[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 131 (Wednesday, October 3, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H6243-H6248]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       THE TERRORIST ATTACK AND TRAGEDY AT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Rogers of Michigan). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Pallone) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to spend some time this evening 
talking about the tragedy at the World Trade Center, the terrorist 
attack.
  I do intend to get a little personal with regard to my district, 
which happens to be very close to New York City. Many of the people who 
worked in the World Trade Center and who died in the World Trade Center 
were actually my constituents.
  I also would like to talk a little bit this evening about some of the 
things that we are doing in Congress in response to the terrorist 
attack, some of the things that we have already done legislatively, and 
where I think we may go or should go over the next few weeks or the 
next few months in terms of what we do in Congress to respond to that 
attack.
  I may or may not be joined by other colleagues this evening so I may 
not use all the time; but, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to say on a personal 
note, I visited the World Trade Center with President Bush the Friday 
after September 11, and it was a very devastating scene at the site, at 
ground zero.
  I used to work in New York City in a building known as the Equitable 
Building. I commuted back and forth to New Jersey, to my district, when 
I was younger. The Equitable Building is basically a block away from 
the World Trade Center. If you walk out, you used to be able to see the 
World Trade Center. Of course, I went to the World Trade Center many 
times in the course of my work when I worked in downtown Manhattan, so 
it really was a shock to go to ground zero in Manhattan the Friday 
after the terrorist attack and to see the devastation.
  But I have to say that as upset as I was that day in seeing the 
devastation and the piles of rubble, I was uplifted by so many 
volunteers that came from my own State and my own district and from all 
over the country, really, to try to help out, both initially, in the 
immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks, and then, of course, in 
the days and weeks now that follow.
  They were people who were involved in the rescue operations and in 
clearing the place. It was really an uplifting experience seeing all 
those people out there working together.
  I think when I was standing there on that Friday and the President 
came by, there were three firemen from Hollywood, Florida, who wanted a 
chance to shake the President's hand. Of course, I kind of hustled them 
up so they could shake the President's hand. I really did not have any 
idea until I got there that day that there were police and fire and 
emergency rescue workers that were coming from as far away as Florida. 
There were probably many from even further away, from other parts of 
the country, or even from other parts of the world, for all I know. It 
was really, as I said, an uplifting experience to be able to witness 
all of that in the face of this tragedy.

[[Page H6244]]

  I wanted to say if I could, Mr. Speaker, that I want my constituents 
and residents in New Jersey to know how much the people of New York, 
the leaders in New York, appreciated all the things that New Jersey 
volunteers did.
  My district is actually across the water or across what we call the 
Raritan Bay. One can actually take a ferry from the World Trade Center 
area and in the course of maybe half an hour, 40 minutes, reach my 
district on the other side of Sandy Hook and Raritan Bay.
  What we found in the aftermath of the tragedy is that many of the 
volunteers from my district were helping ferry people back and forth, 
as well as supplies back and forth to Manhattan on the ferries that 
traveled back and forth.
  Mr. Speaker, we lost probably, in the two counties that I represent, 
Middlesex and Monmouth Counties, about 200 or so people in the World 
Trade Center. Needless to say, at this point most of the people have 
had memorial services and their relatives have reconciled themselves to 
the fact that their loved ones are not going to return. I have attended 
many vigils in the district. We also had two forums in the district in 
the week after September 11. One of them was in Middlesex County and 
the other was in Monmouth County.
  The one in Monmouth County, my home county, where there were the 
larger percentage of the victims, was actually held in Middletown. 
Middletown is a suburban community where some of the ferries operate. 
Middletown lost over 30 people, and probably had more victims of the 
tragedy than any other municipality, other than New York City itself.
  There was an article, Mr. Speaker, in the Washington Post on 
September 24 that talked about Middletown and the tragedy and how it 
impacted the people in Middletown. I do not want to read the whole 
article because it is very lengthy, but I will include it in the 
Record.

