Witness to Inhumanity
by Joseph T. McMahon
Witness to Inhumanity
https://ofaphilosophicalnature.blogspot.com/2021/09/witness-to-inhumanity.html
Years after 9/11, first responders are still dying from exposure. This is their story
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/years-after-9-11-first-responders-are-still-dying-from-exposure-this-is-their-story/ar-AAOgXNY?ocid=Peregrine
Casualties of the September 11 attacks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_September_11_attacks
Health effects arising from the September 11 attacks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_arising_from_the_September_11_attacks
In 1990 I was appointed as a Firefighter in the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) and was assigned to a single Engine firehouse located just several blocks away from the World Trade Center. I had been in the ‘Twin Towers’ buildings many, many, times - mostly for emergencies. My Engine company responded to the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 - which would foreshadow what was to come several years later (as a result of the 1993 bombing, a self-study guide titled ‘Emergency Response To Terrorism’ was developed in 1997 – which had cross-hairs on the area where the building would be struck by planes just four years later). In 1998 I was promoted to Fire Marshal following a written examination. The FDNY’s Fire Marshals investigate the ‘origin and cause’ of fires within the 5 boroughs of the City of New York. So on September 11, 2001, I was a Fire Marshal, and after the buildings collapsed, Fire Marshals were reassigned from their normal duties of investigating fires and tasked with morgue duty at ground zero for the specific purpose/objective of assisting in identifying and recovering the remains of 343 missing New York City Firefighters.
All Fire Marshals in the FDNY must serve as Firefighters before becoming Fire Marshals. This fact made them uniquely qualified to help in identifying and recovering remains of the Fire Department’s missing members. Having served as Firefighters themselves, Fire Marshals know the types of equipment Firefighters carry and wear, and can spot these items intermingled with other human remains and collapse debris as they came through the morgue - separating and tracking those remains as potential biological remains of Firefighters. Many times due to the destructive force of the buildings collapsing and resulting fires, it took a discerning eye to recognize metal parts of bunker gear that may be mixed in with remains – for example, metal bunker coat ‘snaps’, steel toes of boots, melted handle-talkie parts, hand tools, or even ‘1620’ keys (a key that all firefighters carry with them while on duty) intermingled with biological material, cement dust, and other debris. Fire Marshals were uniquely qualified to perform this task.
A temporary morgue site was established in mobile trailers next to the collapse area to facilitate more immediate access to morgue personnel from the City’s Medical Examiners Office. All remains - and ‘suspected’ remains, were viewed by a New York City Medical Examiner with an FDNY Fire Marshal and a New York City Police (NYPD) Detective at their side (the NYPD also had personnel tasked with identifying and tracking remains of their 23 missing NYPD personnel). The process of identifying remains was accomplished through physically viewing all remains that were brought into the temporary morgue from what became known as ‘the pile’. Sometimes only ‘biological material’ was brought in, i.e., something that resembled flesh, or something that looked like it was stained with blood, or something that appeared to have hair, etc. Remains and suspected remains were photographed, numbered, catalogued, and samples collected for DNA analysis.
It is difficult to describe what being assigned to morgue duty was like. I witnessed the aftermath of the destruction of nearly 3,000 innocent human lives on a daily basis. It is not easily described in words. It is also unpleasant to recount. I wrote an account of the events of 9/11 many years ago. Rather than relive what I witnessed, I will just share excerpts of what I have already written earlier, elsewhere. Concerning the morning following 9/11 after working throughout the night at the temporary morgue:
“I am on the pile looking for survivors, body parts, anything. I found many body parts: hands sticking out of rubble, feet in shoes, crushed heads, slabs of skin, it was so heartbreaking. Many of these body parts were impaled or crushed in-between objects, which made their removal impossible with hand tools. There was nothing to do but to concentrate on trying to find a ‘viable’ life. Sadly, this would not happen.”
and;
“I recall how difficult it was to navigate the rubble and I was concerned that I was going to get injured. I was traversing the debris using horizontal and vertical/diagonal steel I-beams which were wet. I probed deep onto the rubble. It was slippery. There were drops of 20, 30, and 40 feet in between these I-beams in some places. If I slipped or fell, I would be killed or impaled on one of the pieces of rebar or electrical conduit that was sticking out from everywhere beneath me. Worse, I felt that if I did get hurt, then everything would have to come to a stop to rescue ‘me’. I really should be back at the morgue – that was my assignment. I took one more look around from where I was standing and then carefully made my way back to the outskirts of the collapsed buildings.”
“For the rest of the day I continued to work in the temporary morgue in the lobby of 3 World Financial Center (WFC) on the corner of Vesey Street and West Street, tagging bodies and body parts as they came off the pile. It was horrific to see human beings in these states of deformity.”
