A Decade of Hope (20 page)

Jonathan's helmet and coat are now on display in Gallery 3.

Gallery 4 is the family room. Jennifer reached out to every family and asked them to send us one photo of the loved person who was lost, so as you enter the space your breath will be taken away. It's a very solemn, quiet place, with walls that are covered with beautiful smiling faces of all ages, colors, religions, and economic levels. And you will sense immediately that the only thing wrong with this room of good and decent people is that they are no longer with us.

When we leave Gallery 4 we want to change the experience and stress how tomorrow has got to be a better day. We want to brighten you up a little bit, so you'll see photos of workers hugging at the site, photos of spouses, lovers, family, friends. You then reach a little spot where there are tiles on the wall with drawings and sayings, the work of people from all over the world who went into a ceramics shop and made them to hang on a fence up on Greenwich [Street] and Seventh Avenue. Ten years later there are still four thousand of these memorial tiles on that wire fence; we have about four hundred of them at the Tribute Center.

On the opposite wall is a little origami crane, no larger than a dime, created by a young girl by the name of Sadako, who lived through the bombing of Hiroshima. She was two years old at the time, and eventually came down with leukemia from radiation poisoning, and died in 1955 at the age of twelve. Of course, like all of us, she wanted to live, and her dad suggested that if she fold a piece of paper into the shape of a crane, her wish might come true. It's a cultural belief in Japan. So Sadako started folding cranes, and because there was a lack of paper in postwar Japan, she carefully picked the labels from her medicine bottles. She made well over a thousand before she died. The family donated all of the cranes to the Hiroshima memorial except for five, which they kept as a remembrance of their daughter.

About two years ago Sadako's brother decided it was time to give the five cranes away, one to each of five continents to carry on his sister's wish that she could live, live in peace, and stop nuclear proliferation. For the continent of North America, her brother decided to give it to us, and we now have a beautiful little crane made out of brilliant ruby-red cellophane. It is so little but so hugely consequential in its power. The unique and telling aspect of this story is that the label Sadako used for our origami crane came from a medicine bottle that was sent to Japan by the United States to try to fight her cancer.

Because the cranes started getting smaller as death got closer, the crane given to us is one of the last cranes she made before she died. Here we are some sixty-five years later, and we still can't seem to find peace in this world. But this little twelve-year-old girl was smarter than most of us, having turned her wish into something tangible.

As you make your way downstairs you can look up and see over ten thousand origami cranes that were sent to the Tribute Center by schoolchildren in Japan, which lost twenty-four of its citizens, who worked in the banking industry, in the towers.

Downstairs in Gallery 5 are the thoughts we hope will provide the food for thought that will bring people to change. We ask visitors to sit at a long table filled with blank cards and answer the following questions:

More than two million people have come to the Tribute Center from more than 135 countries, and they've recorded their feelings and their advice in their own hand, in their own language. We now have over two hundred thousand cards. The world speaks here, from all countries, including Iran and many [other] Muslim countries, and they all speak with the same words. We must find a way to live with each other. We must find a way to stop hatred and intolerance. We must stop terrorism. These cards are stunning: They are poetic, and their words range from rudimentary to artful. It is a powerful place, with a powerful message:
WE MUST LEARN TO LIVE WITH OUR DIFFERENCES
.

So much good has happened since 9/11 that our tomorrows might well become better for all people throughout the world. For example, there have been thousands of scholarships established in memory of 9/11, and my son has two named in his honor. Many foundations have also been created [see the Jackmans, page 304, and the MacRaes, page 315] to relieve the suffering from tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, and kids in need, with money and supplies sent in memory of 9/11.