  Mr. Speaker, I will quote a few things from the article. It is rather 
sad. I know as time goes on we do not want to dwell on the sorrow, but 
I do think that because Middletown lost so many people, that I would 
like to read some sections of the article, because I think it says so 
much about how people suffered and how they responded.
  A lot of the thoughts that were in this article in the Washington 
Post were expressed at the forum that I had in Middletown within a week 
or so after the World Trade Center tragedies. Some of it was actually 
uplifting. When we had the forum at the VFW in Middletown, some of the 
women that were part of the Ladies Auxiliary at the Veterans of Foreign 
Wars there, they helped a lot with the forum; and one of them actually 
wrote a national prayer which I would like to read.
  If I could just take a minute to read some of the accounts in the 
Washington Post, it starts off, ``New Jersey Town Becomes Community of 
Sorrow. Commuter Haven Took Heavy Hit.'' It is written by Dale 
Russikoff from the Washington Post, Monday, September 24.
  It says, ``Middletown, New Jersey. It was the water and the great 
city just 10 miles across it that drew them here. By train or bus, New 
York is little more than an hour away, but by far the most romantic 
commute, an oxymoron in most other towns, is by water. At dawn, people 
who leave split levels and colonials and ranch homes by the thousands 
board ferries at Sandy Hook Point, and 45 minutes later look up from 
laptops and newspapers to see the sun rising behind the majestic 
Manhattan skyline and the World Trade Center towers, where much of 
Middletown worked.
  ``Wall Street money built mansions in places such as Greenwich, 
Connecticut, and Large Mountain, New York, but in Middletown, New 
Jersey, as the name implies, they created a suburban ideal for the 
State's up-and-comers, safe neighborhoods, good schools, strong 
churches, open spaces, roomy houses with mortgages they didn't choke 
on.
  ``So when the Twin Towers fell on September 11, much of Middletown 
fell with them. The official toll stands at 36, and authorities fear it 
will reach 50, among the highest, if not the highest, of any town 
outside New York City. But the aggregate number does not begin to 
convey the losses.''
  Mr. Speaker, it goes on to talk about the grieving residents, my 
grieving residents. It talks on a little bit about the experiences 
after the tragedy.
  It says that more than half of the people who we lost in Middletown 
``. . . worked for Cantor Fitzgerald,'' and I am quoting again from the 
Washington Post, the fabulously successful bond brokerage at the top of 
the World Trade Center Tower 1 that lost 700 employees.
  ``For a generation, now, Middletown has been a beacon for the young 
traders of Cantor Fitz. That was the nickname.''
  I understand that most of the people that were lost in Cantor 
Fitzgerald were on the 105th floor, so basically they had no chance to 
escape. It was where the terrorist plane actually hit, so they did not 
really have the opportunity to escape.

                              {time}  1900

  The last thing I wanted to read from this Washington Post article, it 
was when we had the forum in Middletown the week after the World Trade 
Center tragedy. As I said, it was at the VFW. I would like, Mr. 
Speaker, for my colleagues to understand that Middletown is not only a 
commuter town, but it also has a military base. Earle Naval Weapons 
Depot is located there and there are several thousand people that work 
at the Navy weapons depot. There is a lot of loyalty and pride in 
Middletown over the fact that Earle is based there and that there is a 
long tradition of the sailors being there and of people working at the 
base.
  Middletown is also not very far from Fort Monmouth in Monmouth 
County, which is an Army base that has about 12,000 employees and is 
the communications and electronics command for the Army.
  So we have in Middletown and in Monmouth County and in my entire 
district, a strong affinity with the military. It was interesting 
because when I was at the VFW that night in Middletown, even with so 
many people having died from that town, and even with the military 
bases being there and people already getting prepared at the base for a 
potential war against terrorism, many of the people that showed up, and 
many of them had fought in World War II and Korea and Vietnam, stressed 
the fact that they wanted us only to go after the terrorists. They did 
not want bombing and ground troops to go into Afghanistan or some other 
places unless it was actually going to mean that we were going to get 
the terrorists and the people responsible, or the people that harbored. 
They did not just want us to get involved in an indiscriminate war that 
might impact innocent people.
  I was not surprised by that, but I think it needs to be stressed 
because sometimes in Congress we worry about the nature of our 
response.
  This was the last section from the Washington Post that is sort of on 
point in this article. It says, ``Not all the people of Middletown are 
comforted by talk of war. Many have children in the military who may 
soon be in harm's way and several who lost family members in the 
September 11 attack are horrified to hear Americans calling for people 
of other countries to die en masse to avenge their loved ones.''
  Mr. Speaker, I wanted to read this National prayer that I said was 
composed by the chaplain, Emma Elberfeld. This was a prayer that was 
basically handed out that evening at the VFW and it says, ``Lord, we 
come to you on bended knee, head bowed and our hearts filled to 
overflowing with so much grief for the many people who have been 
injured and killed in our National crisis. We ask you, Lord, to give 
courage and strength to those who so bravely go to their aid. Although 
their hearts are heavy and filled with sorrow, we ask you, Lord, to 
give them the endurance needed to help them through this difficult 
task.
  ``Please give us the strength, Lord, to get through each difficult 
and devastating day that faces each of us in our country. Protect and 
guide our military that are now being called to duty.
  ``We ask, Lord, please guide our leaders of this great country in 
their hour of decision. The burden that has been placed on shoulders 
during this crisis has been overwhelming. We humbly