Concerning morgue duties over the next several months, I recorded the following:
“I have seen bones ‘pulverized’. By this I mean to say that it would be like taking a pair of blue jeans and making knots in the bottom of the pant legs and filling the pants with sand. The legs are flexible at all points, in all directions, from top to bottom. It is an unbelievable sight that defies logic in the sense that many times the limb is still intact (the skin is unbroken). Again, it is difficult to comprehend the type of force that could cause such an injury and yet leave the limb intact.”
and;
“With respect to other aspects of bones, I have seen them in conditions expected in recently deceased bodies, with tissue and tendon attached in varying degrees and with associated redness in relation to its exposure since its discovery. In the case of broken bones, there could also be marrow. I have seen bones burned to varying degrees. I have seen them burned charcoal, I have seen them burned black with the texture of alligator skin, and I have seen them burned white.”
and;
“Teeth were usually found intact in a head or if not, detached but as part of the mandible (lower jaw). Teeth are the strongest element of a human body and would be recovered even if there were no other biological material left of a body. Dental records were used to identify these remains.”
also;
“Deformations were so complicated that they did not seem humanly possible, and of course they were not. I have seen a body bag opened up and an object the size of a large handbag placed on the medical examiner’s table. I recall being upset that someone would bring WTC debris into the morgue. After all, it was important work we were doing, and I couldn’t understand why our work should be interrupted for this. The medical examiner carefully ‘unrolled’ the object, which turned out to be a complete human being. Head, arms, legs, torso. Everything.” (In retrospect, it gave the appearance that a giant had rolled the body up between its forefinger and thumb).
lastly;
“A body bag was opened on the Medical Examiners table. Inside, was a single leather fire department boot. Inside the boot was part of a leg. The head, or knuckle, of the bone was protruding from the top of the boot. The medical examiner skillfully slid the partial leg out of the boot. I mentally noted that there was no sock on the foot (some firefighters choose to be barefoot inside their boots). I also noted the hair on the leg and that it was dark in color. For all practical purposes, it appeared to me to be a well-preserved lower leg and foot. As I have noted elsewhere, it was hard to comprehend how a body part could appear so undamaged when it was obvious that it had been ripped from the connecting tissue and bone. True, leather boots were strong and had steel toes and shanks, but even the boot seemed in good condition.
I took the boot to another table where I cleaned off the interior of the boot to try to identify markings on the inside. The FDNY requires that boots be marked with the first initial and last name of the Firefighter on the inside. In the event that there was no marking from the owner of the boot, there was sometimes a label with serial numbers on the inside of the boot that would help us track down the owner by calling the Quarter Master and giving them the serial number on the boot.
A call to the Quarter Master was only needed as a formality to confirm what I was about to see. The first initial “X” followed by the name “Xxxxxx”. “X. Xxxxxx”. I wanted to wretch. I started breathing heavy. My heart started racing. This was the remains of one of the most highly decorated firefighters in the FDNY. As I looked at his boot and leg, I fought back tears. I could not believe that such a hero, such a legend, of the greatest Fire Department in the world could be reduced to what was before me.”
(There were many more notes I made which I feel are too disturbing to make public here).
I continued to work on the morgue detail for 8 months, until they declared the recovery effort over (May 2002). I had been doing a job that no one could ever really be prepared for – no matter how much training they have had. I have even witnessed Medical Examiner staff having a hard time processing all of the deformities and ways that a human being can be found in. As the Fire Department representative at the morgue sites I had to sometimes be a priest and a psychologist (neither of which I had any background in). Family members of missing firefighters would come into our trailer at ground zero and ask if we recovered any remains of their loved ones yet. Maybe they knew that nothing would be recovered, but they just wanted to be as close as they could to the last place their loved one was seen. It was understandable. I had to navigate their sadness, anger, hopelessness, etc. I had to be extremely careful how I answered each one. Some were seasoned retired firefighters whose firefighter relative was missing in the collapse; some were children of missing firefighters; Some were distraught. Some stunned. Some wanted technical answers, like a military style ‘report’, while others just walked in speechless and stared and stood there – I had to gently ask them “Can I help you?” just to break their trance. Some needed consoling.
In the shadow and backyard of the recovery effort, another tragedy struck us on November 12th, 2001 - the crash of American Airlines flight 587, which killed 251 passengers and 9 crew members (and 1 dog in the cargo area of the plane) – as well as 5 people on the ground. The crash occurred in Belle Harbor, Queens, New York, just after take off. It was assumed at the time that it was another terrorist attack. I was present at the temporary morgue site at ground zero when the plane crashed. I was called at the morgue and directed to put all the rubber gloves and body bags that I could find into the department vehicle and get over to Floyd Bennett Field right away. I did as instructed and was there in short order. I was put to work right away (Floyd Bennett Field is an old airfield near the crash site with large empty hangars - making it a convenient and logical place to stage a temporary morgue site).
