New American Heroes Feature Fall/Winter 2001

New American Heroes

n the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, Americans have stepped up to show their patriotism and courage. Members of the Oswego family are no exception— whether they are putting their lives on the line to save others, moving forward with love and generosity or giving the next generation a lesson in heroism and hope. There are countless Oswego alumni among the new American heroes. Here are a few of their stories.

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Bob Bacon ’95 | FDNY, Engine 13

Stranded

Bob Bacon Endured Hours on a WTC Landing He had just reached the 26th floor of World Trade Center Tower One, 110 pounds of firefighting equipment strapped to his back. That’s when Bob Bacon ’95 felt the building shake violently.

Lights flickered on and off. Something, he remembers thinking, is very wrong. hat Bacon didn’t know was that Tower Two had just collapsed.

At that point, he and a fellow firefighter were in an office area on the 26th floor.

They decided they should go back into the stairwell, where they met up with other men from their firehouse.

“We started heading down the stairs. It was mostly firemen,” said Bacon, who was a member of the Sigma Gamma fraternity at SUNY Oswego.“We actually got into the lobby and we were missing one of our guys, so the lieutenant and I went back upstairs to look for him. We couldn’t find him, so we figured we just missed him going out. There was no one else coming down.”

“We started heading back down and I was basically on the third floor when all hell broke loose in the stairwell,” Bacon recalled. “The stairwell turned into a tornado. The wind and debris came up. It was like being in a sandstorm.

“We thought it was a localized collapse in the stairwell,” said Bacon, who dove down to the half landing between floors three and two.

The landing then gave way, he started to fall and was bounced around by the rapidly falling debris until he landed, hanging from a pipe about six feet above the half landing between the first and second floors.

“You couldn’t even open your eyes,” he said. “It felt like someone was pouring sand on you.”

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PHOTO BY JOE LAWTON

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Bob Bacon ’95 went back into the World Trade Center to look for a brother firefighter.

When he could open his eyes, it was to complete darkness.

On his way to the scene of the terrorist attack, Bacon knew it was going to be bad.

At the firehouse, when he first heard a plane hit the World Trade Center, he thought that it must have been an acci-

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dent. After all, lots of small planes and helicopters can be seen over Manhattan on any given day.

But then, over the truck radio, Bacon and his fellow firefighters from Engine 39 in Manhattan heard the news about the second tower.

When they arrived at the scene, Bacon, a lieutenant and three other firefighters were told to go to a staging area on the 35th floor of Tower One. As they carried fire hoses and other equipment up the stairs, they were passing people coming down.

“People were coming down and it was pretty orderly,” said Bacon. “People were saying ‘God bless you’ and ‘Be careful.’”

But now, lying in the darkness, it was quiet chaos.

He reached for his flashlight. So did the other firefighters trapped in the same area — his lieutenant and two firefighters from Ladder 6.

“Everyone who was conscious was turning their flashlights on and calling out ‘who’s there, who’s there?’ It was pitch dark except for the flashlights.”

Bacon freed himself from the pipe. He and another firefighter near him could see a sign in the stairwell that indicated they were on the second floor.

“We still thought it was a collapse of the stairwell,” he said.

“We were thinking at least we are on the second floor. We had no clue the building was down.”

The lieutenant from Engine 39 and another firefighter forced the door open thinking they could get into the hallway.

“But there was no hallway left,” said Bacon.

“It was just another small void.”

Realizing they couldn’t get out on their own, the firefighters started to make mayday calls.

They could hear reports on the broadband radio that both towers had collapsed, and Bacon thought, “There’s no way they are coming to get us because there are 105 floors on top of us.”

“I didn’t think we were getting out of there,” Bacon said. “You were just sitting tight. You didn’t want to move. Every time you heard something fall, you would cringe because you were worried there was a secondary collapse. You were worried you might suffocate.”

Once the dust cleared, they saw light from the outside.

“It eventually got brighter and brighter in the stairwell,” said Bacon. “A guy above us said he swore he saw sky and I’m thinking, how can you see sky, we’re on the second floor of the World Trade Center? But then later another guy said, ‘I think I see the sun.’”

One of the fire chiefs, who was also trapped, began blowing a siren.

Finally, after being trapped for three hours, Bacon and other firefighters in the stairwell were found by firemen from Ladder 43. “They had climbed all the way through the rubble and wreckage,” he said.

But it wasn’t over yet.

“Once I was out, it probably took 45 minutes to climb out of the debris to a staging area,” he said. “You had to walk on beams, slide down a girder. Every time the wind blew, you had to close your eyes and stop for a minute because you couldn’t see.

“It took a long time to come out. You could see parts of the towers leaning over you, Building 7 was burning. You just wanted to get on street level.”

Bacon was transported to Bellevue Hospital for breathing difficulty, and released later that night at about 11:30 p.m.

He would find out the next day that two men from his firehouse were killed.