[[Page H6245]]

ask that with Your infinite wisdom, You guide them gently to the right 
decisions.
  ``Lastly, Lord, we ask that You allow us all to come together as a 
Nation. Help us stand tall and united so that we might help each other 
in our hour of need. Amen.''
  This is by Emma Elberfeld, chaplain, and Peg Centrella, Americanism 
chairlady.
  Mr. Speaker, I wanted to, if I could, spend a little time, in part, 
this is for my constituents, talking about some of the responses that 
we have had here in Congress, how we have dealt with the situation and 
where I think we should go from here.
  I should mention that next Monday I have scheduled in my district a 
forum on homeland security, because there has been a lot of concern 
about what Congress will do to secure things at home. Health concerns, 
for example, the threat of chemical or biological warfare. Also, I have 
a forum scheduled the following Sunday, I believe October 14, where we 
are going to talk and stress tolerance because I should explain that my 
district is very diverse ethnically.
  I had a meeting one night in one of the towns that I represent called 
North Brunswick, which is near New Brunswick where Rutgers University 
is headquartered. I could count people from 30 different countries of 
the 40 or so people that came to the forum. They were from such exotic 
place as Uzbekistan, for example. We have a very high percentage in my 
district of Asian Americans, of Americans from the Mideast, large 
Indian populations, South Asian population, Pakistani population, Sri 
Lanka, and a large Muslim population as well.
  There has been a great deal of concern about the fact that we need to 
be tolerant. That we do not want people who happen to look Arab or 
Pakistani or from Central Asia that they be targeted and somehow they 
be seen as at fault for the attack on September 11. I will talk a 
little bit more about that this evening, although I do not intend to go 
on too much longer.

  As you know, Mr. Speaker, that we passed in the immediate aftermath 
of the World Trade Center tragedy, we passed a supplemental 
appropriations bill, of which I think was $40 billion of which half, 
about $20 billion, has to go to help the victims and the rescue 
operations that resulted from the World Trade Center tragedy and the 
Pentagon attack. I want everyone to understand in my district and in 
New Jersey that a significant amount of that money will go not only to 
help victims, but also to help the towns and the fire departments and 
those that provided rescue operations, because the bill, as you can 
imagine, is rather extensive.
  We also, as you know, Mr. Speaker, within a few days after the World 
Trade Center attack, passed a resolution authorizing the President's 
use of force. I will say once again and reiterate, as I assume every 
one of my colleagues feels very strongly, that basically we were 
authorizing the President to use whatever force was necessary in order 
to go after these terrorists, to eliminate the terrorist cells and the 
network, and also to be used against those who harbor or protect or 
supply the terrorists.
  I am 100 percent supportive of that, that everything that needs to be 
done should be done to make sure that they are rooted out and they do 
not pose a threat again to the United States or to innocent victims 
here in the United States.
  As I mentioned, myself and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) 
who also represents parts of Monmouth and Middlesex Counties, we both 
visited to the two military bases that we share, Earle Naval Weapons 
Depot as well as Fort Monmouth, and we saw the state of readiness that 
they are at.
  Earle is the only ammunition depot on the Eastern seaboard that has 
the capacity to take ammunition by rail, if you will, from the 
heartland of the United States, and then has direct access to the 
Atlantic Ocean so that that ammunition can then be transported to ships 
and naval vessels that would have to go to a theater of war in the 
Atlantic or over in the Persian Gulf.
  Fort Monmouth is the communications and electronics command for the 
Army. Anything that involves communications or electronics that is 
supportive of the war effort against terrorism essentially goes through 
Fort Monmouth. They do all the research and development under CECOM, 
Communications and Electronics Command, for the Army, but they are also 
involved in communications in the field for a soldier that is in place 
in a theater of war.
  So one can see how significant these bases are, and myself and 
Congressman Holt went to visit. We were very much pleased by what we 
saw in terms of the state of readiness and everybody being so organized 
to take part in this response to terrorism, and we will continue to do 
whatever we can to be supportive of those bases.
  Also, Mr. Speaker, the next week after the World Trade Center attack, 
we came back to Congress and we passed the airline bailout bill, as I 
call it, and that was very important for my home State of New Jersey, 
because although we do not have a major airport in my District, we are 
not very far from Newark Airport and Continental Airlines. Of course, 
it is a major depot for them and we do have many people that have been 
laid off and we have the airlines suffering. So that was an important 
bill.
  I did want to say that I think many of my colleagues have pointed 
out, and particularly last night, we had a special order led by the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) where he talked about his 
displaced workers legislation. I, for one, and I know many of my 
Democratic colleagues were very concerned that that airline bailout 
bill did not provide any kind of benefits or help for workers who had 
been laid off, of which I have many in my District, and we will 
continue to agitate that the House leadership, the Republican 
leadership, needs to bring up a displaced workers bill so that those 
workers who have been laid off in the airline industry or in any 
industry that has suffered as a result of the World Trade Center 
tragedies, that those people who have been laid off would get extended 
health benefits, extended unemployment benefits and other benefits that 
are necessary for them to feed their families and to keep going and 
training to get another job if they cannot go back to their position in 
the airline industry or in the limousine industry.

