Issue 45

No Day Shall Erase You

In observance of the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in New York City, the Pentagon, and Pennsylvania, I'm sharing an elegy-like poem I wrote, in lieu of the trivial content architecture articles you usually see from me.

No Day Shall Erase You

“Too big, too high. They can’t put those fires out,”

I tell my wife, my voice strange with dread, as we drive Brooklyn bound.

Emergency vehicles racing past on our route.

This was no accident; that blue sky so profound.

Watching from an apartment roof, 4 stories high,

“We’re under attack,” we think as the dust cloud encroaches.

We all duck as suddenly another jet streaks across the sky.

This time an F-16 approaches.

We move inside and hear a noise, feel a shake.

The cloud surrounds, no ground below.

We are in the unknown with everything at stake.

Singed papers float by and what’s next, we don’t know.

I’ve seen and heard first responders rushing in.

This is the big one.

They entered the towers knowing the stakes, that they couldn’t win.

Hundreds geared up to climb to save someone.

Greater love has no man than this, we hear.

To lay down his life for his friends.

For 343, 37, 23, and 8 we shed a tear.

But this is not where the story ends.

In years to come, we learned of others lost in the dangers.

Glenn J. Winuk, a lawyer and firefighter/EMT volunteer,

As he had in ’93, he ran to help strangers.

Winuk was found months later in the South Tower wearing medical gloves with EMS gear.

The man in the red bandana worked there too.

Welles Crowther, equities trader and volunteer firefighter, gave first aid.

18 people survived because he led them through.

But the man in the red bandana, the ultimate sacrifice made.

We vow each year to never forget.

And thus, 25 years later, we remember,

For the growing portion of the population that wasn’t born yet.

So they know what happened that fateful day in September.

The toll of 9/11

The attacks on 9/11 took the lives of 2,977 people, but the tragedy continues to claim victims.

Among the dead were an unprecedented number of first responders who made the ultimate sacrifice:

• 343 firefighters of the Fire Department of New York (FDNY)
• 37 officers of the Port Authority Police Department (PAPD)
• 23 officers of the New York City Police Department (NYPD)
• 8 EMTs/paramedics from private ambulance services
• 4 members of the New York State Office of Tax Enforcement
• 3 officers of the New York State Office of Court Administration
• 1 member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
• 1 member of the New York Fire Patrol
• 1 member of the United States Secret Service

In the 25 years since the attacks, far more first responders have died from 9/11-related illnesses than from the attacks themselves. The 9/11 Memorial and Museum lists 44,000 first responders and survivors as having cancer from the World Trade Center collapse.

As of 2020, 247 NYPD officers had died of 9/11-related illnesses. The FDNY reported its 343rd 9/11 illness fatality on Sept. 25, 2023, matching the number it lost in the attack. Both departments expect more deaths in years to come.

First responders from around the country were also deployed to Ground Zero to help with recovery, and some of them have also died of 9/11-related illnesses.

Ordinary Heroes: A Memoir of 9/11 by Joseph Pfeifer
(the first FDNY chief on the scene at the World Trade Center)

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