About four days after the terrorist attack, Bacon, who lives in New City with his fiancée, Kathleen Liguori ’95, an elementary school teacher in Rockland County, was on assignment to search one of the surrounding buildings. “I was amazed at how bad it still was. There were still fires burning down there,” he said.

“Some of the guys are down there all the time, still digging, still looking,” he said several weeks later.

He had difficulty sleeping for the first few weeks after the attack, and was still waking up in the middle of the night. “It helps to talk about it,” said Bacon.“I’m just taking one day at a time.”

—Patricia Rycraft O’Toole ’79

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Michael Cawley ’91 | FDNY, Ladder 136

Fireman to the End MICHAEL CAWLEY ’91, A NEW YORK CITY firefighter, died in the rescue efforts at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. He was 32 years old.

Cawley’s ladder company, Ladder 136 in Elmhurst, Queens, was detailed to Engine 292 and Rescue 4 the day of the terrorist attack.

More than 1,500 people attended a memorial Mass for Cawley Oct. 7 at Mary’s Nativity Roman Catholic Church in his hometown of Flushing.

His body was recovered Nov. 3, and a funeral Mass was celebrated Nov. 8 at Mary’s Nativity Roman Catholic Church, followed by burial at Mount St. Mary’s Cemetery.

He is survived by his parents, Margaret and John; his sister, Kristin; and his brother, Brendan.

Cawley graduated from Archbishop Molloy High School.

He was a member of the Hudson Council Knights of Columbus, and the New York Fire Department’s Holy Name Society, Emerald Society and the department’s football team.

Cawley scored 100 percent on the Fire Department exam, his brother, Brendan, told The New York Times. Cawley loved his job and was “a walking billboard for the Fire Department,” Brendan said in The New York Times interview, adding that Michael had drawers of FDNY T-shirts and rarely wore anything else.

Brendan also told The New York Times that Michael always wanted to be a firefighter and by age 3, firefighters knew him by name.

Brendan once asked his brother, “Wouldn’t it be cool to play major-league baseball?”

Brendan told The New York Times that Michael’s answer was: “Rather be a fireman.”

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Jimmy Grismer ’89 | FDNY, Engine Co. 23, Ladder 13

‘Hell on Earth’ Grismer Lost Two Oswego Friends

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they would have a crane come over and move it,” he said.“Sometimes you’d walk out of there after 10 or 12 hours and feel like you hadn’t done anything.”

As he takes part in the massive clean-up operation, Grismer’s memories take him back to earlier times that the World Trade Center played a role in his life.

As a child, he would frequently visit the Twin Towers with his father, who was superintendent of operations at the World Trade Center until his retirement in 1997. Grismer remembers watching the Bicentennial Celebration fireworks in 1976 from the observation deck.

After Sept. 11, it was a different view. “Words can’t describe the devastation, the destruction, the carnage I saw the first day… hell on earth.”

Weeks after the attacks, the rubble was still smoking. Steel I-beams, said Grismer, “were still cherry red hot.”

Grismer comes from a long line of firefighters, including his father and Jimmy Grismer ’89 lost two fellow alumni and many brother firegrandfather, both volun- fighters. teer firefighters. An uncle was a New York City firelook for books on firefighting. He found a man. book called Report from Engine Co. 82 writ“I grew up in a firehouse one way or an- ten by Dennis Smith, a New York City fireother,” he said. fighter, and published in 1972.

A broadcasting major at Oswego, he “It explained the life and times of a firetraces his decision to become a firefighter to fighter in that era,” he recalls. “I read that an epiphany he had at Penfield Library. book in one night and I said, ‘This is what I While working on a term paper, he want to do.’ I knew in my heart that’s what I found himself drawn to the “F” section to wanted to be.”

PHOTO BY JOE LAWTON

hen off-duty New York City firefighter Jimmy Grismer ’89 saw an image of the World Trade Center in flames flash across his TV screen, he reached for the phone to call longtime friends and fellow alumni Michael Hannan ’89 and Rich “Ricky” Caproni ’89, who worked on the 98th floor of the World Trade Center Tower One. All circuits were busy, so Grismer left his home in Walden, Orange County, to drive to his firehouse, Engine Co. 23, Ladder 13.

His mother called him there to tell him Caproni and Hannan were missing. He would find out later that both friends died in the attack.

Grismer and Hannan became friends in high school in Lynbrook, Long Island. “We played football together and we had the same part-time jobs,”said Grismer.“We both attended Nassau Community College and in 1987, we both transferred to SUNY Oswego — no doubt our finest time together.”

Grismer met Caproni at Oswego. “This guy had more friends than anyone I’ve ever known. Ricky was a sweet person and a super friend.”

Along with enduring the loss of two of his best friends, Grismer lost nine from his firehouse in the collapse of the World Trade Center.

Weeks after the terrorist attacks, Grismer said he still found it impossible to accept that this could really have happened.

“It’s beyond surreal,” said Grismer. “You can’t believe it. You think it’s a dream.”

In the days immediately following the attacks, firefighters from his firehouse were involved in the rescue and recovery mission, working shifts of 24 hours on and 24 hours off. The first week after the disaster, Grismer was there every day.

