Just after the first jet struck the World Trade Center on Tuesday morning, EMT-P Edwin Huntley became aware of the disaster and decided to volunteer his services.
Leaving his hometown of Lubec around 10a.m., Huntley traveled 12 hours on his Harley Davidson, arriving in New York late Tuesday night. A short time after arriving, he was assigned to a search and rescue team, which combed the debris for survivors. He reports that the area was like the surface of the moon, covered with an eerie, clinging , white dust. Not much rescue work had been done amidst the wreckage during the day , as the focus had been on aiding people who were immediately accessible , and survey work of the surrounding buildings had to be completed to determine what areas of Ground Zero were safe to take rescue teams into.
Huntley, paramedic and heavy duty rescue technician, was quickly assigned to a team of firefighters and volunteers and began to climb through the wreckage. Looking for survivors, the team climbed down through layers of contorted steel beams and slabs of concrete. They found a few bodies and several body parts, which they marked by placing orange body bags as close as possible for later retrieval. Huntley noted that the first 48 hours are considered critical for reaching survivors, although people have been known to exist for a couple of weeks in the wreckage following disaster. The teams thus focused on finding survivors rather than collecting remains.
There were thousands of rescuers on the scene, with more arriving in a steady stream from all over the country. Many had traveled for hours and arrived tired , yet went right to work, often searching for hours before stopping to eat or rest. Some pushed themselves so hard they were unable to make it to the rest areas but lay down in the debris to sleep within feet of the heavy machinery that was constantly removing tons of wreckage. Total strangers were put together to form teams and within a few hours became comrades because of the intensity of the situation. It was not until daylight that the total devastation and immensity of the disaster became apparent. At night, a street was lined with emergency vehicles that appeared to be waiting to help. In the daylight it was apparent that these were the remains of the first responding units that were caught in the collapse of the towers.
During the day, more rescuers were put into the search as they arrived. Dogs were brought in to find the living and the dead and were frantic from the number of scents they were picking up. Dust and toxic fumes occasionally overcame workers. Many rescuers were injured as they negotiated the dangerous work areas and from the debris that continued to fall from above. At times the entire operation, including the ranks of heavy machinery, came to a sudden halt when rescuers believed they had heard a sound from a possible survivor. Only a very few times were they correct. At these moments the rescuers' response was intensified while they worked to extricate the victim. When the few survivors were brought out, cheers spread across the disaster area, spurring the rescuers on to more hours of dangerous and depressing efforts.
Many young people risked their lives alongside the rescuers, climbing through the dangerous terrain. By bringing food, water and encouragement right into the midst of the steel. these volunteers enabled the workers to replenish themselves without having to take time to leave the site. These people not only came to the workers, but also ran the rest areas, where workers could go to recuperate. The young people also maintained much-needed supplies of gloves, hats, masks and other safety equipment. The dedication and responsibility shown by these young adults inspired and impressed rescue workers.
Soon the search for survivors will end, and the recovery of the dead will begin. But until that time, every rescuer holds the belief that more survivors will be found. It is this faith that keeps motivating the workers to push themselves to their very limits. As rescuers left the restricted area, exhausted and depressed by the lack of survivors found thus far, they were shocked to be greeted by thousands of people who cheered and shouted their appreciation, and held signs thanking those who had come to give of thenselves to help recover the thousands still unaccounted for.

They pay me to tease shades of meaning from social and cultural issues, to provide words that help make sense of that which troubles the American soul.
But in this moment of airless shock when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes, the only thing I can find to say, the only words that seem to fit, must be addressed to the unknown author of this suffering.
You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard. What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's attack on our World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn? Whatever it was, please know that you failed.
Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned your cause.
Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our resolve.
Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together.
Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, cultural, political and class division, but a family nonetheless. We're frivolous, yes, capable of expending tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae, a singer's revealing dress, a ball team's misfortune, a cartoon mouse.
We're wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets and material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally decent, though - peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the right thing and to do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority of us, people of faith, believers in a just and loving God.
Some people - you, perhaps - think that any or all of this makes us weak. You're mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong in ways that cannot be measured by arsenals.
Yes, we're in pain now. We are in mourning and we are in shock. We're still grappling with the unreality of the awful thing you did, still working to make ourselves understand that this isn't a special effect from some Hollywood blockbuster, isn't the plot development from a Tom Clancy novel.
Both in terms of the awful scope of its ambition and the probable final death toll, your attacks are likely to go down as the worst acts of terrorism in the history of the United States and, indeed, the history of the world. You've bloodied us as we have never been bloodied before.
But there's a gulf of difference between making us bloody and making us fall. This is the lesson Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow the last time anyone hit us this hard, the last time anyone brought us such abrupt and monumental pain. When roused, we are righteous in our outrage, terrible in our force. When provoked by this level of barbarism, we will bear any suffering, pay any cost, go to any length, in the pursuit of justice.
I tell you this without fear of contradiction. I know my people, as you, I think, do not. What I know reassures me. It also causes me to tremble with dread of the future.
In days to come, there will be recrimination and accusation, fingers pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to happen and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. There will be heightened security, misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms. We'll go forward from this moment sobered, chastened, sad. But determined, too. Unimaginably determined.
You see, there is steel beneath this velvet. That aspect of our character is seldom understood by people who don't know us well. On this day, the family's bickering is put on hold. As Americans we will weep, as Americans we will mourn, and as Americans, we will rise in defense of all that we cherish.
Still, I keep wondering what it was you hoped to teach us. It occurs to me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred. If that's the case, consider the message received. And take this message in exchange:
You don't know my people.

You don't know what we're about.

You don't know what you just started.

But you're about to learn.

This is exerpted from an e-mail circulating the web. Although this was originally broadcast in the 70's, much of the sentiment is still valid today. It has also been recently rebroadcast on public radio.

Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator. What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record:

"This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.
When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.
When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped.
The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans.
I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American Planes?
Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon - not once, but several times and safely home again.
You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.
When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.
I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.
Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those."

"As the soot and dirt and ash rained down,
We became one color.
As we carried each other down the stairs of the burning building,
We became one class.
As we lit candles of waiting and hope,
We became one generation.
As the firefighters and police officers fought their way into the inferno,
We became one gender.
As we fell to our knees in prayer for strength,
We became one faith.
As we whispered or shouted words of encouragement,
We spoke one language.
As we gave our blood in lines a mile long,
We became one body.
As we mourned together the great loss,
We became one family.
As we cried tears of grief and loss,
We became one soul.
As we retell with pride of the sacrifice of heroes,
We become one people.
We are
One color
One class
One generation
One gender
One faith
One language
One body
One family
One soul
One people
We are The Power of One.
We are United.
We are America."

Author Unknown

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