{"id":15,"date":"2008-08-26T16:22:15","date_gmt":"2008-08-26T20:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/?p=15"},"modified":"2009-09-02T22:17:02","modified_gmt":"2009-09-03T02:17:02","slug":"band-of-volunteers-remains-steadfast-to-the-task-at-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/?p=15","title":{"rendered":"Band of Volunteers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following story appeared on page one of the Knight-Ridder newspaper Times Leader and as a chapter in <\/em>09\/11 8:48 AM, Documenting America\u2019s Greatest Tragedy<\/strong>, which was a finalist in the 2002 Independent Publisher Book Awards. <\/span>Portions of this article were also included in <\/strong><\/em>09\/11 8:48 AM<\/strong>, a one-act play directed by veteran actor and director Murray Woodfield, adapted from the personal testimonies of seven writers, including Dawn Shurmaitis. The play was performed in London at the Old Vic Theatre benefiting New York Firefighters 9-11 Disaster Relief Fund.<\/em><\/p>\n

BAND OF VOLUNTEERS REMAINS STEADFAST TO THE TASK AT HAND<\/p>\n

BYLINE: DAWN SHURMAITIS <\/p>\n

LENGTH: 1605 words<\/p>\n

JERSEY CITY, N.J. – We\u2019re packed shoulder to shoulder in a line hundreds of people long – students, teens, suburban women in good clothes and impractical shoes – lifting and passing 85-pound bags of fast-melting ice, 50-pound bags of Alpo for body-sniffing dogs, cases of steel-tipped construction boots, socks, aspirin, toothpaste, flashlights, bottled water and Gatorade.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re a ragged, determined army of volunteers feeding supplies to civilian soldiers waging war on \u201cthe amputation of our skyline.\u201d<\/p>\n

We started work in Jersey City a couple of hours after dawn, clothed in T-shirts and jeans soon gritty with soot from still-burning buildings across the Hudson at \u201cGround Zero.\u201d We know we are dusty with minute fragments of former lives of friends, family and colleagues who worked just a few days before at the World Trade Center. We wipe sweaty faces, stretch fatigued arms toward each other, load, twist and turn, load, twist and turn.<\/p>\n

A boat from Ken\u2019s Marine in Bayonne pulls up to the dock at Jersey City\u2019s Colgate Center, where just 24 hours ago a different kind of line formed to board ferries bound for Manhattan, a line of suits and ties, carrying briefcases, headed to another ordinary day on the job, a day blown apart by terrorists.<\/p>\n

A Jersey City police officer directs 12 of us onto the boat, across a dock heaving from the waves of the constant flow of water traffic, tug boats and ferries making ceaseless, 10-minute trips across the Hudson to a surreal scene: the smoldering concrete carcasses of a long-familiar skyline. We introduce ourselves on the trip over. \u201cWhere you from?\u201d \u201cHow long have you been here?\u201d and the question everyone is now asking: \u201cWhere were you when the planes hit?\u201d<\/p>\n

I work alongside Salman, a 24-year-old Pakistani computer technician who worked at World Trade. \u201cI lost two,\u201d he tells me, as casually as if he\u2019s telling me he lost front teeth. The officer who\u2019s manning the crew says, \u201cI lost four.\u201d He pauses, chokes up and wipes his eyes, making as if he\u2019s just tidying his dripping brow. \u201cDon\u2019t give up hope,\u201d we tell him. \u201cThey\u2019re finding people alive in there every day.\u201d He shrugs, sad and certain in his grief.<\/p>\n

Everyone has a story. A retired cop whose wife is still on the force said she went into the flames with two captains and a lieutenant, after the planes hit and before the buildings fell. She was the only one who made it out. \u201cShe went into work this morning and saw the three empty desks. She\u2019s with the grief counselors now,\u201d he says. A man on the boat tells him: \u201cAnybody with a turban, they should round them up, and bang! – right between the eyes.\u201d Salman stands a few feet away, sharing coffee and a cigarette with another volunteer as the boat draws near the epicenter, which is cloaked in a choking debris cloud large enough to be seen from space. Salman is dark-skinned and speaks with a heavy accent – a fresh target for Americans\u2019 newfound hatred. He turns to me and points to the shattered city. \u201cWhat people don\u2019t realize is that many, many Muslims were killed in there. They\u2019re Americans, too. Like me.\u201d Off to the side, another volunteer mutters: \u201cWe have to learn to hate as much as the Muslims do. From now on, it\u2019s the only way we\u2019ll be safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trip over, the tugboat eases into a marina where 65-foot yachts – executive party boats – berthed just the day before. We dock below the Winter Garden atrium, a long-familiar glass entree for commuters bound for the twin towers. Miraculously, part of it still stands. But inside, under the now-blackened glass, the giant palm trees are near buried by rubble and shredded office paper – the stuff of former lives. Behind it, we see the twisted steel shards of what was once World Trade Center One. \u201cIt looks like Berlin,\u201d someone says.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve watched the images on TV and from the Jersey shoreline for two days. But now, it is up close and horribly surreal, as if we\u2019d stepped into a scene from a Jerry Bruckheimer film. We hear the whop-whop of the helicopter blades and the urgent whine of the saws slicing concrete and steel. We see a pair of German shepherds, tongues hanging, straining against their leashes. In the water, dead bloated rats bob in our wake.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh,\u201d a volunteer says, turning suddenly away. \u201cI saw something back there. It was charred. And black. I looked to see if there was something – a ring, maybe a bracelet. But there was nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the boat from Jersey City comes to rest against the pilings, the volunteers on the New York side line up. Their arms reach down as ours reach up to pass and pull crates of milk, orange juice, batteries and flashlights, hot burgers and fries, tarps for the coming rain, hand trucks, even cherry pies. The \u201chard hats\u201d have worked around the clock since Tuesday, clearing rubble from what looks like a winter wonderland, a wonderland ghost town.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found a spine. Just a spine. There were maybe some ligaments,\u201d Brian O\u2019Neill tells me. Like many of the volunteers working the New York side he\u2019s a union man, from a New Jersey local. Plumbers. Crane operators. Welders. Forklift operators. They didn\u2019t even wait for the call. They just came. What they saw, they said, will stay with them the rest of their lives. \u201cWhen you\u2019re over here, you don\u2019t feel like you\u2019re home,\u201d says Mike Smith, who\u2019s from Woodbridge, N.J. \u201cYou feel like you\u2019re in Bosnia.\u201d<\/p>\n