“We were still missing guys and we were like, ‘we’ve got to get them, we’ve got to get them,’” he said.

The work has been tedious, dangerous and never ending.

“It was so frustrating. You just dug through rubble six or eight inches deep and you would come across a big steel beam and

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He took the firefighter test in 1992, the physical in 1994 and was accepted in 1995.

“It was one of the happiest days in my life when I got that letter saying, ‘You have been selected,’” he said.

“We love our jobs,” he said of himself and his fellow firefighters. “We call each other brother and it couldn’t be more true.

We lost quite a few guys from the firehouse.

It’s unbelievable. I think I’ll wake up and go into work and see all these guys.”

How is he getting through this?

“My wife, Jennifer, has been wonderful, right beside me every day. My family, my friends, my firefighter friends, we’ve all stuck together and said, ‘We’re going to get through this.We don’t know how, but we’re going to get through this.’”

Before the World Trade Center attacks, Grismer had a poster in his garage of the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima, with the saying “We can, we must, we will.”

The poster no longer hangs in his garage.

It now hangs on the wall at the firehouse amid the cards and letters the firefighters have received from all over the world.

—Patricia Rycraft O’Toole ’79

In happier days, Grismer (front left) and Rich Caproni ’89 (back row, second from left) got together with Oswego alumni on the “Ugly Team” for a Bills football game.

Bill Beyer ’77 | FDNY, Battalion 18

Beyer Sees Hope IN THE SPAN OF SEVERAL WEEKS, Battalion Fire Chief Bill Beyer ’77 had been to more funerals and memorial services than most people attend in a lifetime.

“It’s very difficult,” said Beyer, a 23-year veteran of the Fire Department of New York.

“There are so many funerals and memorial services, you can’t even properly grieve for each individual.”

And the sheer number of firefighter fatalities in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center has made it impossible for grieving firefighters to attend every service.

On one Saturday, there were 23 memorial services and funerals for his fellow New York City firefighters, and most weekends averaged 20 services.

“Everybody is just numb,” said Beyer, chief of Battalion 18 in the Bronx. “It just feels like my heart and soul were ripped out of me.”

Sept. 11 was a day off from the fire department for Beyer, so he was working as a substitute technology teacher at a school near his Highland Mills, Orange County, home.

At about 11 a.m., another teacher drew his attention to the television and asked if he had heard what happened. “I thought it was a movie,” he said.

Beyer immediately left to join in the search and rescue effort.

What he first saw when he arrived on the scene, and what he has dealt with on a

day-to-day basis in the search and rescue, has been staggering.

“You really can’t describe it in words,” said Beyer. “The damage, the destruction.

You see things nobody should have to see.”

He has found solace and a way to cope in his music. Beyer, who is married and has five children, is a member of his church’s folk group, playing guitar and singing.

He has played his guitar at about a dozen funerals and memorial services for fellow firefighters. “That’s a little bit of therapy for me,” said Beyer. “I feel like I’m doing something good for somebody else.”

What he has seen in his fellow rescuers and the people from across the country as they reach out to offer encouragement and gratitude is hope.

“Good always triumphs over evil. There’s a tremendous amount of good we’ve seen come from people that will overcome the bad that has happened. It will take a long time, but good will prevail.”

And, he said, in this time of tremendous loss, we should not forget one remarkable accomplishment of the rescuers who died and those who survived.

“We saved 25,000 lives by getting them out of the buildings before they collapsed. We have to remember this and not let it fade away.”

—Patricia Rycraft O’Toole ’79

“We saved 25,000 lives by getting them out of the buildings before they collapsed.

We have to remember this and not let it fade away.”

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Joe Liselli ’87 | FDNY, Engine Co. 54, Ladder 4

Memorial Days Cards from Kids Keep Liselli Going f the 60 firefighters assigned to Joe Liselli’s firehouse, 15 died at the World Trade Center.

“Everyone who worked that day, they’re all gone,” said Joe Liselli ’87, of Engine 54, Ladder 4 in Manhattan. “They were in the first group that went down.”

Of all firehouses that responded to the World Trade Center,“we lost the most in the city,” he said.

“If you aren’t working, you are going to memorials,” said Liselli. “Psychologically, it’s been pretty tough. You’ll have a good day, you’ll have a bad day.”

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PHOTO BY JOE LAWTON

Liselli has been a firefighter for two years after serving three years as a New York City police officer.

While Liselli is assigned to Engine 54, he had spent the nine months before the attack on a rotation at another firehouse in the South Bronx. Joe would often visit the guys at Engine 54 because the firehouse is just a few blocks from the apartment he shares with fellow firefighter and Oswego alumnus Peter Wasserman ’87.

“I live right up the street, so I always used to walk down and see how things were going,” said Liselli. “You become good friends, you live together, you eat together, you go on trips together.”

Because Engine 54 lost so many firefighters, he has returned there now, instead of waiting three months to complete his rotation in the Bronx.