There's a photo that was taken of Jonathan and me after the Father's Day fire in June 10 2001 at which three firefighters died [see Zack Fletcher, page 149], two from Rescue 4 and one from Ladder 163. Jonathan was by this point the second volunteer chief in Great Neck, and we were in his chief 's car with his scanner on when we began to hear screaming in the background. We knew right away there was a problem: There had been an explosion, a wall came down, and three firefighters were missing. We drove over to the fire, and while Jonathan had his gear in his car, I was wearing shorts. On the way down the block we met a fireman from Jonathan's company, Squad 288. The guy was in a panic; you could see it in his face. One of the guys trapped in the collapse was from 288—Brian Fahey, who had just transferred to Rescue 4. John Downing from Ladder 163 was lost, and Harry Ford. Jonathan got his gear and mask on, and I told him, “Go ahead, do what you have to do. I'll stay around here and help wherever I can.”

Forty-six Engine Companies had responded to the job, along with thirty-three Ladder Companies, sixteen battalion chiefs, and two deputy chiefs. All five Rescue Companies were there.

I then saw Dr. Kerry Kelly [see David Prezant, page 28] come running down the street. She saw me and asked, “What are they up to?” I told her three guys were missing, and she immediately tried to climb onto this pile of rubble where the wall had fallen out onto the street, burying someone beneath it. I yelled, “Doc, you can't go up there like that,” because she had heels on and a skirt. But she is the daughter of a New York firefighter, and I could see the spirit. I said, “Doc, you're going to be more valuable down here,” and just then Jonathan appeared and said, “Dad, I think we have Harry.”

I then heard a voice, and it was Dennis Collins from Ladder 111. “Lee,” he said, “what do you need?” I told him they might have Harry Ford, and to get a stretcher. I turned back and saw they were carrying somebody, and we got to a spot where we could transfer whoever it was to the stretcher. They brought him over, and it was Harry Ford. Jonathan knew Harry well, because they lived near each other, and because the rescue units and the squads are very tight. And I had known Harry for an eternity, as he was a longtime firefighter in Rescue 4, and we worked together countless times.

To look at Harry, he seemed fine, but he wasn't breathing, as he had been compressed far too long under the wall that had come down. We began rolling the stretcher down the street, and somebody was riding along on its rail, doing [CPR heart] compressions on Harry. The ambulance was at the end of the block, and when we got there we began clearing Harry's airway. As we loaded the stretcher onto the ambulance, a hand came out and pulled me in, and it was Jonathan's. Kerry Kelly was already there, and maybe an EMT. As soon as the door was closed behind us we started CPR. I can remember vividly Jonathan talking to Harry, and I was yelling at him, trying to get his brain focused. “Harry! Harry! I want you to hear me, we are working on you, and you better not die on me.” Jonathan got a great airway going, Kerry was taking vitals, and I was doing compressions. When you do compressions you can feel the exchange of air coming in and going out of the lungs, and if you're trained you can actually feel the person's heart being compressed, like a heartbeat. I thought we were going all right and told Harry, “We're doing good, we've got great airway!”

When we got to the hospital we took him out, and it was there that the photographs of Jonathan and me were taken. We continued working on him in the emergency room for a while until the doctor said he could take over from here. But Harry had been crushed for so long that the air we had been giving him and the compressions weren't enough.

So Harry died, and John Downing died, and Brian Fahey died. Fahey was missing for a long time, but you could hear him calling on his walkie-talkie. But he was underneath the stairs, and no one could reach him or get down to him. He was Jonathan's friend from 288, whom I had met a week or two before at a convention. This was a very sad fire, and it is still baffling how all of this happened, the explosion, the wall.

Little did we realize that September 11 was only a couple of months away, and on that day everybody who came to the towers from Rescue 4 would die. And Jonathan, and everybody from the two companies in his firehouse, Squad 288 and HazMat 1, died, nineteen of them. Five Rescue Companies in the city responded that day to the World Trade Center, and because the alarm came in at the time of a shift change, men from both the night tour and the day tour responded with many of the companies. They rode heavy. Every Rescue Company firefighter there that day died. Five of the seven Squad Companies were there, four riding heavy. Every man in every Squad Company died except for one. Seventy-five firehouses lost men, and many of them lost every man working. There are 128 firefighters still missing. How can you comprehend that? There is no way to understand it. The New York City Police Department lost twenty-two great guys and a wonderful, heroic woman, Moira Smith. On any other day the deaths of twenty-three cops would be front-page news around the world. Port Authority lost thirty-seven of their police officers. I just cannot get over September 11: 343 firefighters killed. It's difficult to even say that. It makes no sense.

