I’ve been lurking for a while, enjoying LBO poster’s spice. I thought folks might appreciate James Creedon’s moving first-hand account as a NYC-911 paramedic. He’s now in Cuba studying medicine.
Charlie
[There’s a nice pdf of this, (good for handing out), at http://www.freedomroad.org/antiwar_creedon.html]
9/11 ONE YEAR LATER: THE THOUGHTS OF A NYC PARAMEDIC
By James Creedon
On the morning of September 11th, I awoke to the now-famous image of the Twin Towers burning on my television screen. As a NYC-911 paramedic, I had been trained over and over again for different types of disasters--bombings, chemical spills, building collapses. And growing up under Reagan and Bush, I was accustomed to seeing images of violence on my TV--Nicaragua, Panama, the Gulf War. But on that morning, every line became blurred and every image came together into the most deeply affecting day of my life.
As I put on my uniform, geared up and drove to downtown Manhattan, I could see the plumes of smoke billowing out towards the sea. "We're under attack," said the radio. America was under attack. Innocent people were dying, and no one could understand why now, why here, why us.
I arrived on scene, and quickly found my Lieutenant. We started setting up a treatment station a few hundred feet from the South Tower, trying to help people move away from the area. Already, we could hear the sound of falling bodies hitting the ground. Already, we could see the remains of people on the pavement around us. But we had to stay focused; we pushed aside our own fears for the sake of helping others.
And then the air changed, and our hearts stopped: looking up, we saw a giant black cloud reaching out over us and starting to rain stone. First it was pebbles, then rocks, then girders. All of us ran for safety, some diving under fire trucks and ambulances, others running towards the nearest building. As I ran, my helmet was knocked off my head by a piece of debris. Then came the shockwave, throwing each of us through the air. And then the blackness.
I was breathing through my shirt, gasping for air, each breath bringing more dust and ash into my lungs. The sound of falling girders was tremendous, as was the roar of burning ambulances. People all around were crying for help, and I urged them to stay calm. As black turned to brown, we linked arms with each person we found and walked by the light of the fires. We had to wash out eyes, get oxygen and bandages to the wounded, move those who could walk away from the area. I was carrying a young girl in my arms, ready to load her onto a police boat, when the North Tower came down. We all ran south for safety, I with a little girl in my arms, and a mother somewhere balancing her fear for her life with her trust in me to take care of her child.
September 11th was a long day. I was hurt in the collapse, but wanted to keep working. We had four men from our squad who were in those towers and were unaccounted for. Another had been dug out of the first collapse only to barely escape the second. And still others were like me--hurt, but unwilling to speak up for fear that they would take us away from the site.
LIFE AND DEATH CHOICES
"How could they jump," I was asked. An hour earlier, they were, say, prep cooks at Windows on the World, trying to make a decent salary to feed their families and make a life for themselves. And now they had to choose between burning to death, or jumping. An innocent person, caught up in something so much larger than themselves, but forced to make the decision nonetheless. "How could they jump?"
On October 9, 2001, George W. Bush began bombing Afghanistan. Within a few days he destroyed a food warehouse of the Red Cross, a marketplace full of innocent civilians, and an office where four United Nations workers were coordinating efforts to de-mine Afghanistan--the most heavily mined country in the world. In a week, he had driven the majority of humanitarian aid agencies out of that country. To counter criticism, he pointed to his small program of food drops, widely criticized by these same agencies.
And so there came a choice for the people of Afghanistan--starve to death without markets and food supplies, or risk being blown up by a land mine in an attempt to reach the (very) few food packages that were dropped into dangerous areas. Just weeks earlier, these people had been working each day, trying to feed their families and get a better life. And now, their lives were being turned upside-down by a war they knew little to nothing about.
TAKING UP RESPONSIBILITIES
After the North Tower collapsed, I found myself with this small child in my arms, but no mother in sight. I couldn't possibly take care of her myself--there were so many people hurt, so many other tasks to be done. And so I called into a crowd of people, huddling in a temporary shelter we had set up: "Can someone take care of this child?" Out of the crowd came an older woman, and took her from my arms. How long would she have to take care of her? How would she find the mother? How would she protect both herself and the child?