Liselli and the other firefighters at Engine 54 are doing

whatever they can to help the families of the firefighters who were killed, he said. Twentynine children lost their dads.

“The families come down to the house,” he said. “It makes you feel better. You do what you can for them.We try to take care of them.

“We still have so much to do,” he said.

“You have to fight fires, take care of the families and take care of each other.”

Going to work at the firehouse, he said, “is like going to a memorial every day.”

Engine 54, which is near Times Square, has been visited by many people since Sept. 11. The firehouse brims with flowers, gifts, cards and letters, many from school children. “It kind of keeps you going a little bit,” said Liselli.

There’s one drawing that has really gotten to Liselli. Drawn by an 8-year-old, it shows a World Trade Center in flames and an unhappy face on the sun.

“It was the saddest thing I ever saw.”

—Patricia Rycraft O’Toole ’79

James Marley ’87 | FDNY, 36 Truck

Marley Came Back to Help

Joe Liselli ’87 belongs to a firehouse that lost all the firefighters on duty Sept. 11.

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JAMES MARLEY ’87 HAD NEVER heard it before so he wasn’t sure whether he was mistaken. Did the radio announcer really say all offduty New York City firefighters had to report?

When he heard the same announcement a few minutes later, Marley said, “I knew it was for real.”

James was on vacation on Sept.

11, driving to East Hampton, Long Island, with the car radio on. He and his son, Jake, were on their way to visit the Marley family.

He turned toward home, dropped his son off with a babysitter and met up with fellow firefighters to go to his firehouse, 36 Truck.

“It was total chaos,” said

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Marley. “All the bridges were closed.

If you weren’t a firefighter, a police officer or an EMT, you weren’t getting into Manhattan.”

By the time his battalion arrived on the scene of the attack, “it was just white powder, sheet metal, steel I-beams and lots of paper.”

Marley spent the night looking for survivors, and has been participating in the search and rescue and recovery efforts.

His firehouse didn’t lose anyone, though two firefighters from his old house, 12 Truck in Chelsea, Manhattan, were killed.

Marley and his wife, Kathy, also have a daughter, Alyssa.

Alumni News Grads at WNYT Cover WTC

LESSON FOR YOUNG REPORTERS Gray was on his way to the gym when the news first broke. He walked into the gym and no one was exercising. They were all watching the monitors.

“I called the station and I asked ‘Do you need me to go?’ I had only a suit and eight bucks in my pocket,” he said. “I was on the road at the time the second plane hit.”

They couldn’t get into New York and so they spent the first day and night at Jersey City, talking to people who had seen the attack, looking across the river at the skyline. The next day they made it to Ground Zero.

Gray was in New York until Friday. Thinking quickly, he had booked rooms at the Marriott for the crew. Because he had no clothes, he purchased Oswego alumni are well represented among WNYT staffers. what he needed there — at From left are Mark Szpylczyn ’79, Jeff Wernick ’95, Tracy premium prices. “I ended Lonczak Wernick ’95, John Gray ’85, Steve Robbins ’79, Benita up with three dress shirts, Zahn ’76 and Steve St. George ’81. three ties and a pair of socks for about $200,” he said.

“There’s a lesson here for young re- COPING, BACK HOME The WNYT staffers are back in the Capporters. You don’t worry about where you’re going to sleep, what you have in your pocket ital District, coping with the realities of life or what kind of clothes you have.You just go.” after Sept. 11.

“We keep thinking the stories will end, but we keep ending up with more,” said Jeff.

THE BACK SIDE OF THE MOON The WNYT health reporter, Zahn spent Another Capital District station got two letthe first day covering the Red Cross blood ters they feared were infected with anthrax drive in Albany. The next day, she was in addressed to the on-air hosts, and a local man invented a heat machine that cuts New York City.

“The whole area was dust, grey dust,” she through concrete and steel which was sent said of Ground Zero. “We had a half hour down to Ground Zero.

For a while Zahn was haunted by the and just started walking. The photographer memory of the smell at Ground Zero. slow mo’d it and that’s what it felt like.”

She called the scene “surreal,” saying, “Smell is the most powerful of senses, hard“I’ve shopped in these stores, walked these wired into your brain,” she said. “I was streets and eaten in these restaurants, but I smelling the disaster at weird times, but that could have been on the back side of the passed.”

A long-distance runner who raised moon.”

Zahn and Gray worked shoulder-to- about $65,000 at the Boston Marathon for a shoulder for two live, on-air appearances colleague who died of cancer, Zahn found each night until Friday after the attacks. her own way to escape the horrors she had They witnessed events like the Presidential witnessed. “I got home on Saturday and it motorcade and the reunion of a mother was a breathtakingly, achingly beautiful from Colonie and her daughter, who es- morning — you know how it is in mid-Sepcaped from the 82nd floor and drove home. tember. The sun was sparkling on the Hud“We were there when she saw her mother son and we went (running). It was the most for the first time that Friday,” said Jeff Wer- life-affirming thing I could do.”