  For example, I mentioned limousines, because when I had my forum in 
Middletown, when I approached the VFW that night after the World Trade 
Center tragedy to have the forum, I noticed a number of limousines that 
were parked outside. I said, well, what is this, what are the 
limousines doing here? Then I walked into the forum and realized that 
these were limousine operators and drivers who had been laid off or who 
were making 5 or 10 percent of the trips that they used to make because 
a lot of it was to the airports or to New York City, and they need 
help, too.
  So, even though we did the airline bailout, we need also to look at 
other industries that have been impacted, and we certainly need to help 
those displaced workers who have lost their jobs.
  The other thing that we need to do in the future, and I know the 
Democrats in particular have been talking about, the form of an 
economic stimulus package. Obviously, since I am so close to New York 
City and have a lot of people that work in New York in the securities 
industry in New York, in the Stock Exchange, we are very concerned 
about what is happening there and the economy in general, and we need 
to provide a package that will stimulate the economy and get us out of 
this slump that we have been in.
  Of course, I, and I know the Democrats have been stressing the need 
to provide a stimulus package that just does not help the corporations, 
or just does not help wealthy people, but also helps the average person 
so that this money gets back into the economy and is spent and helps 
stimulate the economy.
  I wanted to talk a little bit now, if I could, before I end about 
these two other forums that I do plan to have over the next week or so, 
the one next Monday on homeland security and the one the following 
Sunday, I believe, on the issue of tolerance.
  Within the Democratic Caucus, we have a Homeland Security Task Force 
that actually is chaired by one of my colleagues, the gentleman from 
New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), and they are in

[[Page H6246]]

the process of putting together a principles and actions on the issue 
of homeland security. Some people have said to me when I use the term 
``homeland security,'' what does that mean? What are you talking about?
  Basically, when I have had forums in my District, the issues that I 
put under the rubric of homeland security have come up quite a bit, and 
there has been a lot of discussion about it, issues such as what would 
happen in the event of a chemical or biological attack? Is our water 
supply secure? Are our nuclear plants, which we have some in New 
Jersey, secure? These are the kinds of things we need to respond to and 
deal with, obviously, over the next few weeks.
  In addition, there is the whole issue of security with regard to 
means of transportation other than airlines. I heard Senator Biden from 
the other body speaking on the Senate floor just a few hours ago about 
Amtrak and about trains. Obviously in New Jersey, we are in the middle 
of the northeast corridor for Amtrak, the Metroliner, other high speed 
trains. One train obviously carries a lot more passengers than an 
airline does, and yet until September 11, I do not think anybody 
thought much about the security of a train.
  In my District, and I am sure it is true all over the country, even 
to take a Metroliner or a high speed train, you basically walk on with 
your bags. Nobody checks your bags. If you have a Metroliner, usually 
they will check your ticket to see if you have a ticket, but there is 
not the consciousness that you need to worry about security. Well, we 
need to.

