A Decade of Hope (60 page)

He said, “Go to bed, and call us in the morning.”

And in my state of shock I actually tried to do that. I don't know what time it was by then. And I actually tried to do that. I'll never forget it. Of course I didn't sleep. I prayed all night. Then this doom and this dark cloud began engulfing me. I was so religious at that point, and I prayed and prayed, to all the saints: prayers from twelve years of Catholic school, all those prayers that I knew from my years with the healing ministry in the Catholic Church, the rosary and the Memorare.

When Christian was in the Marine Corps I used to worry about him. I had everybody praying for him. I had rabbis praying. I had nuns—I used to send money to these nuns, adopt a nun, you know, to pray for him.

In the early morning a feeling came over me that I wanted to be with Christian. I never could believe that anything happened to him, but something inside of me was drawing me to him, like I wouldn't have cared if I died, if I could just be near to him.

But there was no knock at the door. There was no Fire Department chaplain in uniform with the “We regret to inform you.” No one ever said to me, “Your son is dead,” because they don't know what happened to him. They don't know what happened to his whole company, all five men. In all my efforts so far, I have not been successful in finding out one single thing about what happened to my son. When was he assigned to the Trade Center? What time did he get there? What building was he directed to? What was he supposed to accomplish? Why was he sent into a building that most of the people had already evacuated, that had no water, no communication with radios? And the city of New York had no plans for terrorism, no plans for a disaster. To this day the advocacy work that I have engaged in has been to try to make sure that no other mother will ever hear those dreaded words “He is unaccounted for.” And that the system will not be allowed to get away with murder.

The worst part of 9/11 was losing such a precious gem of a human being for society—not just my loss, but what he could have done for this world. After his death I learned many things about Christian's life, great things that I had not known before. Christian was very self-contained. He was really a follower of all religions, but especially Buddhism, in which one of the principles is to keep your gems hidden. So he never told me about the heroic things he did. He never told me anything about the Marine Corps—he didn't want me to worry or suffer. After 9/11, though, there was a gathering of people from all over the country who knew him and loved him—from the marines, from college, and others he had met here and there. His girlfriend told me that they experienced a typhoon in Belize so severe that she was actually drowning. Christian saved her life. I never knew that before. One of the firefighters told me a story about when Christian went to a fire in the Red Hook projects. There had been a report of a fire or smoke, and there were lots of Spanish immigrants living there, and one woman wouldn't open the door. What do you do when someone doesn't understand English? The lieutenant and the firefighters started talking loudly, and there was so much yelling that they couldn't make any headway. But all of a sudden Christian stepped forward and started speaking to her in the most wonderful Spanish. The whole fire company almost collapsed in surprise. They didn't know he spoke Spanish. They didn't know he had been a marine. They didn't know he was a rock climber and a mountain climber, because he never disclosed it. But he was just so good at being a firefighter, a straightaway guy, that they were shocked when they found out.

The second worst thing about 9/11 is that in the whole system there was not one iota of accountability or responsibility on any level, from the city of New York to the Fire Department to the Police Department, for the lack of an integrated command.

When I stood in Christian's room on the thirtieth floor in Co-op City, when I actually witnessed the towers collapsing, instinctively I couldn't accept it. I didn't know that Christian was in there, but still I could not accept it. The tallest, largest buildings in the world, designed to hold the largest amount of people, that they would go down like pillars of salt.... I couldn't accept that, ever. I couldn't accept that 343 firefighters, and nearly 3,000 people, were killed. In my mind, I started to absorb information like an activist.