— Michele Reed nick. For both stories, Tracy Wernick was in the production booth.

PHOTO COURTESY OF WNYT

reporter is always looking for the “big story.” But when the folks at WNYT in Albany got the chance to cover the biggest one in recent memory — the Sept. 11 attack — it was a bittersweet achievement.

Seven Oswego alumni — on-air reporters Benita Zahn ’76 and John Gray ’85, producers Jeff Wernick ’95 and Tracy Lonczak Wernick ’95, Mark Szpylczyn ’79, Steve Robbins ’79 and Steve St. George ’81 — work at the NBC affiliate, and all had a hand in bringing coverage of the attack to the people of the Capital District.

“You hope for the big story; anyone who tells you they don’t is a liar,” said Gray.

“Part of you is glad to experience it as a reporter, but the other part of you wants to be home with your kids.”

Gray saw families holding up pictures of their loved ones on the piers of New York, and he walked the ruins of the Twin Towers.

“I have been a reporter since I got out of Oswego in 1985, and no story — nothing — has affected me like this,” said Gray. “I just wanted to go into a corner and cry.”

Jeff Wernick, who produced a 90minute non-stop news show Sept. 11 and several others in the following days, said, “For the first time since I’ve been in this business, I felt like we were providing a real service to people.” He called that first show “the most draining 90 minutes” he’s experienced.

“I’ve been a reporter a long time and you’re prepared for just about anything, and you make a peace a long time ago with yourself. It’s like flipping a switch, so you can do your job and not get emotional, but leave a little emotion so you’re not cold,” said Zahn.

“There was not a reporter from our crew who was not touched, who did not have tears in his eyes.”

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Kids Reach Out

In the midst of a terrible tragedy, a SUNY Oswego connection gave comfort and hope to overwhelmed firefighters and a lesson in heroism for some third-graders and sixth-graders. s the tragedy of Sept. 11 was first unfolding, elementary school teachers Bill Cahill ’94 and Jennifer Jung Cahill ’93 and their classes wanted to show their concern and do something to help.

Little did they know that the heroes they would reach out to hundreds of miles away in New York City would include SUNY Oswego alumni.

Here’s their story: Bill Cahill is a sixth-grade teacher at Volney Elementary School in the Fulton School District, just south of Oswego. His wife, Jennifer, teaches third grade at Leighton Elementary School in Oswego.

On Sept. 11, Jennifer and other thirdgrade teachers at her school decided not to tell their students about the terrorist attacks that day.

“My team and I got together and decided not to share it with our kids, that we real-

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ly should leave it up to the parents,” she said.

When her students returned to school on the following day, they had lots of questions. And, said Jennifer, they told her, “We want to do something.”

Bill heard that same desire to help from his sixth-graders.

That same week, the Cahills called friends of theirs in New York City, brothers Jerry and Tom Caraccioli ’89, to check in on them and other alumni friends.

When Bill and Jennifer told Tom that their students wanted to do something to help, he mentioned that a friend and fellow alumnus, Peter Wasserman ’87, was a New York City firefighter. Three firefighters from Wasserman’s firehouse were lost at the World Trade Center.

The Cahills’ classes went to work preparing packages to send to the firefighters at Engine 82.

Jennifer Jung Cahill ’93, back row left, and her third-grade class sent cards and letters to firefighters in New York City.

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Boxes were filled with socks, gloves, flashlights, snacks, key chains and other gifts. One third-grade boy put a Lego firefighter figure inside a Band-Aid box.

Also included were cards and letters.

“They were really very touching, heartfelt letters,” said Jennifer Cahill.

Helping out with the project in Bill Cahill’s class were two consulting teachers in his classroom, Alaina Morawski ’91 and Cheryl Natoli ’83.The new principal at Volney Elementary School is Donna Parkhurst ’88, who lent her support to the project. The new physical education teacher, Kevin Ahern ’87, sent basketballs, footballs and jump ropes.

Meanwhile, in lower Manhattan, Wasserman and his fellow firefighters were living through the first dark days of early rescue operations.

Then, the packages from Upstate New York started arriving.

“The first package we got from Fulton, I had no idea what it was,” said Wasserman, who has been a firefighter since 1991. He remembered that Fulton was located near his alma mater. “The next day I came back (to the firehouse) and there’s three huge boxes.”

It was a much-needed lift, he said.

“It felt good to know that even people so far away realized what’s going on,”he said.

Having the packages originate from Oswego alumni and the Oswego area “brought back a lot of good memories,” said Wasserman.

“It was a welcome distraction to everything that is going on.”

The children’s cards and letters now decorate the kitchen wall in the firehouse.

The lesson in caring and giving isn’t over for the students of Volney Elementary and Leighton School, said the Cahills.

“This is going to be a year-long project,” said Bill Cahill. Both schools continue to send packages to the firehouse, especially during the winter holidays. “We told them we wanted to adopt their firehouse for the year,” he said.

Bill Cahill ’94, front row center, and his sixth-graders made a timeline of the attack on America and reached out to firefighters.

