A Decade of Hope

by Dennis Smith

  I got home at maybe 4:30 in the morning but couldn’t sleep more than an hour. I was back on the site by 8:00 A.M. and spent pretty much the next forty-eight hours straight there. When I finally went home again, I again first stopped to see my mother. My brother Kevin was there, and he asked if he could work with me. He wasn’t a fireman, so I said, No, you can’t go; it’s too dangerous. He didn’t argue with me, and Kevin and I always argued. We shared a room for twenty years, so there was sibling rivalry all the time.

  But Kevin was certainly capable of doing the things I was doing, and I had to stop myself there. Who was I to not let him go and look for his brothers ? So I picked him up the following morning, on Saturday. We went to my firehouse, and I gave him my extra set of gear. At that point they were busing guys to the 15th Division and would deploy them from there. Over the course of a couple of days I kind of figured out where each of them had been at the time of the collapse. I knew the Brooklyn companies were in the South Tower. I talked to some guys from Ladder 113 who survived the collapse, and they said that Ladder 132 had been right behind them, so they almost made it. I figured if they were in the lobby when that building collapsed, they’d have been cremated or were all the way down in the rubble. I’d heard that Timmy was in the North Tower, and Tommy was in the South, so I focused half my day on each pile of rubble.

  One day we reached a really hairy spot, where there was a large void, almost a cavern, under the South Tower. It was like being in the barrel of a wave, and you could see the impression of each floor in this barrel, everything had been crushed so tightly. To me it looked as if ten floors had been compressed into a space of two feet, and it literally curved over us. The image brought memories. Growing up on the water, my brothers and I always surfed, and we all used to love to get that wave and get in the barrel, which was the highlight of any surfer’s day.

  I insisted that Kevin stay outside, as I didn’t want anything to happen to him, and there was plenty for him to do on the pile. The radiant heat in the void was so intense that you always had to do a shuffle to keep your gear protecting you, to prevent parts of your body from getting too hot. To understand how hot that environment was, the only things there were either ash, steel, rebar, or concrete. Everything else was smoldering. If any paper landed it would ignite. We went about fifty yards into this cavern when it made a turn, and then got tighter and tighter, and everything was shifting. It was getting a little scary, and I thought that there was no way that anybody could be alive in here.

  We were getting ready to come back out when one of the guys grabbed me and said, “The lieutenant wants to see you.” When I came out of the void, my lieutenant, Frank, was there with a cell phone in his hand, and I just knew that look right away. I said, “Which one was it?” He said they found Timmy. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe they had found him in all of this. And as Frank told me that they found Timmy, I noticed a Bible sitting just off to my left, and Kevin was standing next to it. I don’t know why, but I just instinctively reached for this Bible. It was a Gideon’s Bible, I guess from the Marriott Hotel, and Kevin later took it and held it for the rest of the day. I thought it was so extraordinary that at the exact moment I learned of my brother’s death there was a Bible close by. It hadn’t been there before, because I would have seen it. The only thing that may have happened is that there were operations going on above us, and this Bible must have been dislodged from somewhere and tumbled down. But it was extraordinary, and I still have it. I have never been an especially religious person, but I do believe that there is a life hereafter, and maybe that was some kind of sign—my brothers letting me know that they are all right. That’s what I choose to believe. That’s what helps me tremendously emotionally. The thought that we will all be together again.

  Timmy was in the North Tower, and he was in the lead team. He had worked the night before and was still in the firehouse when the first plane hit. He and a couple of other guys from the night tour grabbed some gear and headed down to the site. There’s actually a quick video snippet of him going up the stairs of the North Tower. He made it up more than forty floors before the collapse. As his team was going up, they came across a man who was having a heart attack, so they stopped to help him out. They were actually going to evacuate him, but the staircase that they had come up was just not viable for that, as there were just too many people on it. One of the firefighters, Pat Murphy from Squad 18, found another staircase, which was hardly being used, but when he came back, Timmy was gone. He had left the man who was having a heart attack with a Port Authority police officer and told the officer something about a Mayday: A firefighter needed help a few floors up. Timmy ran to help him.