                              {time}  1915

  We need to worry about security for all forms of transportation: 
buses, trains, and other kinds of mass transit.
  And the other issue that has come up at the forums which fits under 
this rubric of homeland security, and there are many, but at the forum 
that I had in Middlesex County, in Edison, New Jersey, a lot of people 
talked about emergency management concerns and communications. In other 
words, how we communicate in the event of a terrorist attack. Do we 
have the ability to provide information? Most people were watching CNN, 
but there needs to be an emergency system absent CNN to communicate 
with people. And there was talk about whether that needs to be done at 
a State level or at the county level.
  These are the kinds of things that come up under the general category 
of homeland security, and of course they need to be addressed. 
Hopefully, we will address them here in the Congress over the next few 
weeks and the next few months.
  The last thing I wanted to mention, and I just mentioned having this 
forum in another week or so on the issue of tolerance, this is very 
important in my district but I think all over the country because of 
the diversity of our citizens, and particularly in my district because 
we have so many citizens that either are Muslim or could look like the 
stereotype that we have of somebody who comes from the Middle East or 
South Asia. A lot of my constituents, whether they be Indian, 
Pakistani, or whatever their religion, have told me they have actually 
experienced in some cases threats, in some cases slurs, whatever, in 
the aftermath of the tragedy.
  We actually had one person, who was from Milltown, Mr. Hassan from 
Milltown, in my district, who had moved to Texas to set up a small 
grocery store a few months before September 11. His wife and his family 
were still in Milltown. He was actually murdered within a few days 
after the World Trade Center attack. Most of the information we have 
seems to indicate that it was a hate crime.
  Of course, they brought his body back to my district, to Milltown, 
and there was a service at the mosque in South Brunswick. I spoke to 
his widow on the phone. With all the tragedies that we had in my 
district and all the people that died at the World Trade Center, I 
think talking to Mrs. Hassan was the most difficult conversation I have 
had in the last few weeks, if not in the last few years, because she 
talked about his patriotism and why he came to the United States; 
because he wanted to live in a free country, and how he believed in 
America. He was a capitalist, obviously, in the sense he wanted to open 
up a small business and be successful.
  She expressed in such an eloquent way why it was important for us in 
this country to speak of tolerance and not tag Muslim Americans or 
Pakistani or Indian Americans as somehow involved in terrorist attacks. 
That is why I think it is important that we all continue to speak out 
on the issue of tolerance.
  I was very impressed with President Bush, and my colleagues know I do 
not always agree with President Bush on many things, but I was so 
impressed with the fact that every day, not only on the day of the 
tragedy, September 11, but on the Thursday after, when I met him at the 
White House, on the Friday when we went to the World Trade Center, and 
when he addressed a joint session of Congress the following week, on 
every one of those occasions and every occasion I have seen him talk 
about the tragedies of September 11 he would talk about Muslims and how 
Islam does not preach violence, and that Muslim Americans should not be 
tagged and should not be treated any differently because of this World 
Trade Center attack.
  We need to continue to do that. I have to say I was very impressed 
that in my district we had a number of vigils that I attended. At every 
one of the vigils that I have attended since September 11 there was a 
Muslim religious leader present to say a prayer and to offer 
condolences. And I think that the people organizing those vigils in my 
district were going out of their way to make sure that there was a 
Muslim cleric there saying a prayer, to make the point that Islam does 
not preach violence, and that the people who are of Muslim descent in 
the district and around the country should in no way be associated with 
this terrorist attack.
  We know, in fact, that many Muslims and people of Mid Eastern or 
South Asian origin died in the World Trade Center. There were 
Palestinians, there were Pakistanis, and there were many Indian 
Americans. And when I went to see the rescue operations, I saw many of 
those people, either physicians or rescue workers or people involved in 
voluntary efforts that were from those same groups as well.
  It is crucial that we continue to preach tolerance. Hopefully, we 
could even see some progress in some legislative initiatives, such as 
the hate crimes legislation that would increase penalties for hate 
crimes. Maybe we can also, in the aftermath of the World Trade Center 
attacks, pass legislation that would prohibit racial profiling. These 
are the kinds of things in a positive way that could be done as a 
positive response to the World Trade Center attacks in order to preach 
tolerance and to put this Nation on record legislatively even stronger 
against any kind of racial or ethnic attacks.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to end, if I could this evening, 
with a letter that was sent to me by one of my constituents from Long 
Branch, which is my hometown. This was at one of the meetings I held. 
This was a meeting I held with some Long Branch residents in the 
aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks.
  This was sent to me and written by Colleen Rose, who lives at 311 
Liberty Street in Long Branch, in my hometown, not far from my 
congressional office and not far from where I live. She really sums up 
well the way I feel and the way I think also most of my constituents 
feel. It is titled, ``To the Terrorists That This Concerns:
  ``It is obvious from your actions that you wanted me to feel the way 
you do. Well, I am an American. I have choices. I will not be 
controlled.
  ``Where you would have my country and those slain seen as victims, I 
choose to see them as patriots. Americans are not victims.
  ``Where your actions would have me feel fear, I choose to feel the 
courage, strength, and comfort of my countrymen around me.
  ``Where your actions would have me feel terror, I choose to feel 
pride in the way the people in the Pittsburgh plane crash fought back 
and downed the plane in the safest place possible, sparing as many 
lives as possible. And the way our rescue workers go on heedless of the 
possible injury to themselves.
  ``Where your actions would have me feel hopeless, I choose to feel 
great hope and faith in the overwhelming efforts of a Nation and world 
doing all

