Keeping 9/11 relevant

by Marianne Gasaway

The Clear Lake Fire Department honored its commitment to keep the 9/11 tragedy fresh and relevant in the the minds of North Iowans with a memorial service held Sunday.

The Rev. Dean C. Hess,  a retired member of the CLFD, presented the keynote address.

“I feel like while I am honored by this invitation, I also feel a great burden has been placed upon me to do justice to this day with all of its suffering and trauma and shock that was experienced by so many in a very direct and ever lingering way,” Hess told the audience of about 150.  “While there are many of us who remember that day very clearly there will be others who have no memory of it because they are not old enough.  We have to remember that there are recent college graduates who probably have absolutely no memory of that September day.  And so, they perhaps wonder why our recollections are so strong and why we seem to hold to them so tenaciously.

Hess clearly recalls being on the way to a meeting when he learned of “something happening in New York.”  On a small TV he saw a news bulletin come across announcing that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.  

“As we watched the horror that was unfolding, a second plane hit the other tower and we all instantly realized that this was no accident, but a deliberate act of terrorism.  We were all in shock as was nearly everyone in the country that day.  We felt confused and frightened and wondered what it all meant and who could have done this.  We had not yet heard of the attack on the Pentagon much less the crash of the fourth plane in Pennsylvania.”

Amid the confusion his son, Nathan, called from Japan.   At that time, he was in the Navy and stationed on a guided missile frigate based in Yokosuka, Japan tasked with hunting pirates in the Molucca Straights in southeast Asia.   “He was incensed and furious that something like this could happen on “his watch” as he put it,” Hess explained. Their call was abruptly ended when Nathan’s company was called to general quarters in response to an order from President Bush.

“On that day 17,400 people were working in the Twin Trade Towers. The North Tower from which this piece of steel comes was hit first at 8:46 a.m. and it fell at 10:28 a.m.  The South Tower was hit at 9:03 a.m. and fell at 9:59 a.m. That day, 2,977, mostly civilians, died and 6,000 were injured.  That is 500 more killed and 5,000 more injured than at Pearl Harbor.  Of those victims 2,753 died at World Trade Center, 200 of them jumped or fell to their death. One-Hundred eighty-four died at the Pentagon and 40 died on United Airlines flight 93 in Pennsylvania,” Hess reported.  

Three-hundred and forty-three firefighters were also lost that day. The most deaths of firefighters in one day in American history.

“I am personally haunted by three stark images from that day,” said Hess.  “The first is the wrenchingly awful image of people plunging to their deaths from the towers.  I cannot imagine the horror they must have experienced.”  

“The second scene that haunts me are the images of the stairways in the towers with the victims streaming down one side of the stairs and firefighters going up the other side of the stairs. 

“The third stark image that haunts my reflective moments is one we encountered when some of us traveled to New York to pick up the piece of steel that you see here today.  Because we were getting that relic of the disaster, we were allowed into the highly secured area where debris from the towers was stored.  I will never forget the site of the fire apparatus that had responded to that call crushed and shattered by the debris of the buildings that feel on them when the towers collapsed.”  

Hess said that for those members of the CLFD who traveled to New York to bring back a piece of steel to North Iowa,  it was a once in a lifetime experience.  

“Even with all of the extraordinary experiences we had during our trip out east, for me by far the most moving, significant, and surprising experience was during the last few miles of our journey here back to Clear Lake. There had been press coverage of our trip, but we never expected the welcome we would receive on the way home.  Our first encounter was at the Fire Fighter Memorial in Iowa City where representatives of the Iowa City and Coralville fire departments were there to greet us on our way home.  We also stopped at the Charles City Fire Department and there we picked up a motorcycle escort.  We went through Rudd and Nora Springs and Mason City and all along the way there were fire apparatus and civilians lining the streets and waving their greeting.  That continued all the way from Mason City back to Clear Lake.  Hundreds of people lined the roads.  Of course, they weren’t really there to great us, but to greet the relic we brought back and all it symbolized and represented in suffering, death, heroism, and community service.”

The department is very proud of the memorial and all it means, Hess added.  

“Our original design for the memorial called for the piece of steel to be surrounded by a reflecting pool.  But the Port Authority would not let us display it that way.  They insisted that the steel had to be accessible so that people could walk up to it and touch it and feel some of the hard reality of that horrible day.  That piece of steel came from the north tower and those towers were a thousand feet tall.  I have often wondered how far this piece of steel fell.  I encourage you to walk up and touch it and take a moment to once again call to mind all that happened that fateful day.”