  Pat and the police officer started to bring the guy down, which took them a long time, and just as the three of them got to the lobby, the building started to fall. The pressure that was created by the collapse generated a tremendous force of wind, which literally blew them off their feet and out onto the street. All three of them survived.

  One of the guys who found Timmy had worked with both my brothers. He tried to describe the scene of the recovery, but I didn’t need the graphic details, and my only question to him was, “Was he intact?” And he told me that he was. I said, “Then that’s all we can ask for.” I was grateful for that. He had been with other guys from the squad, so he wasn’t alone, and there was some solace in that. Beneath them were civilians, and it was almost as if they had been sheltering them. I remember feeling just a tremendous sense of pride at the courage Timmy showed and the chances he took. He’s heroic in every sense of the word. What is a hero? Firefighters are heroes. Guys like my brother Timmy, what they did . . . All those guys who were lost. They are the heroes. Firemen might do heroic things all the time, but you get to be a hero only once.

  After I got the news about Timmy, I wanted to get home to talk to my mother. They were using retired fire chiefs to notify the families, so I knew someone would be going to the house. I wanted to be the one to tell her, to be there with her. Just after I got home, two real old-timers arrived in dress uniforms, there to break the news. I told them I already had and offered them a drink, but they just wanted to express their condolences. The way the department was making these notifications was tastefully done, but I just felt it should come from me.

  We buried Timmy a few days later. I remember when I delivered Timmy’s eulogy I was struck by how few people were at his funeral. When you think of a line-of-duty funeral, you usually think of a sea of blue fifty blocks long. But not that day. Except for Congressman Peter King, none of the elected officials showed up, which again was understandable, though unusual for a line-of-duty funeral. But Pete King made a point of being there, and I will never forget that. I know that he was busy with his work in Washington, and I felt a tremendous amount of respect and gratitude.

  I’d never delivered a eulogy before, but my sister asked me to. The whole experience was so overwhelming: I would literally go to the site, dig all day looking for Tommy, and come home to go to Timmy’s wake at night. Then back to the site in the morning. I didn’t have a lot of time to write a eulogy, and I’m not known to be a public speaker. But I woke up the morning of Timmy’s funeral and just started thinking of things I wanted to say. I didn’t need to write them out, as I knew Timmy’s life.

  And at the end of my eulogy I said, “You know, we may find ourselves back here again, eventually, for my brother Tommy. But I’m not worried about Tommy, because wherever Tommy is, I know Timmy has his arm around him.” I remember looking at my mother right then and, oh, my God, this woman has lost two sons, and I couldn’t imagine. The death of two brothers to me cannot compare to a parent’s losing two of her children like this. My grief could not be near to what my mother must have been feeling. I was so very conscious of that.

  I’ve always loved my mother. She is a beautiful and strong woman. I’ve never met anyone as strong as she, which was evident in the way she carried herself through all that grief. I’m sure I got
from my mother the fortitude to move on from 9/11, to deal with my own great sense of loss.

  We never found Tommy. I overhead some guys from Ladder 113 talking, and they said that Ladder 105 was right behind them, and Ladder 132 was right near them. They had to have been heading out of the building. Once I heard that he was down near the lobby, I knew that there was no way we would find him. The only reason we found Timmy was because he was so high up when the North Tower collapsed, and so he was basically on top of the pile.

  All the news organizations and papers began calling us once they heard about Tommy and Timmy, the two brothers, both firefighters and both lost. I was busy at the Trade Center and didn’t have time. The Today show kept calling and calling to interview me, and I kept saying no. But then we found Timmy, and I thought it would give me a chance to talk about my brothers, to let the world know what they had done, and so I agreed to it. Early on the Monday after 9/11, Matt Lauer showed up via video, and I was live on the Today show from Ground Zero. He asked me about my brothers. I told him that we’d found Timmy. I said I’d be spending the day working at the site, and then I’d be leaving to go to Timmy’s wake that night. That’s how I left the interview.

