and 11th Aves. - home to Hatton's beloved Rescue 1 stationhouse - in honor of her dad. It is now Capt. Terence S. Hatton Way.

"Terry really was a remarkable guy," Beth Petrone Hatton, Hatton's widow and a longtime aide to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, told the crowd of 300 or so who turned out to unveil the street sign.

"I try not to romanticize him too much with Terri, because I try to make him a real person," she added through tears as she cradled the little girl in her arms. "But she's going to look at that sign and think, 'Gee, my dad really was what my mom said.'"

Giuliani described Hatton as a thinker who helped design some of Rescue 1's vehicles, while also a man of courage who never thought twice about putting himself at risk.

In his final act, Giuliani said, Hatton and his FDNY brothers ensured that history would recall 9/11 as the greatest rescue effort of all time.

"His career ... and his life was too short," Giuliani said, "but it sure was powerful." Originally published on June 15, 2005

US Street Named after Indian American 9/11 Victim

US street named after Indian American 9/11 victim -->

By Bhavna Kaul, Indo-Asian News Service

Edison (New Jersey), July 13 (IANS)

Four years after 57-year-old structural engineer Prem N. Jerath died in the 9/11 terror attacks while saving a fellow worker's life, a street here has been named after him.Edison council members Robert Diehl and Parag Patel joined Jerath's family and friends to dedicate the intersection of Oak Tree Road and Wood Avenue in Jerath's name. "This corner reflects him. We chose this place because earlier we used to live around here. We passed from here everyday; even now I pass from here. I will get a chance to see this every day," Meena Jerath, widow of the deceased, told IANS.She said she felt "honoured that the township did this for him". "It is a touching tribute to my husband."Jerath worked as a structural engineer with Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The office was on the 82nd floor of Tower 1 of the World Trade Centre.Meena said her husband was always helping others. She said he lost his life while trying to help a person on whose leg a wall had fallen. "He was helping him to go back to office and call for help...but...they didn't realise the scope of the situation." "We have been working with families to honour the lives of people they lost. One of the initiatives was the street sign dedication," Councilman Diehl said.
Indo-Asian News Service

FDNY Kin Fight WTC Politics

FDNY kinfight WTC politics
By PAUL D. COLFORDDAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Widows, children and other relatives of some 70 city firefighters killed on 9/11 are hitting the Internet in a bid to keep politics far away from the planned Ground Zero memorial.
Among the thousands "signing" an online petition to "take back the memorial" are loved ones of Chief Peter Ganci, the FDNY's highest-ranking uniformed officer, who was directing rescue efforts at the north tower when it collapsed.

Son Christopher Ganci is now training to become a New York firefighter. His sister, Danielle, is due to marry one of New York's Bravest.

"We feel very strongly about this," Kathleen Ganci, the chief's widow, told the Daily News.
Ground Zero is "almost like a religious place," she added.

The petition, at takebackthememorial- .org, tells Gov. Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg and the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. that "the World Trade Center Memorial should stand as a solemn remembrance of those who died" on 9/11.

Referring to the International Freedom Center, due to occupy a nearby building with the Drawing Center, the petition adds, "Political discussions have no place" at the memorial.
Some relatives of 9/11 victims fear the Freedom Center and the Drawing Center might mount politically charged exhibits unsuitable for Ground Zero.

LMDC officials have been in talks with the two groups about their exhibition plans.
"We believe our institution must and will honor humanity's march toward freedom and highlight America's role as a beacon for freedom throughout the world," the Freedom Center recently told the LMDC.

Retired firefighter Paul Seidel, whose son, Gary, perished along with other members of Rescue Co. 1, said he added his name because "I believe it [the site] should be strictly for 9/11."
Robert Shurbet, who also writes a conservative political blog called Lime Shurbet, started the petition last month. Originally published on July 22, 2005

Hero Rick Rescorla 

Blair calls for posthumous 9/11 honour

Blair calls for posthumous 9/11 honour(Filed: 21/05/2005)
Tony Blair has backed calls for a posthumous honour for a British-born hero of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York, it has emerged.

Rick Rescorla served in Vietnam
Rick Rescorla, 62, was head of security for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter when two hijacked airliners hit the World Trade Centre in 2001.
He died after helping save 2,700 people by making sure they left the South Tower before it collapsed. His body has never been found.
Originally from Hayle, west Cornwall, Mr Rescorla was granted US citizenship in the late 1960s and served in Vietnam.
In 2002 he was turned down for a UK gallantry award because he did not meet the criteria, but now the Prime Minister has supported the campaign to have his courage recognised in the United States.
In a letter to Cornish Lib Dem MP Andrew George, Mr Blair wrote: "You may be aware that there has been a campaign in the US to secure a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom for Mr Rescorla.
"It appears that no medal has yet been awarded, but we are trying to find out the current position from the US administration.
"If the award is to be made, I believe this would be the most appropriate way to recognise Mr Rescorla's bravery. However, I will certainly see that the matter continues to be fully considered."
Mr George, whose St Ives constituency includes Hayle, welcomed the Prime Minister's response.
But he said: "Frankly it is shameful that we are now nearly four years on from the terrible event itself and Rick Rescorla has not received, posthumously, what all who know about his case believe he richly deserves."