[[Page H6247]]

that it can to come together as one people.
  ``Where your actions would have me feel powerless, I choose to feel 
empowered by my own actions in assisting the recovery in any way that I 
am able.
  ``Where you would have us cry tears of sorrow, I choose, and have 
chosen over the past few days, to cry tears of joy for the two rescue 
workers who exited the wreckage and were not added to the list of 
casualties, and for the acts of human kindness being expressed on a 
global scale.
  ``Where you have sent fire balls through the sky, I choose to light 
candles as an expression of spirit and solidarity.
  ``Where you have attempted to cause chaos, I choose to find stability 
in simple things, like the gifts of a first grade class sending a 
thousand peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with Hershey kisses taped 
to the top to the rescue teams.
  ``Where you have looked to demoralize us, we have chosen as a people 
to find a depth of national cohesion I had not thought possible.
  ``Where you would have me feel hate, I choose to give you none of my 
emotional energy. You get nothing from me, especially not something as 
strong and powerful as hate. You will be treated like the cancer you 
are and cut off of the body of humanity to save the greater whole. I 
hope that this is done with the medical detachment and accuracy of a 
surgeon cutting out the bad tissue to preserve what is good.
  ``Where you would have us overreact to your handiwork to prove to the 
world that we are evil, I would choose to respond and take out only 
those who would create such a chaos in the future and on other 
innocents of our global family. I pray my country feels the same way.
  ``In short, where you have looked to do us a great disservice, we 
have chosen to do ourselves a great service. We have chosen to take 
this as a reminder of what we really are. We have chosen to see each 
other as people, not as colors or races or creeds or majorities or 
minorities, but as people `with certain inalienable rights.'.
  ``We will continue to choose.''
  Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record the article I referred to 
earlier from The Washington Post.

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 24, 2001]

                 N.J. Town Becomes Community of Sorrow


                     Commuter Haven Took Heavy Hit

                          (By Dale Russakoff)

