After two months of intense work as chief of planning for the WTC Incident Command, I turned the role over to my colleague Battalion Chief Andy Richter. I needed to get back to my job as a chief in Battalion 1, which was just a few feet away on the other side of the firehouse. I still checked on how the planning section was doing and visited Ground Zero every day that I worked, but I had routine duties.
I also needed a break. In late fall, the state of Hawaii invited the families of NYC firefighters and police officers killed in the WTC attacks to the islands to relax during the first week of December. Hawaiian Airlines donated two airplanes and crews. Hotels provided rooms, and everyone on the islands offered the “Aloha spirit.”
Sun, sand, and surf, far away on an idyllic Pacific island—the invitation was tempting, but at first I refused. I felt guilty leaving lower Manhattan. Then I suddenly changed my mind. The Aloha spirit was too welcoming to resist. We needed to get away from the stress, the endless sadness. Ginny, Christine, and Greg were thrilled. As a family, we had never been to Hawaii. It was the longest plane ride we ever took.
As soon as we arrived, we were greeted by a news crew that wanted someone to speak on behalf of the families. I was the highest rank among the FDNY attendees, so I felt a responsibility to step forward. I thanked the Hawaiian people for their generosity—not of their pockets but their hearts, something far more valuable.
Wherever we went, Hawaii took care of us. We went to luaus, snorkeled coral reefs, and learned to surf. We met the governor and the mayor of Honolulu, who showed us the Hawaiian spirit. Tom Brokaw wanted me to do an interview, but we were surfing. I turned him down.
While we were in Honolulu, Christine and Gregory practiced with the local swim club. The Honolulu Fire Department got word of this and took us to the sparsely populated North Shore of Oahu. As we drove up to a dark brown wooden house, we were greeted by eighty-one-year-old Audrey Sutherland. When she was a young, divorced mother of four, Audrey had explored the wild northern coast of Molokai on solo three- and four-mile swims, and later by kayak. Addicted to the experience, she took her kayak all over the world to discover remote coastlines. In 1980 and 1981, she paddled her kayak alone 850 miles from Ketchikan to Skagway in Alaska, journeys that became the basis for Paddling North, her third book, a classic in solo seagoing adventure writing.
This slender woman with white hair had lively eyes and a compassionate spirit. Audrey gave us something cool to drink and pointed out Jocko’s Beach, where we could go surfing. This beach was a short distance from the famous Banzai Pipeline, a worldwide mecca for serious surfers.
I knew we were in trouble when I learned that the beach was named for her son Jock Sutherland, a surfing legend. The six- to eight-foot waves were beyond my kids’ and my new surfing skills. Seeing this, one of her sons took us boogie boarding with fins instead. We swam two hundred yards offshore through the breaking surf, ducking under the white water to catch giant waves, screaming with excitement. Every ride was a solo adventure with nature. Onshore, Ginny watched and thought we were crazy.
During our visit, Audrey—a font of wisdom on self-reliance and optimism—was teaching us something she learned from her adventures, which was to take on challenges with confidence and believe we were going to succeed. In the surf, we tackled big waves, remembering Kevin’s adventurous spirit on the Hobie Cat.
When we were leaving, Audrey dubbed us her “New York family” and gave us a copy of her first book, Paddling My Own Canoe, published in 1978. It included lessons for this 9/11 family: “The only real antidote for life’s pain is inside us. It is the courage within, the ability to build your own fires and find your own peace.”
That day, enjoying big waves on the North Shore of Oahu, was the beginning of finding strength in each of us.
I couldn’t totally get away from 9/11. In the middle of the week, I was asked to make a short speech on December 7, 2001, in honor of the sixtieth anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. For two days, I racked my brain but couldn’t come up with anything to say.
The day before the remembrance, all six hundred family members were shuttled to the USS Arizona Memorial for a private tour. The battleship, sunk during the attack, still sits at the bottom of the harbor as a reminder of those who died. As I stood at the memorial, I noticed that oil was still seeping to the surface from the Arizona. I watched as 9/11 family members spontaneously took the leis from around their necks and tossed them into the water. At that moment, I knew what I had to say. I started writing my speech on a napkin at lunch.
At the Punchbowl Cemetery for the commemoration, the family members from 9/11, who represented 2,977 victims, were seated behind the podium. In the audience of a few thousand were World War II veterans and family members of those killed on December 7, 1941. The surprise attack had killed 2,403 Americans, including 68 civilians, and injured many more.
I talked about how these two generations mixed together for the first time at the USS Arizona, as the oil that seeps from the destroyed battleship gently washed over the delicate and fragrant flowers of the leis tossed in remembrance by the 9/11 families.
“Sixty years ago, families and friends experienced the tragedy of Pearl Harbor and World War II,” I said. “We, the families of firefighters, police officers, and rescue workers of 9/11 know what it must have felt like for you, the relatives and surviving friends of the heroes of Pearl Harbor. Those of us from New York City here today are living those same feelings of broken hearts, endless tears, and continual nightmares of America being attacked and losing the ones we love.
“Like sixty years ago, the enemy did not count on America uniting to fight aggression. And today, a new enemy did not count on America and all the people of the world uniting to fight terrorism.”
As I’d left the Arizona memorial the day before, I had seen a rainbow. “Perhaps it was a rainbow of Pearl Harbor and World Trade Center heroes shining down on us. The heroes we will never forget. It was a rainbow of hope that today’s 9/11 generation is just as united as the 1941 generation in the belief that America stands for freedom for all.”
The audience was in tears, making it difficult for General Richard Myers, who had recently been named chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to follow. But he reminded us of why we should never forget our brave men and women in uniform, both civilian and military.
The week ended with a beautiful luau. We ate traditional Hawaiian food and watched hula dancing. The message was clear: we are all in this together, and by supporting each other, we would get through it. When I looked around, under a cloud of despair that hung over so many families who’d lost their hero first responder, there was a glimmer of hope. I was the lucky one to be with my family, and I took a picture with the Hawaiian dancers who symbolized the Aloha spirit.
The four of us being able to relax in the warm waters of Hawaii became the solution to our sadness. Getting away and having family time together, without other distractions, had been a rare privilege that we needed.
When we got off the plane at JFK Airport in New York, I was hit with the faint but unmistakable smell of Ground Zero. It was a musty odor of damp cement and smoke. Most people would not even notice. But a firefighter’s sense of smell is keen. From being down at the Pile, I knew that the odor meant that the underground fires were still burning as the recovery operation continued. We were back to reality.