Some of what I recorded:
“The crash of American Airlines flight 587 was, for me, a different kind of horror. The smell of jet fuel dominated the air in the hangar at Floyd Bennett Field after the bodies arrived in box trucks. They would back the trucks into the hangar, slide up the rear door panel and there were the bodies piled atop each other. Some trucks were piled nearly 3-4 feet high with bodies. There was no dignity in the way they were transported, but I just accepted it as an operational necessity - to expedite the removal of bodies from the crash site. These were freshly dead people who, except for their injuries, some appeared to just be ‘sleeping’. Their bodies moved and wiggled as we took them and laid them out on the ground. Their bodies were not yet cold, nor had rigor mortis set in. There was very little blood, indicating to me a very sudden and unexpected death that had not raised their blood pressures and had stopped their hearts on impact. I wanted to shake or poke them in more than one instance, thinking that they would get up if I did. But I knew it was futile, and I resisted the urge. They were gone.”
and;
“With respect to their injuries, I would have to say that deformities of the bodies were the major visual trauma for me. Seat belts were embedded in torsos. The belts gave the impression that they had been threaded through the bodies. They disappeared into one side of the body and came out on the opposite side. It was unreal. Contortions of limbs and pulverized bones, were common and stand out in my mind. There was also a small child who was covered up right away. It was heartbreaking.”
In May of 2002, eight months after rescue and recovery efforts began, the City of New York declared that the recovery effort at ground zero had come to its conclusion. I was reassigned back to Fire Marshal duties for about a week before I was promoted to Lieutenant and assigned back to a firehouse as an Engine Company Officer.
20 YEARS LATER…
With respect to the attacks on 9/11, one comes out the other side of it questioning why it happened. What was it that caused people to hijack commercial airplanes with hundreds of innocent people in them, and fly them into buildings occupied with tens of thousands of innocent people – all people they had never met before? I wanted to try to understand the irreconcilable. I wanted to understand the motivations behind such inhuman acts. I wanted to find the real cause of such disregard for human life. At one point, seeking to find answers, I attended a public talk in New York given by holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel, and later exchanged some letters with him. In one letter, responding to my lamenting on man’s inhumanity to man, he writes “Your questions are my questions too”.
What I have come to see after so many years later is that 9/11 was caused by ideas rooted in concepts of religion and nationality. Why do I say ‘ideas’ and ‘concepts’? Because in truth, Jesus wasn’t a Christian, Buddha wasn’t a Buddhist and Mohammad wasn’t a Muslim. Religions are based upon concepts we hold of a God of our understanding. And many times we don’t choose our God at all – we are born and we are told by our parents which God we will worship. But whatever God is, God is certainly not our ‘ideas’ or ‘concepts’ of God. Likewise, there are no ‘nations’ or countries as such. There are no dividing lines when you fly over the earth that delineate the borders of each country. And borders change due to war, treaties and agreements, exploring new lands, etc. So nations are also concepts. They are not inherently real in of themselves. They are changeful. Concepts are useful as something to be held lightly to navigate this experience we call life. But when we hold concepts in a clenched ‘fist’ we are likely to do the irreconcilable.
Perhaps the following will make more sense. I wrote this after many years of introspection and a desire to understand what caused the blue sky of a peaceful Tuesday morning to turn grey. I can find no satisfactory way to explain what I have come to learn, because it came more as an insight or realization - but the following is what I managed to put into words.
PEACE IS ALWAYS HERE
You may imagine that there are wars or violence happening somewhere on the planet right now. According to the Global Peace Index, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Nigeria, South Sudan, Ukraine, Libya, and India/Pakistan are currently involved in wars or violent armed conflict.
Why do I say that you “imagine” there are wars? Because in Reality, there is nothing but peace in those war zones right now. How so? Because the conceptualizing human mind does not dictate what Reality is. It is the conceptualizing human mind that is actually responsible for the appearance of all of the wars and armed conflicts around the globe - when in Reality, there is only peace. Reality is what is present when the human mind has been paused.
If you go into any active war zone right now, and you removed all of the people in it, there would be nothing but peace. Birds would start singing, butterflies would start butterflying, squirrels would be squirreling, and fragrant flowers would be blooming. Peace is the actual inherent Reality in all places at all times. You see?
How is this already-existing peace covered up? It is covered up by the human mind that creates, sustains, and perpetuates stories (imaginations) about what it believes is happening, thus covering up what actually is (peace). Humanity does not know itself as it truly is.
Every man and woman is, in Reality, a thought-free being. You were born into this world a thought-free being and existed that way for months and years before you learned language and had the ability to string words together to make sentences and concepts (thoughts/imaginations). It is this overlay on your thought-free beingness that has created war where there actually never was/is any in Reality.
The separation created by the conceptualizing human mind - nationality, religion, political party, ethnicity, race, etc. - is responsible for all of the violence we imagine existing in the world today. As long as humanity believes the conceptualizing mind to be the arbiter of Truth and Reality, humanity will be bound to suffer the imaginations it entertains. This is the unnecessary and avoidable pain and suffering we see in the world today.
Peace Is Already Always Here. Always.