  Right after the interview we found a girl. I remember seeing her arm sticking out in a void at the site. I jumped down and started helping another firefighter, who was digging at all the ash around her. She must have died from asphyxiation, as she was buried in a couple feet of ash with very little trauma, because the steel had sheltered her from any falling debris. She was young and pretty, though it was beyond the point where they would be able to have an open casket for her. She had a crust of dirt all over her, so I took a bottle of water I had in my coat and cleaned her face, just trying to make her presentable before the body bag got there. We put her in the bag and sent her on her way. It was such a poignant and memorable moment to have found her just after I’d been talking about finding Timmy and looking for Tommy. I was so grateful to get this girl to her family. It was a rare experience down there—rare that anybody would get any remains of a loved one back, let alone intact. She was the only intact body that I remember seeing down there. Everyone else . . . was body parts, fragments.

  I have always been an optimistic person, and I was determined not to sit around and feel sorry for myself. I was thirty-two years old then, with two young boys, and I wanted to live my life. I knew this was an extraordinary event, and that it would be part of my life for the rest of my life. As much horror as I’ve experienced at losing Tommy and Timmy, there’s been a whole other facet of the experience that I’ve been grateful for: the extraordinary people whom I have met over the last ten years whom I never would have met otherwise. I’ve been to the White House twice and met President Bush four times. It’s surreal when I look back on it, knowing that I wouldn’t have had these opportunities had it not been for 9/11—not that I wouldn’t trade it all to have my brothers back, and everybody else back, and for the world to be normal again. I’m always conscious of the opportunities I have to do good, whether it be to help a wounded soldier or to find ways to keep the memories of my brothers, and of all the people that we lost that day, alive.

  After 9/11, my family organized a golf outing in memory of Tommy and Timmy—The Haskell Brothers Memorial Golf Outing. We hold it the Thursday of every Memorial Day weekend. This will be our tenth year, and we’ve probably raised about $150,000 in total. We donate to the FDNY Fire Family Transport Foundation and the New York Firefighters Burn Center. And because my son Ryan is handicapped, we’ve donated money to a special needs event out on Long Island. This past year we also gave to a firefighter cancer support group.

  The whole family comes down to help at the golf outing. It’s always a great day. The guy who runs the golf course adores my mother, and so he gives us whatever we need. And then, following the golf, we do a dinner, which my wife pretty much runs, including the raffles. We have a keynote speaker every year, and we never know who it’s going to be until that day. For the last couple of years we’ve also been joined by many wounded guys from the military, and I’ve asked them to speak, because I think they find it therapeutic. For the last three years each of their stories has been more remarkable than the last. You can hear a pin drop when they are talking, and that’s not an easy thing to do when you’ve got a room full of 150 drunken firemen. But we truly understand the incredible courage that they’ve shown in their actions, and it’s a great honor to have them with us.

  One of the organizations that we love to support is the FDNY Fire Family Transport Foundation, which I am on the board of. We transport families when a firefighter is sent to a burn unit, or if there is a line-of-duty funeral. Before the attacks they only had two vans, but after 9/11, I heard about all these vans being donated. I said that’s a really great cause and something good that we can do.

  Since 9/11 the Fire Department has seen how much good Fire Family Transport has done, and so they’ve linked the foundation to the Family Assistance Unit. All the vans are privately donated, and each company handles the maintenance and provides fuel. The vehicles have FDNY markings, so they can be used in No Standing zones around hospitals. A van is assigned to a particular firehouse, and then it’s up to the firefighters to volunteer to staff it. As well as making it a lot easier for families when firefighters get hurt, the foundation has evolved over the years, and we now also use these vans to help our wounded soldiers, which is helping build a unique relationship between the FDNY and the military.