In the Fire Department we lose men every year. You can't expect to not lose men, because they serve a special and dangerous function that's needed in New York City. Especially in New York, where there is such a large fire load. We lost three men at the Father's Day fire, six men at the Waldbaum's fire in Brooklyn, thirteen men at the Twenty-third Street fire. But 343. You know, I still can't . . .

I don't know how to put the right words together. When I go into Gallery 4 at the Tribute Center I have the marvelous, God-given opportunity to talk not only about the people who died that day but also about our firefighters. I get to explain to people that what they did at the towers was nothing more than what they did every day before 9/11, and what they've continued to do to this very day. And that it's what they loved to do. And that they go into places where nobody wants to go. Few people can imagine what a wonderful opportunity it is to be a New York City firefighter, to work with the best of the best. Every one of us understands that it is the teamwork of the New York City Fire Department that matters: the training and the caring and the courage of everyone—these are the things that give every firefighter the opportunity to put himself forward at mortal risk to rescue another human being.

The Fire Department is filled with unique individuals, and Jonathan was one of them. When Jonathan first went into the Fire Department, I was still a Brooklyn firefighter. Jonathan came back a couple of times saying, “Dad, guys are talking about you and what you did, the boots I have to fill.” And I'd say, “Listen, from this day forward, the boots you have to fill are your own boots, not mine. You do what you have to do at the job, and don't let anyone tell you you have boots to fill. Don't let them make me out of you.” I said the same thing to Brendan: “You can't, and you shouldn't, go through this job as Lee Ielpi's son. You are Brendan Ielpi.”

Firefighters are still firefighters, and 9/11 did not change that.

Brendan Ielpi is a New York City firefighter assigned to Ladder Co. 157 in Brooklyn. He was a probationary firefighter for just three months when the attack on the World Trade Center occurred. He responded to Ground Zero with other firefighters who had reported in, arriving there just after the second building collapsed. His father, Lee Ielpi, a retired firefighter from Rescue Co. 2, also responded to the site. Lee's son and Brendan's brother, Jonathan, and every man in his company, Squad 288, was killed in the South Tower.

 

 

 

F
or a while I didn't know if I would actually go into the Fire Department. I did four years of college up in Colesville[, New York]. The school was outside in the woods, so I got my bachelor's degree in wildlife management. I loved it, and I still do—I can't get enough of the outdoors, studying the birds and the amphibians. My first job out of college was at the fish hatchery and aquarium in Cold Spring Harbor, but I was only making nineteen thousand dollars. I really wanted to continue in that field, but it was hard to even make a living.

I grew up in Great Neck in a pretty big family. We had two sisters—an older sister and a younger sister—and Jonathan and I were in the middle. Jonathan was four years older than me. And we were a Fire Department family. My father, Lee Ielpi, worked at Rescue 2 in Brooklyn, and is known as one of the most highly decorated firefighters in the history of the FDNY. My brother, Jonathan Ielpi, worked for Squad 288 in Queens. And he also served as chief for the Great Neck volunteer fire department.

So it was a big part of my family, and joining the FDNY had always been an idea at the back of my head, but I guess I was a little rebellious initially, trying not to follow in everyone's footsteps.

Still, I always remember seeing how happy my father was with the Fire Department and how much he loved the job. Actually, he never even called it a job—[he] was always “going to play.” Every once in a while, when I was younger, I would go visit my father at Rescue 2, but not nearly as often as my brother. Jonathan lived and breathed the Fire Department. His Friday night was not going out and picking up girls; it was the fire truck. And so my father and Jonathan really bonded through the job. For me the bond with my father was through the outdoors, fishing, and camping.