The following comes from a speech given by Exchange Club of Mesquite President Paul Benedict during a special 9/11 tribute given before Mesquite City Council on Tuesday, Sept. 13.
By PAUL BENEDICT
Two things stand out in my memory about Mesquite’s first Remember 9/11 tribute in 2002. It was held in the fire station behind City Hall during a rainstorm, and we were told to “Never Forget.”
Shortly after that first year, the Exchange Club began conducting the annual Remember 9/11 tributes, and members Pastor Dennis Lee, Mark Buchannan, Dr. Peggy Purner, numerous guest speakers, and I have shared stories about what transpired that day and in the days and years that followed.
Each year, we have reminded all that we must “Never Forget.”
Today, 21 years later, let us add the phrase “Never Stop Learning,” because nearly 1 in 5 Americans weren’t even born yet. And the truth is, what started that day continues today, and even those of us who are “of an age” are still learning from the events that that day precipitated.
While some see 9/11 as the darkest day in American history, there is another side to September 11 – an opportunity to study the genuine, spontaneous outpouring of heroism and generosity that followed, and an opportunity to pay much-deserved tribute to our first responders.
Over the years in these tributes, we learned that when the South Tower fell, first responders had 29 minutes to make a choice: help those trapped in the North Tower or retreat to safety before it came down as well. They did not retreat.
We learned about Welles Crowther, known among the heroes of 9/11 as “the man in the red bandana.” Besides being an equities trader on the 104th floor of the South Tower, he always wanted to be a firefighter. On September 11, 2001, he gave his life saving at least 18 others.
We learned about our four-legged first responders – nearly 400 Search & Rescue teams – dogs and their human handlers, who worked on-site at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. While the sad fact is that there was not even a single confirmed case of a 9/11 survivor being found by canine Search & Rescue teams, at least one-third of the identifiable human remains from that tragic day were found by Cadaver dogs.
We learned that the remains of only 1,647 victims from the World Trade Center have been identified – 6 of them since 2017. Forty percent of those who died have yet to have any remains identified. And the sifting and testing continues to this day.
We learned about former Marines Dave Karnes and Jason Thomas, who showed up in uniform to help, meeting each other for the first time on top of the burning rubble pile. They located a pair of Port Authority police officers buried deep in the rubble, but still alive. Karnes stayed with the officers until Thomas returned with help. When asked his name by one of the medics who helped dig out the survivors, Karnes replied, “Just call me Staff Sergeant.” When the survivors were safely unburied hours later, Marines Karnes and Thomas simply vanished.
We learned that only 1 other survivor was ever found under the rubble.
We learned that after the third plane hit the Pentagon, word came that a fourth plane was on the way.
United Airlines Flight 93, the fourth hijacked airliner, was hurtling toward Washington.
Two unarmed Air National Guard F-16 fighter jets were scrambled with orders to bring it down. Col. Marc Sasseville and Lt. Heather Penney took off with nothing at all to throw at a hostile aircraft. Except their own planes.
Col. Sasseville said, “I’m going to go for the cockpit.” Lt. Penney replied without hesitating, “I’ll take the tail.”
But they didn’t have to die. They didn’t have to knock down an airliner full of kids and salesmen and girlfriends. Those heroes on Flight 93 did that themselves.
It would be hours before Penney and Sasseville learned that United 93 had already gone down in Pennsylvania, because the hostages on that plane were willing to do just what the two Air Guard pilots had been willing to do: Anything. And everything.
We learned about the Boatlift.
When the towers came down, millions of people ran for safety. Hundreds of thousands of them ran south, to the water’s edge. That’s when they realized that, indeed, Manhattan is an island, and that they were trapped.
Every mode of transportation out of Manhattan was shut down – the subways, the tunnels, the bridges. Everything.
That left boats, usually an afterthought in New Yorkers’ minds, which were for the first time in over a century, the only way in or out of lower Manhattan.
The owner of a small fishing boat decided he could help. Then another, then another. The Coast Guard put out a call on the marine radio band for any available boats to assist in the evacuation. Within minutes, hundreds of boats converged on lower Manhattan: fishing boats, tugboats, private boats, party boats, yachts, and ferries.
Through the smoke and the dust, out of nowhere people kept coming. Some of these people had never been on a boat before. Housewives, window washers, executives – everyone helped everyone. Four businessmen lifted a blind woman and her seeing-eye dog over their heads like a surfboard and passed her over the handrail onto a boat.
The boats went back and forth all day long, carrying as many as their boat could hold. When there was no one left to save, the boats simply and quietly went home.
The great boatlift on 9/11 became the largest sea evacuation in history – even larger than the evacuation of Dunkirk in World War II, where 339,000 British & French soldiers were rescued over the course of 9 days.
On 9/11, nearly 500,000 civilians were rescued from Manhattan by boat. It took less than 9 hours.
We learned from the experiences at these attack sites that there were significant shortfalls in the way responders were protected. The Personal Protection Equipment often actually impeded their ability to accomplish their missions.
Since that day, many changes were made to better protect those first responders who are here with us today and their comrades across our nation. Communication equipment is now almost entirely digital.
Hazardous environment clothing, masks, and respiratory equipment is now more standardized across manufacturers, and is now carried in all emergency vehicles. Air tanks are now made of carbon fiber instead of steel, making them much lighter, and their fittings are now standardized. Training is now more diversified and expanded. Crisis and site management teams are now better prepared to handle large-scale emergencies.
And we will never Stop Learning.
The people we have learned about in these tributes are heroes.
Heroes aren’t just compassionate and caring; they have a knack for being able to see things from the perspective of others. They can “walk a mile in another man’s shoes,” so to speak.
Heroes are competent and confident. When faced with a crisis, they have an intrinsic belief that they are capable of handling the challenge and achieving success no matter the odds.
Heroes have two essential qualities that set them apart from non-heroes: they have a strong moral compass and live by their values, and they are willing to endure personal risk to protect those values.
Heroes keep going even in the face of fear. They are positive thinkers by nature, which contributes to their ability to look past the immediate danger of a situation and see a more optimistic outcome.
Persistence is another quality commonly shared by heroes. They keep working on their goals, even after multiple setbacks.
Certainly having the right skills, physical ability, and training to deal with a crisis can also play a major role in whether or not people become heroes.
So, are heroes born or made? Well, a pretty strong mix of both, and we see the results in the Police and Fire and Rescue personnel right here in Mesquite. To each of them, we say “Thank You”.