  One regret I have is not having joined the military—not because of what happened on 9/11, and not in a vindictive spirit. I’m grateful, though, that I’ve been able to work with Hope for the Warriors, which is one of our main charities for the golf outing. It’s a big organization started by wives to support their wounded loved ones, and they’re bringing in multimillions of dollars. They’ll provide whatever wounded troops need, like building a house for a quadruple amputee who lives on Staten Island. Just this past year, we gave them fifteen thousand dollars.

  I’ve met so many extraordinary people over the years, wounded veterans and military personnel, and I’m always struck by the fact that their character is second to none. Despite the trauma that these guys have experienced in their lives, they still have a positive attitude, and their patriotism, and all the wonderful things you want to see in an American. I find these guys truly inspiring.

  To be able to impact somebody’s life in the ways we’ve been able to with the money we’ve raised is the greatest thing, as is the opportunity, even after a decade, to get together once a year and have the golf outing, a day when all of us spend the day talking about Tommy and Timmy. Each year I continue to hear new stories about them.

  This is the way I’ve chosen to live my life post-9/11, but others have taken different routes. Just look at what Lee Ielpi’s done [see page 98], truly extraordinary things—starting the Tribute WTC Visitor Center at Ground Zero, speaking about 9/11 all over the world. Guys like Lee are unique in having the strength to do the things they do.

  Since 9/11, I’ve always wanted to be around like-minded people. When you experience trauma in your life, it’s very important that you’re around good people. Some family members affected by the tragedy have taken up conspiracy theories, blamed the government for everything, and were just bitter. Others have kind of crawled into a hole, or they’ve latched on to political issues that have just paralyzed their lives. I do not want to be that kind of person. You control your own destiny, and if you are around misery, you’re going to be miserable.

  I always say that my brothers were the first casualties in the war on terror. And here we are, ten years removed, and we’re still fighting that war. As we become further removed from 9/11, one of the biggest emotions I feel is frustration that people fail to remember what we all went through. What happened to “We Will Never Forget”? I don’t want my children to experience what I experienced. And they will if we’re not brave enough or honest enough to address the real issues. I
just hate to hear a politician get up and talk about the beautiful, peaceful religion of Islam. Well, maybe there’s a small minority who’ve perverted the religion and espouse hatred, but they’re still using that religion and their beliefs to attack and murder innocent people. We need a leader with the courage to address this for what it is, and to resolve it. This is not a problem that we can wish away; the only solution is going to be a military solution. The world that our children are going to grow up in is going to be a very dangerous one, and I don’t want to see that for my kids. I don’t want them to shed as many tears as I have because of terrorism.

  I remember going to the christening of the USS New York, which has five tons of the World Trade Center steel built into its hull. The story of how the ship came to be, and the fact that the name was available again for a ship at that time in history, is pretty extraordinary. I was thinking about my father, who had died in 1994, and what he, as a marine, would be feeling on this day. After meeting the captain of the ship. I thanked him for his service and told him, “My father was a marine, and I don’t think there would be anything he would want to stand for more than what we’re standing for right now.”

  I don’t know if you want to call it retribution for those who took Tommy’s and Timmy’s lives, but that that ship is a warship that is going to go out on the seas of the world and do incredible things—it’s really in the spirit of the way those cops and firemen sacrificed their lives on 9/11.

  These days when I’m not working at the firehouse, I support my family with a second job, in the trade my father taught me. I used to own my own contracting business, but it got to be too much with two jobs—it was just easier for me to go work for somebody else. My wife, Genene, works as well. So many of my friends now are out of work, losing their jobs. I’ve always had the ability to support myself because of the skills I have, and I really hope to pass them on to my older son, Kenny. He’s a lot like I was when I was I young: good with his hands and very inquisitive—maybe a little smarter, though. I have two boys: Kenny’s eleven and Ryan is nine.