Also lending support with the project were, in the back row, Donna Parkhurst ’88 (far left), Volney Elementary School principal; Alaina Morawski ’91 (second from right), consulting teacher; and Kevin Ahern ’87 (far right), physical education teacher.

Wasserman sent red, white and blue and yellow ribbons to the two classes to let the students know how much their efforts are appreciated at the firehouse. He and several other firefighters hope to visit the students to personally thank the kids.

Wasserman, who played hockey for the SUNY Oswego Lakers, hopes to catch a home hockey game during the trip.

Their civic involvement has helped the children cope with the tragedy by helping others, said Jennifer Cahill. “They have a sense of empowerment, that they are helping and not helpless.”

“Sometimes, because they are children they don’t think they can make a difference in the world. We wanted them to know that even though they are children in upstate New York, they can make a difference for people who live very far away,” said Bill Cahill.

Wasserman and his fellow firefighters have inspired the students with the lesson of serving others.

Drawing by Sean, third grade.

“For the first time ever in my teaching career, I hear kids saying ‘I want to be a fireman and a policeman when I grow up,’”said Bill Cahill. “It’s nice to hear them say that again. They have become today’s superheroes.”

—Patricia Rycraft O’Toole ’79

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“Light is a symbol of love, a symbol of knowledge, and also a symbol of truth.

At this vigil, in solidarity, we hold our candles to drive out the darkness of the night and in our world.”

—PRESIDENT DEBORAH F. STANLEY, SEPT. 11, 2001

IN MEMORIAM Our condolences go out to the families and friends of Oswego alumni lost on Sept. 11.

Scott Bart ’95 Malverne, N.Y. Marsh & McLennan

Michael O’Brien ’81 Cedar Knolls, N.J. Cantor Fitzgerald

Michelle Bratton ’00 Yonkers, N.Y. Cantor Fitzgerald

James E. Potorti ’72 Princeton, N.J. Marsh & McLennan

Richard Caproni ’89 Lynbrook, N.Y. Marsh & McLennan

Leo Roberts ’79 Wayne, N.Y. Cantor Fitzgerald

Michael Cawley ’91 Flushing, N.Y. FDNY, Ladder 136

Melissa R. Vincent ‘94 Hoboken, N.J. Alliance Consulting Group

Michael Collins ’84 Upper Montclair, N.J. Cantor Fitzgerald

James Woods ’97 Pearl River, N.Y. Cantor Fitzgerald

Michael Hannan ’89 Lynbrook, N.Y. Marsh & McLennan

* These are the alumni lost in Sept. 11 attacks as known at press time.

Brendan Chamberlain ’91 | NYPD, 23rd Precinct

Days, Nights a Blur Chamberlain Contributes to New York Recovery fter 13 days at Ground Zero, Brendan Chamberlain ’91 had this message for people who want to go down and see it: “You might not come out of it the way you were when you went in.”

The New York City police officer saw things he will never forget. “I saw a lot of things that left scars,” he said. “When I look back, it actually bothers me more now than when I was in there. I get welled up when I talk about it.”

Although he wasn’t working when the planes hit the World Trade Center on Sept.

11, Chamberlain was called in soon after that.

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“I saw a lot of things that left scars...”

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PHOTO BY JOE LAWTON

When Chamberlain reported to his precinct, the 23rd, located in Spanish Harlem, he suited up to go downtown — only to find he was on standby.

The next day he was part of a team at Ground Zero, helping escort people to and from the site. Eventually he got connected with one of the supply coordinators for Ground Zero, providing everything from welding tips to toothpaste, masks and gloves to the groups working through the rubble.

“I would be running around inside Ground Zero to all the groups — firefighters, first aid, police, welders,” he said. “We would go and get the stuff they needed. For example, when they needed 500 shovels we would make a call to, say, Home Depot, and they would donate them, bring them in, and we would distribute them.”

Being busy helped.“It made me feel like I was doing something,”he said.“I wanted to dig. I wanted to find somebody but wasn’t allowed. . . . It felt good that I was able to help.

“That was my gig every day from 4 in the morning ’til 7 or 8 that night and sometimes ‘til 1 the next morning,” he said. “I’d come home, sleep a couple hours and go

back. Days and nights were a blur.”

On Sept. 24, Chamberlain got bad news — his father was gravely ill in North Carolina. He made the journey south, and after his father passed away on Sept. 27, he didn’t have the desire to go back inside Ground Zero.

His dad, an NYPD detective, had been Chamberlain’s inspiration to go into police work. Chamberlain was a theatre major at Oswego and lived in California for a while after graduation. He worked on some educational films and commercials, and had a small but regular gig on the weekly TV show “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose.” He tried acting for three years and then worked as a talent agent for children for four. He took the police exam in New York and when they offered him a job, he took it.

At press time Chamberlain was working at the temporary hub site for all the groups — the Office of Emergency Management, FDNY, NYPD. It’s where Brendan Chamberlain ’91 delivered supplies to Ground Zero and patrols the command center.