Then I saw an article by John Jay College professors Glenn Corbett and Charles Jennings calling for a wider investigation of the systems and policies used by our government on 9/11. At that time Mr. Frank Gribbon, the public communications person for the Fire Department, was saying in the
Daily News
that we didn't need any further investigation. I had to deal with a mentality that said “We don't need to look further into anything. We can handle it.” Some of us rejected that and started calling for a wider investigation. We led families to Washington, D.C., to the House Finance Committee hearing, to insist upon a federal investigation into what happened. It was then that the problem of the firefighters' radios started to emerge. There was the fact that the same-style radios had failed the firefighters in 1993. They were not able to communicate in the first attack on the World Trade Center. They were flawed. They were Motorola radios, and somehow the Fire Department had no power, because there was a higher level of the city of New York that had contracts with the company that provided the radios. Between 1993 and 2001 there was little to nothing done to improve them. There was an attempt to bring in another type of radio, but apparently they were too advanced or too different. They were put out on the streets to the firefighters, and there were problems with them, so they were immediately shelved, and the old radios were brought back. When 2001 came along, the Fire Department was still equipped with radios that did not work properly in certain big New York City buildings. I never would have recommended that my son join the Fire Department if I had known that the entire Fire Department had radios that did not work predictably. I also didn't know that my son wouldn't even have a radio, and that, I think, it was one person in the whole unit who would have a radio, maybe two people and an officer. I didn't know that until years after 9/11. Little by little I found out more and more.

On 9/11, I was an innocent person. When I got up there on the altar of Saint Patrick's Cathedral on October 26, 2001, and made my speech about my son and about what happened to him, I was looking into a sea of blue who knew the truth. But they were either afraid for me to know or there was this terrible guilt that firefighters had. I know it's the guilt of the survivor, and I know that some of my son's friends in the Fire Department have become racked with guilt. Their lives have been destroyed, and I would never want that. They should not have guilt. The system that controls the Fire Department should have guilt.

I didn't know the truth then, but thank God I found wonderful mentors like Glenn Corbett and Charles Jenning. People like Vincent Dunn, the iconic deputy chief who is an expert on building collapse. People like Al Fuentes, battalion chief, and many other wonderful people. Little by little I found out about the conditions under which the heroic firefighters were sent into those towers. I had to be very careful in the beginning because the Fire Department was not used to a probie's mother speaking out about failures in a system that caused 343 brothers to be massacred. There was a lot of push back, and for me to stick up and question what had happened, it was like I was a heretic.

Little by little I found out about a bizarre contract with Motorola that grew suddenly from a small amount to a huge amount of money. It was a history characterized by such impropriety and, I would say, by a wanton disregard for the human life in the Fire Department. There was not only that, but no coordination of emergency planning and no real incident command. Little by little I found out about one atrocity after another, and I was aghast. My son was murdered by al Qaeda, yes, but also, in my opinion, by a system that he had sworn to uphold, a system of saving lives and protecting property, where he was not given any tools whereby either he could survive or he could really save people in this catastrophic type of scenario. If my son was killed in a fire in a project or in a building, or if he fell off a ladder, I think I could have accepted it more. But he was sent somewhere he never should have been sent. The whole Fire Department should never have been sent in there, for there was no preplanning by the highest level of government in the city of New York to establish a unified command system like they have in California for huge forest fires. It's a military-based plan, and it's what we have now, but look at the price we had to pay. My son died for nothing, because there were woefully few people who could have been saved. He didn't have the radio equipment; he didn't have any water.

And what kind of power manipulation gave the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey the right to build in this city outside of city building laws? The Port Authority is exempt and immune from all New York City building and fire codes, and so they construct buildings above the law. The city of New York knew that. If Chief John O'Hagan [also New York City fire commissioner, 1973–78] had been listened to, things would have been different. When the Twin Towers were going to be built, Chief O'Hagan expressed great concern for so many of these issues. Retired deputy fire chief Vincent Dunn, the collapse expert, told me that when you have an acre of fire ground, it's impossible to defend it with classic methods of water. So these buildings, these towers, were built exempt and immune from the compartmentalization of each floor required by the New York City building and fire codes.

