When the Twin Towers went down on that awful Sept. 11, he was a genuine hero. Lt. Girard Owens, FDNY, talks about it wistfully these days, and even though it was 12 years ago the memories still haunt him. He shared some of them last year with Joanna Molloy of New York’s Daily News, including the one key moment in the North Tower when a fellow firefighter uttered his fateful recollection of the scene:
“I looked back, and nobody else came out,” said John Morabito. “We were the last people out.”
Owens had hitched a ride to the Towers, and as he was attempting to free some people who were caught in an elevator he was slammed upwards. “I thought it was a bomb,” he recalled. “It crushed my hand and ribs and shoulder and my eye was out.”
In darkness he made his way to the lobby, where he led two Port Authority workers to a ray of light, an LED that was held by Morabito – who, in turn got them all to a window. There they reached the street before the building collapsed.
Owens recalls, too, the final moments before he walked into the building, seeing so much death and destruction. “I see something coming down,” he told Molloy. “Powerfully, fast. Soon I saw it was a person. Then I saw it was a woman. She got closer – she was about 30, 35. In a suit, professional-like. And she reaches out. She wants me to catch her. She crashes . . . One after the other, bodies come down.”
Lt. Owens found a perfect way to keep those memories at bay, and he told Molloy about that, too. He went on a quest – “from sea to shining sea and to territories beyond,” was the way she put it – and visited every one of America’s national parks, monuments, and historic sites. That’s 397 of them, for those keeping count, and it took two million air miles and 200,000 more on his minivan. He had long since fallen in love with the beauty of the country’s national parks, and after 9/11 pledged in earnest to see them all.
That was only after he was “patched up” following the injuries he received on that day, of course, and then after working on “The Pile” for several months to aid in recovery efforts. Then his travels really began.
Owens journeyed to Alaska 10 times to see all of its 16 preserves, and visited Hawaii to check out a volcanic mountain. In American Samoa he hiked the rain forest, and in Utah he was thrilled to experience first-hand the beauty of the Rainbow Bridge National Monument. Along the way he filled three national parks passport books with 397 stamps, indicating that he had visited them all. He wasn’t the first; a handful of others had done it before him. But few if any had the purpose behind them that Owens did. He was both a hero and a patriot, and this was his way of glorying in the beauty of America, all in memory of 9/11.
Lt. Owens saved the best until last. On Sept. 11 a year ago he touched the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, and asked simply. “Isn’t she beautiful? I can't believe I’m finishing, but I’m glad it’s going to be here. I still love New York the most.”
A true New Yorker, for sure. And above all, a true 9/11 hero.
This essay is this week’s “Light One Candle” column, written by Jerry Costello, of The Christophers; it is one of a series of weekly columns that deal with a variety of topics and current events.)
Background information:
The Christophers: Christopher Radio & Video
Media reports:
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment