Ground Zero about two days after the attack on the World Trade Center. The photo was taken by Brandon Firefighter David Castle. 

By David Fleet

Editor

David Castle recalls the faces of family members.

“They were lined up along the streets holding pictures of loved ones,” recalls Castle. “They really had no other way to find someone that was in those towers. It was their look of desperation that’s still etched on my mind. I just can’t forget those folks.”

It’s been 15 years since Castle, now a full-time Brandon Firefighter and paramedic, responded with thousands of others across the county following the attack on the World Trade Center Sept. 11, 2001.

For many Americans like Castle, the tragic events of 9-11 still impact their lives.

In 2001, Castle was working as a paramedic for an ambulance company, when he was watching the news, seeing the second plane hit the second tower and realizing that ‘something wasn’t right. Just 15 hours later, Castle, also then a reserve Lake Angelus police officer was on his way to New York and Ground Zero.

“I wanted to go,” he said. There was no hesitation.”

Castle joined an Oakland County emergency response team of about 20 people included other officers

from Lake Angelus, as well as Royal Oak, Auburn Hills and the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department. They traveled in about six vehicles, escorting a semi-truck with supplies, clothing and food, driving 13 hours to a staging area in New Jersey.

Upon arrival, there was a lengthy wait while the Oakland County contingent waited for their assignment. They were eventually assigned to assist the FBI’s Emergency Response Team and went to Ground Zero. Castle, a third generation firefighter, described the scene as a thousand times worse than what he had seen on the news.

“The media never got close enough to see the rubble and obviously you don’t get the smell,” Castle remembers. “I was really was not prepared. It was the smell of death. The rubble was unrecognizable stuff. I went expecting to find chairs and tables but it was debris. Once we were there we realized it was very unlikely we would find a survivor.”

Still, Castle and his teammates operated in rescue mode, doing a bucket brigade, taking debris bucket by bucket off the World Trade Center. It was quiet when it was a rescue mission, as people worked together and listened for survivors, but Castle says all they found were body parts.

“It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” he recalled. ‘It was physically and mentally exhausting even after a few days.”

Castle and the Oakland County team stayed for six days, during which time they did 12-hour shifts and also searched other buildings and did security. He remembers it was very hard to talk to New York City firefighters who were not on duty at the time the towers collapsed and were frustrated, wanting to work continuously in the rescue effort.

“It was overwhelming,” he said. “If it was my department and my brothers that I lost, it would have been even worse personally.”

Like Castle, the deep personal impact of 9-11 still remains today for many Americans.

Tena Czap was in a classroom full of middle school students at 8:46 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001 when the first plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York.

“It was hard to explain to the students what happened and why all of the adults were so sad,” said Czap, today an eighth grade history and communications arts teacher at Goodrich Middle School. “On the one-year anniversary of Sept. 11, it was very difficult to plan a lesson about an event that was still so raw for me and for the students as well. The students and I cried together as we remembered and discussed how we felt a year before and I helped them understand a little more of the details of that dreadful day.”

Students were interested and invested recalls Czap.

“They had lived through this tragic event in American history and we talked about how Sept. 11 would be a part of their children’s U.S history textbooks, just like the assassination of President Kennedy or the bombing of Pearl Harbor were events in their books. Every year following, it has been difficult to get my Sept. 11 lesson ready; I still cry every year, but it is clear that as time goes by, the students know and remember less and less about that day and how it affected our country and the world in general.”

Czap notes this year’s eighth grade students weren’t yet born when the terrorists rocked the country.

“I find that they know little about the events or the significance of Sept. 11,” she said. “Most of them view that day like most other tragic events in our history – with empathy but distance. Hopefully these students won’t see a day like Sept. 11 in their lifetime to have to recall the deep sorrow that so many still feel about that day.”