Now, some people were engaged in waving the flag: Wasn't it great? Even some of the families. One of the 9/11 mothers, not of the Fire Department, scolded me: “Why are you going to court trying to get those 9/11 tapes and transmissions?” I had a whole group of parents of firefighters, and we did everything we had to do to expose the failures so that the system could be improved. We spent three years in lower courts with the attorney Norman Siegel, and then got to the New York State Court of Appeals. It was one of the best days of my life. In 2005 we got part of the tapes and transmissions revealed. Now, after years have gone by, firefighters and everyone have realized that I'm working for their good. I'm proud of the things that I pushed for and forced open.

When I heard Rudy Giuliani at the New School, at the last meeting of the 9/11 Commission in May of 2005, he had the audacity to continue the big lie when he said that those firefighters could have left the building but stood their ground after they heard the order to evacuate. Thank God I brought my sign saying LIES AND TRUTH. That's when everyone went crazy, that's when I shouted out, “No, No!” and the whole place erupted. My wonderful colleague Rosaleen Tallon, whose brother, Sean Patrick Tallon, had been in the Ladder 10/Engine 10 firehouse, brought her mother there. And in her wonderful Irish brogue from Cork, she yelled out, “What about the radios and Motorola? We want to hear about Motorola!” And then everyone went crazy. That stopped Giuliani. But it's not about stopping individuals; it's about stopping the big lie and the cover-up. The radios failed. It was the blackest day for the city of New York and for the Fire Department.

You have to change the system when you see it has failed. Because if you don't speak up about the sins of the past, as you know the famous saying goes, you're doomed to repeat them. That's what activism is about. That's what happens.

I'm very sorry to say that despite our best efforts and the best efforts of everyone, the new World Trade Center—all the buildings plus the dangerous and despicable underground museum—is exempt and immune from all New York City building and fire codes. To me you have another death trap waiting for the New York City Fire Department. So I devoted my life to my son's legacy and to the grand legacy of all the 343 firefighters.

I never really voiced that desire, but Professor Glenn Corbett sensed it and suggested we create a Christian Regenhard Center at John Jay College. John Jay lost a large number of firefighters who studied there, the largest number from any academic institution, on 9/11. Apparently Glenn had been discussing his idea with the college officials, and when I heard that . . . well, see, I was afraid to be happy. Number one, because I'm Irish, and number two, because 9/11 parents have lost all of their hope. And so have the siblings. But I was praying for something, and I was so happy to hear that Glenn was creating the Christian Regenhard Center for Emergency Response Studies.

I had been approached to lend my son's stellar name to one or two other things, which I declined, because Christian was a person of such integrity, and he was such a minimalist. I don't even know if he would have agreed to have his name put on anything, for he was so modest. But you know, I was so happy. A center like this could not exist without the full support of everyone at John Jay College, from President Jeremy Travis on down. And John Jay has a national reputation for such excellence in law enforcement, fire science, and homeland security. That's why I agreed to it: I wanted any legacy for Christian to be a legacy of excellence. My son was an intellectual but he was also a firefighter. He loved it for his short time. He loved people and he loved helping people. And this is the right legacy for our dedicated public servants in Fire, Police, EMS, and all the other auxiliary emergency responders. They need that legacy going forward. It's as if we are a wheel, and we will support the spokes, the responders, in all those protection agencies.

I've spent the last six years out of the decade going to Washington, attending these hearings, listening to testimony, meeting with the FBI and DHS [Department of Homeland Security] people. These experts have certainly told us that it's not a matter of
if
there will be another terrorist attack but
when
the terrorists will strike again. Anyone paying attention in New York City knows there have been fourteen confirmed terrorist plots that have been intercepted. The next time—and, I'm sorry, there will be a next time—these terrorists succeed, I want things to go differently from the way they did on 9/11. I want people to be safe. I want the emergency responders to be safe. I couldn't save my son, but going forward I'm hoping that through the Christian Regenhard Center for Emergency Response Studies we will be able to save other mothers' sons, as well as the public.