       Middletown, N.J.--It was the water, and the great city just 
     10 miles across, that drew them here. By train or bus, New 
     York is little more than an hour away, but by far the most 
     romantic commute--an oxymoron in most other towns--is by 
     water. At dawn, people would leave split-levels and colonials 
     and ranch homes by the thousands, board ferries at Sandy 
     Point Bay and, 45 minutes later, look up from laptops and 
     newspapers to see the sun rising behind the majestic 
     Manhattan skyline and the World Trade Center towers, where 
     much of Middletown worked.
       Wall Street money built mansions in places such as 
     Greenwich, Conn., and Larchmont, N.Y., but in Middletown, as 
     the name implies, it created a suburban ideal for the 
     Street's up-and-comers--safe neighborhoods, good schools, 
     strong churches, open spaces, roomy houses with mortgages 
     they didn't choke on.
       And so when the twin towers fell on Sept. 11, much of 
     Middletown fell with them. The official toll stands at 36, 
     and authorities fear it will reach 50--among the highest, if 
     not the highest, of any town outside New York City. But the 
     aggregate number doesn't begin to convey the losses. For 
     that, you have to visit St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, 
     which lost 26 parishioners. Or the nursery school at 
     Middletown Reformed Church, where five children lost parents. 
     Or the practice last Wednesday night of the Middletown Youth 
     Athletic Association's girls' traveling basketball team, 
     which lost its beloved coach of the last four years. Or the 
     boys' team, on which one player lost his father and another, 
     his mother.
       Everyone is grieving for someone they knew by face, if not 
     by name: the neighbor who was always working in his yard on 
     Saturdays, the mother with the beautiful baby in the grocery 
     store line, the father who cheered so loudly on the soccer 
     sidelines, the familiar-looking man on the 6:24 a.m. train or 
     the 7 a.m. ferry.
       The Rev. John Dobrosky, the pastor at St. Mary's scarcely 
     sleeps nowadays. He found himself in the epicenter of loss 
     the other day while counseling fifth-graders at the parish 
     school.
       ``How many of you lost someone close to you? he asked the 
     class of 24 boys and girls in uniforms of light blue shirts 
     and dark pants or skirts. Twelve hands went up, followed by a 
     litany, delivered in young monotones:
       Steve's daddy. My dad's best friend. My basketball coach. 
     My baseball coach. My neighbor. Ryan's uncle. Christine's 
     uncle. My best friend's dad. Mrs. Hoey's husband.
       The religion teacher showed a visitor a letter she had 
     received, signed by two sixth-grade girls: ``I know God loves 
     us. But if he loves us so much, why did he let this happen? I 
     know everything happens for a reason, but how could there be 
     a reason for something this horrible to happen? I guess 
     what I'm trying to say is, will you please explain this to 
     me?''
       The same day, Dobrosky visited a parishioner, Eileen Hoey, 
     to give her the grim news that the body of her husband, Pat, 
     had been found in the rubble known to the world as Ground 
     Zero. Pat Hoey, 53, a civil engineer, was executive manager 
     of tunnels, bridges and terminals for the Port Authority of 
     New Your and New Jersey on the 64th floor of the North Tower. 
     He worked 31 years for the Authority, the only employer he'd 
     ever had, and he loved it, said his son Rob, a systems 
     analyst for NEC America in Herndon.
       Pat Hoey loved the George Washington Bridge most of all. He 
     led the projects that lit up like a constellation for the 
     millennium celebration last year and rigged it to hold a 
     massive American flag on July 4 and special occasions. He e-
     mailed pictures of the bridge to his children. ``I've got it 
     as the wallpaper on my desk top at work,'' Rob Hoey said. 
     Last week, the Port Authority hung the huge flag on the 
     George Washington Bridge in Patrick Hoey's honor.
       After visiting the Hoeys, Dobrosky collapsed in a chair in 
     the church rectory. ``We've seen evil. We've even smelled 
     it,'' he said, pointing out the window, toward Sandy Point 
     Bay. Amid a spectacularly blue sky, a grayish yellow film had 
     settled just above the tree line. ``The cloud has crossed the 
     bay,'' he said. ``Look, it's still there.''
       There were clouds over Middletown before Sept. 11, but in 
     retrospect, they seem almost see-through. For months, pastors 
     and counselors had been ministering to distraught 
     breadwinners laid off by nearby Lucent Technologies, the once 
     high-flying spinoff of AT&T that went into decline with the 
     high-tech bust. Now the families and friends of Middletown's 
     missing or dead wish their loved ones had been so lucky as to 
     have been laid off before Sept. 11.
       More than half of them worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, the 
     fabulously successful bond brokerage at the top of World 
     Trade Center Tower One that lost 700 employees. For a 
     generation now, Middletown has been a beacon for the young 
     traders of ``Cantor Fitz.'' Robert Feeney, 47, who retired in 
     1998 after 20 years with the firm, said he moved to 
     Middletown in 1983 on the advice of his boss, who then lived 
     here. Then younger people came in, and followed him.
       ``We all worked hard, always under pressure, in close 
     quarters, and we became a group,'' Feeney said. ``And it was 
     just natural that young couples met and got married, and then 
     the next step was to move to Middletown.'' From here, they 
     commuted together on New Jersey Transit trains, on the 
     Seastreak ferry or in car pools to Jersey City, where they 
     took underground PATH trains through one of Patrick Hoey's 
     tunnels to the base of the World Trade Center. They lived 
     around the corner from one another, took vacations 
     together, put their children in the same preschools.
       ``I went to their weddings, their christenings, their 
     children's first communions,'' Feeney said of his younger 
     colleagues. Now he's going to their wakes.
       ``Some of these girls are 35 years old with four kids, or 
     32 with three kids. A few of the kids are just starting 
     grammar schools,'' he said. ``What have they done to these 
     families?''
       Middletown, with 70,000 residents, is a town with no center 
     and no downtown. But in its extraordinary grief, it is now a 
     community. St. Mary's set up a 24-hour counseling and prayer 
     center staffed by two employees, and suddenly a flood of 
     volunteers materialized to help keep it running. The 
     Seastreak ferry turned itself into a lifeline, carrying more 
     than 4,000 fleeing people from New York after the attack and 
     ferrying supplies and personnel to the rescue effort ever 
     since. Patrick Hoey's neighbors, including some his family 
     never had met, gathered at his house one night, holding 
     candlelight vigil at his door.
       ``Some of them said, `We always saw him in the garden. He 
     waved every time we drove by,' ``Rob Hoey said.
       Last Wednesday night, the Middletown Youth Athletic 
     Association's all-star girl's basketball team held its first 
     practice without Paul Nimbley, 42, their beloved Coach Paul, 
     who in four years taught them much of what they know about 
     the game, and much about life, too. The girls, 12- and 13-
     year-olds, were awesome, as usual, sinking shots with nothing 
     but net, spinning and blocking like their heroines on the New 
     York Liberty. These were moves Coach Paul had taught them, 
     they said--moves they practiced with all their hearts, in 
     part because they loved to hear him say, ``You're looking 
     really good out there, kid.''
       He and his wife had five children, and he had a big job at 
     Cantor Fitzgerald, but somehow he always had time for the 
     team. The team has been at his house every night since, 
     making cookies and pasta for his been at his house every 
     night since, making cookies and pasta for his family, taking 
     turns playing with his baby son to spare his wife, Cherri. On 
     Wednesday, in his honor, they made themselves practice, with 
     the support of three assistant coaches, fathers who said he 
     had brought out the best in them as well as their daughters.