Mayor Rudolph Guiliani and other top officials gather to make decisions about the efforts at Ground Zero and hold want to be back in my precinct, doing papress conferences. Chamberlain can’t say trol. Since we have to have somebody there every day, I told them, ‘I would like to do where that is.

“We are doing security there . . . making that.’ It makes me feel better about the whole sure people have proper ID, checking bags thing. I’m contributing to the recovery of New York and that feels pretty good.” and car trunks,” he said.

—Michele Reed “It’s the headquarters. That’s where I wanted to be,” said Chamberlain. “I didn’t

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Rafael Giovanni “Jova” Rodriguez ’98 | NYPD, 42nd Precinct

There at the Fall ‘Jova’ Rodriguez Was a Block Away When WTC 7 Came Down afael Giovanni “Jova” Rodriguez ’98 didn’t see the images of the planes hitting the Twin Towers the morning of Sept.

11. The TV antennae serving his neighborhood were atop the World Trade Center.

But the NYPD officer’s first glimpse of the area was dramatic. He arrived at Ground Zero later that day and was one block away when Building 7 fell.

Rodriguez arrived at the West Side Highway. “All you could see was debris in the air,” he said. “They wanted us to search some buildings in the immediate area, because people were scared and didn’t want to come out.”

It felt like a scene from a movie. “I felt like we were in ‘Band of Brothers,’” he said.

“It felt good, because people were on the sides, cheering us on as we went in.”

When they were about a block from WTC 7, the third-largest building in the complex at 47 stories high, Rodriguez said, “We heard a rumbling sound. We thought it was a jet fighter because the F-16s were patrolling the island.”

And then the building fell. “We heard a fireman yelling, ‘Run!’ A cloud was coming at us. Our dark blue uniforms were white.

We had to get masks to breathe.”

Rodriguez got home at about 3 or 4 o’clock the next morning. That’s when he finally saw the images the rest of America had been viewing all day. “I did cry that day, when I first saw it,” he said. “The next day, when I went down to Ground Zero, tears started coming down my face.”

He spent two weeks at Ground Zero, patrolling the area with his brother officers.

“It’s the most horrific sight, words can’t explain what you see,” he said. “Two days later I saw a police officer pulled out of the rubble. All the police officers and firefighters stood and saluted.”

Twice, he and his partner went down to search the rubble, on their only two days off during a four-week period. “It’s so difficult to search,” he said. “When you look at footage of it coming down, you see these little toothpicks. These beams are so big — I saw them placing a beam on a flatbed and it broke the flatbed.”

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Rodriguez always wanted to be a police officer. He hopes someday to join a federal agency like the FBI or Drug Enforcement Agency. At Oswego he majored in Spanish literature and has found his bilingualism to be a big help in his job.

One good thing came out of the destruction of Sept. 11, he said — a new respect for the police officers and firefighters.

“The Yankees and the Mets had on NYPD and FDNY hats,” he said. “It makes you feel so good.” Even street vendors were selling the police and fire memorabilia.

“People are being patriotic,” he said.

“Wearing the NYPD hat is like waving the American flag.”

—Michele Reed

‘Jova’ Rodriguez ’98 helped to search the rubble.

Sgt. John McLoughlin ’75 | New York Port Authority Police

Trapped for 20 Hours FOR MORE THAN 20 HOURS, Sgt. John McLoughlin ’75 of the New York Port Authority Police Department lay trapped beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center.

Surrounding fires burned so intensely, the heat triggered another officer’s service revolver to fire off several bullets.

Rescuers worked the day and night of Sept. 11 and into the early hours of Sept.

12 to free McLoughlin. He was recovering and listed in stable condition at Bellevue Hospital at the end of October.

McLoughlin is assigned to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan. Port Authority police officers undergo special training to become certified as first responders for medical emergencies and are cross-trained as firefighters.

“Sgt. McLoughlin was among the first to respond,” said Greg Trevor, a spokesman for the Port Authority.

Fellow officer William Jimeno was trapped in the rubble with him. Jimeno was rescued after about 12 hours. He was also seriously injured. There were other officers who were trapped with them who

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did not survive. McLoughlin and Jimeno were assisting with evacuation and rescue efforts at the time the towers collapsed.

They were believed to be in an area known as the Concourse, which connects the buildings below ground level, said Trevor.

McLoughlin was very familiar with the WTC complex, having been assigned there from 1987 to 2000. He received a group valor award for his outstanding work during the 1993 terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center.

A married man and father, McLoughlin was promoted to his current rank in 2000, and assigned to the bus terminal.

He also has worked as an emergency services unit instructor.

Among those who rescued McLoughlin were New York Police Department officers who received emergency services training from him, said Trevor.

Well wishes can be sent to McLoughlin in care of the Port Authority Police Department at the Port Authority Technical Center, 241 Erie Street, Room 212, Jersey City, NJ 07310.