New Jersey plumber Eddie Torres passed Tuesday into Wednesday digging, looking, hoping. \u201cIt\u2019s such a slow process,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s so much debris. But we gotta get rid of it and we gotta do it by hand. We\u2019re working in water up to our knees, we\u2019re breathing the dust, smelling the fire. Those firemen and those cops – they\u2019re exhausted. But nobody\u2019s complaining. This one comes from the heart. I saw those buildings go up,\u201d says Torres, who\u2019s 40. \u201cI couldn\u2019t just watch from here after they came down.\u201d<\/p>\n

The later the hour, the greater the number of fresh volunteers flood the New Jersey waterfront to help load supplies bound for Manhattan. \u201cI\u2019ll step in for you. Go take a water break,\u201d the new volunteers offer the veterans. Only a few break away. \u201cHeads up! Boxes coming!\u201d is the continual call down the line. The boxes come and they come and they come. Turn, twist, pass. Turn, twist, pass. New Jersey to New York and back again.<\/p>\n

As firefighters from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut pass the line, a woman reaches out to pat their shoulders. \u201cGood luck and God bless,\u201d she says. From far down the line a cheer goes up. Like a wave, it moves down to the dock. \u201cThey found six people alive! Three of them were firefighters!\u201d someone with a radio yells. On the boat, two officers throw their arms around each other, tense faces finally broken by smiles.<\/p>\n

At 2 p.m., all the police radios cackle with urgent news. \u201cEverybody off the docks!\u201d someone yells. We look across the river to read the smoke from the still burning epicenter. When it\u2019s white, we know it\u2019s only dust from bulldozing debris. When it\u2019s black, we know there\u2019s a fresh fire, or another building fallen to the terrorists. This time, the smoke is billowing black. The Jersey City police order everyone off the boats and far behind the yellow caution tape lining the waterfront. \u201cAll the boats are going back empty. They\u2019re going to come back with casualties,\u201d an officer says.<\/p>\n

On the shoreline, the EMTs dive for bandages and IV lines, laying blankets on the only clear patch of shaded grass. \u201cWe got a cardiac arrest,\u201d an officer screams. Suddenly, the line splits open and the first stretcher comes through, carrying a soot-covered firefighter, face framed by an oxygen mask. \u201cCall my family,\u201d he tells the nurses. \u201cLet them know I\u2019m all right.\u201d After he\u2019s revived and is lying in the shade pouring down water, a counselor cautiously approaches. \u201cDo you need to talk about what you saw over there? I\u2019m here for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 7 p.m., the setting sun splashes the buildings across the Hudson with an eerie red light. From this side of the disaster, it looks like they are on fire. Again. We look at our forearms – they are covered by bruises from the bang of the boxes. \u201cThat\u2019s it for tonight, people,\u201d a cop calls out. \u201cCome back for more tomorrow.\u201d As we prepare to leave, we\u2019re told: \u201cGo see Lt. Brian McDonough. Tell him you earned a red-light courtesy card today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThank God,\u201d a volunteer says, \u201cI run red lights all the time in Jersey City. Can he help me out with speeding tickets, too?\u201d<\/p>\n

On the three-block walk back home I pass Jersey City policeman Peter Midgley, who\u2019s on his way back to Ground Zero for another all-night shift. \u201cWe\u2019re getting a lot of support from the community. I can\u2019t tell you how many times people have passed by and given me food and coffee, told me to keep up the good work. It gives me hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, I reach my front stoop. There\u2019s my door, and my pot of pink impatiens. I have mail. There\u2019s my newspaper. The comforting realities of daily life. I\u2019m about to turn the key when my neighbor arrives. Until now, we\u2019ve never even said hello. \u201cHow are you doing?\u201d I ask. \u201cEveryone all right?\u201d \u201cAhh, we have trouble.\u201d It\u2019s his nephew. Tuesday, he was behind his desk on the 100th floor of the World Trade Center. They\u2019ve been to the Red Cross and all the hospitals. They\u2019ve also been to the morgue. Nothing. MIA. \u201cI was in the Mekong Delta,\u201d he says, \u201cand I never wanted to experience anything like that again.\u201d<\/p>\n

He heads off, to keep searching. I pull out my key. The impatiens need water, I think. Maybe tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JERSEY CITY, N.J. – We\u2019re packed shoulder to shoulder in a line hundreds of people long – students, teens, suburban women in good clothes and impractical shoes – lifting and passing 85-pound bags of fast-melting ice, 50-pound bags of Alpo for body-sniffing dogs, cases of steel-tipped construction boots, socks, aspirin, toothpaste, flashlights, bottled water and Gatorade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-11"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}