But for her, there were no questions of race, or gender, or class, or religion. She never asked me for a reward, her face never made the papers as a hero. She stepped up and took on responsibility for the life of someone else, in a context where her own prospects were uncertain. And she did it without hesitation.
Within hours of the attacks, people began to gather in Union Square. By nightfall, there was a growing vigil. And by the next day, a scene of flowers and candles, music and tears, stories and knowing glances. Soon, signs for peace began to be posted. People started holding vigils in their communities, in their churches, in their very homes. And out of this came the beginnings of an anti-war movement. Jews started volunteering to walk with both Muslim and non-Muslim Arabs to ensure their safety on the streets. Vietnam veterans began to talk about their experiences with those of my age, who were just entering high school as the Gulf War was happening. Organizations that had never before heard of each other, or who had long-standing tensions, began to work on projects together-sometimes because the personal loss overwhelmed political differences.
Before any of us knew it, we were a movement. And we could feel ourselves growing as a movement. Tens of thousands in Washington, and again in Times Square. And more importantly, hundreds of small events in towns and cities throughout the country, with words that still ring clear, like "Not In Our Name" and "Our Grief is Not a Cry for War."
In each place, people from an incredible array of backgrounds came together to take on responsibility for stopping injustice where they saw it: in Bush's War on Terrorism. Even as they were cautioned by White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer that they should "watch what they say," they said it loud and clear. In some places, this growing movement found rejection and resentment. But in many others, the reality of popular opinion became clear: many feared to speak out against the war, but with a growing movement came a growing number of voices. Without hesitation, even as our own prospects were uncertain, we came together to struggle against the killing of more innocent people-and we discovered that we were not alone. There were no questions of "How long will we have to do this?" or "Can we really challenge these policies?" First came the deeper impulse, the desire to stop injustice and to take up responsibility in that struggle. First the commitment, then the questions of how.
FACING REALITY
As I write this, almost one year later, I can still remember every instant of that day, and of the weeks of searching that followed. I remember when they identified the bodies of our fallen brothers and sisters, one as recently as a few weeks ago. And I still feel deeply the waves of pain, loss, confusion, rage, and sorrow that went through me after 9/11. I still see it in the eyes of other paramedics who were there with me, and in the faces of the families and friends of people who died because of those two explosions.
On television I see that Palestinian ambulances are being shot at, that paramedics just like me are being killed by Israeli soldiers, even as they have asthmatic children in the back needing urgent treatment. I read that Bush wants to invade Iraq, against the opinion of even most US allies and the UN, knowing that women in labor there are giving birth to children with birth defects due to the radioactive weapons used by the US. And I hear about increased aid to Colombia and the Philippines in the "War on Terror," while hundreds of thousands of peasants and workers struggling against poverty and sickness are seeing their leaders massacred.
With every bomb I read about, every weapons sale that is revealed, I see Ground Zero. In every "accidental" killing of people in a wedding party in Afghanistan, or "unfortunate" destruction in Palestine of an apartment building full of children, I see Ground Zero.
September 11th taught us many lessons, and the struggle over what those lessons are and how they should be put into effect will continue on. But I can speak most honestly from my own experience when I see the deaths of innocent people being reported on television. In one hour, I saw three thousand people die. And on that day I vowed "never again." Neither here, nor in any other country.
Now is the time for us to redouble our efforts against the "War on Terror." We must bring together all those who believe that another world is possible. We must continue to put pressure on those in the government who are pushing this war forward, and must use every means at our disposal to change their course.
One year later, I will have a time of silence to remember the thousands of innocent people who died that day, and who have died since. And then I will join the millions of people around the world who proudly proclaim: "This silence is ours, and we end it as we began it--with a commitment to the global struggle for justice and peace."
James Creedon is a former student activist in the City University of New York and is currently studying medicine in Cuba.
__________________________________________________ Yahoo! - We Remember 9-11: A tribute to the more than 3,000 lives lost http://dir.remember.yahoo.com/tribute