[[Page H6248]]

       ``We're going to play for Paul,'' a tearful Lauren 
     Einecker, 12, said after the practice, her ponytail tied with 
     a sweat band. ``He's going to be in our hearts every time we 
     step out on the court,'' said Shannon Gilmartin, 12, a slip 
     of a point guard.
       Off to the side, John Dini, now the team's head coach, was 
     fighting back tears. ``They call it terrorism,'' he said. 
     ``But to me, it feels like my heart's been broken.''
       Not all the people of Middletown are comforted by talk of 
     war. Many have children in the military, who may soon be in 
     harm's way. And several who lost family members in the Sept. 
     11 attack are horrified to hear Americans calling for people 
     of other countries to die en masse to average their loved 
     ones.
       ``You don't want a bomb to drop anywhere. You don't want 
     anyone to go through this,'' said John Pietrunti, whose 
     brother Nicholas, 38, was a back office worker at Cantor 
     Fitzgerald. ``I turned on the TV and saw that big banner, 
     `Operation Infinite Justice,' and it was as if they were 
     talking about a movie. I expected them to say, `Coming soon.' 
     . . . The way people are talking about retaliation is a 
     disrespect to my brother and to everyone who died there.''
       All around Middletown are reminders of the simple things 
     that used to define life here, most of all, the lure of the 
     water. It is written in the names of streets: Oceanview 
     Avenue, Seaview Avenue, Bayview Terrace. Nobody has yet 
     gotten used to the new meaning of the water. Anthony Bottone, 
     owner of Bottone Realty Group Inc., showed a residential lot 
     to developers last weekend and found himself saying, ``You 
     could build a $500,000 house here and see the New York 
     skyline from the second floor.''
       ``You should have seen the looks I got,'' he said.
       The ferries resumed regular service last Monday, but now 
     they carry more than commuters. Among the travelers are 
     rescue workers, ironworkers, electricians and contractors, 
     all involved in excavating the rubble. There are 
     psychologists and social workers, too, in case passengers 
     need emotional support. Some of last week's commuters were on 
     the 7:55 a.m. ferry from New Jersey on Sept. 11, which 
     reached Wall Street just as the first plane struck. Others 
     had lost up to a dozen friends.
       Social worker Aurore Maren rode the ferries all week, and 
     was struck by the commuters' distress. ``They're helpless in 
     their sense of loss and they're helpless in their sense 
     there's nothing they can do to stop this from spinning even 
     more wildly out of control,'' she said.
       Maren was struck, also, by something else. As the ferry 
     passed under the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge, opening up that 
     amazing, wide-angle view of the Statue of Liberty and the New 
     York skyline, the commuters did something she'd never seen 
     before. They all turned around in their seats. They couldn't 
     bear to look.

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