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Larry Rubinstein ’81 | Owner, Rubco

Helping Out Chance Put Medic on the Scene

e may be a television editor and technical director by profession, but Larry Rubinstein ’81 is also a trained medic and on Sept. 11 he found himself in a place where his skills were very much needed — Ground Zero.

Rubinstein, a senior editor at a production facility in New York City and owner of the video company Rubco, was in a production meeting in Building 7 of the World Trade Center when the first plane hit.

“Everyone thought it was a mistake, like the military plane that hit the Empire State Building in the ’30s or ’40s,” he said. People ran outside.

Rubinstein teamed up with fire personnel and other medics to help anyone needing them.

“There was a lot of debris coming down onto people on the street and we were rendering aid to them,” he said. Then the second plane hit. “I heard it and I Larry Rubinstein ’81 used his training as a medic to help victims at Ground Zero. looked up and I saw it go in,” he said. “Then we realized it was not just an accident, something more Usually the calls aren’t so dangerous, Except for scrapes and bruises, Rubinwas going on.”

Rubinstein teamed up with other med- stein wasn’t badly hurt. He stayed and tried and sometimes they have a happy ending. to tend to people. After Sept. 11 he went “I’ve delivered babies before,” he said. ical personnel arriving on the scene.

Despite his bravery in rushing back into “I was helping out with a firefighter. back every day for five days. “I was helping And then he yelled at the top of his lungs, out, trying to rescue somebody, but there Ground Zero to help survivors, Rubinstein insists he is not a hero.

‘Grab somebody and run,’” Rubinstein said. was no one to rescue,” he said.

“The folks on the Pennsylvania flight Rubinstein is a senior TV editor and Rubinstein picked up the girl he was working on and ran with the firefighter and technical director in the TV business. He and the firefighters who went into the buildhis patient. “After the building fell, a wall of won a technical Emmy for a CBS two-hour ing — those are the heroes,” he said. “I was just trying to help.” smoke came at us and we ran into a building special “Television and the Presidency.”

—Michele Reed He has been a medic for about 20 years, and closed the door. More workers were coming in, so after the smoke let up a bit, we but he started getting his medical training went back and were tending to people. And even before that. “In 1972, when I was 13 he yelled again. It was the second building years old, my dad died of a heart attack. And if somebody had known anything about coming down.”

Rubinstein went one way, the firefighter medical training, he might have been alive the other. Rubinstein got hit with falling today,” he said.

Rubinstein is part of a team trained in rubble and was covered with debris, until he rescue that gets called in case of disaster. was pulled clear by another at the scene.

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PHOTO BY JOE LAWTON

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Joseph Ricci ’91 | Redeemer Presbyterian Church

Caring for the City Ricci Helps Disburse Aid 12-year-old church that ministers to business professionals in New York City’s financial district has become a focus of charitable giving to help those affected by the Sept. 11 attacks.

Redeemer Presbyterian Church office manager Joseph Ricci ’91 is helping to manage more than $1.3 million donated by people around the country to help those in need.

Because the congregation consists mostly of young professionals in the financial fields, the church, located on Madison Avenue and 40th Street in midtown Manhattan, was hard hit by the events of Sept.

11. “We have a lot of people who have been affected by this,” says Ricci. “Just the spiritual need that people are feeling now has caused our attendance to grow by about 1,000.”

The day of the attacks the church opened its doors to people to come in off the streets and pray or talk with staffers. “We had pastors that were down in the midst of it — praying with people, talking with people, just being there with people,” says Ricci.

Church members opened their homes to those who had lost their apartments.

None of the congregation members lost their lives. But some lost loved ones; others, their jobs; still others, their homes.

People all over the country began contributing. By mid-October over $1.3 million had been raised, from Presbyterians and people of other denominations. The fund was named “Hope for New York” and has its own status as a not-for-profit corporation.

“We want to help the people in need, help the city in need,” says Ricci. “With all the generosity from around the country that has been given to us, we decided to help all those who might need it — not just church members.”

Redeemer Presbyterian partnered with groups like the Bowery Men’s Transitional Center. The church helps 30 programs with funds and volunteers.

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The church set up a Disaster Relief Department. As office manager, Ricci had to obtain more phones and office space, and set up a new database to keep track of everything.“Sort of a triage for charitable giving,” is how Ricci describes it.

To find people that may need the help they had to offer, the church set up on one of the piers and handed out flyers.

Ricci joined the church staff as office

PHOTO COURTESY OF JOSEPH RICCI ’91

Joseph Ricci ’91 helps manage a $1.3 million fund for disaster relief.

“We want to help the people in need, help the city in need.”

manager in March. A theatre major at Oswego, he is known for his roles in “Pippin” and “Into the Woods.”After working in New York theatre for a while, he wanted “something a little more stable” to provide for his family — he and his wife have three children. He began doing computer work for Actor’s Equity at the national headquarters and that led to his office manager job at the church. Now he is pursuing pastoral work.

That comes naturally for him. A member of the Newman Center at Oswego, Ricci sang with the worship leading group.

Whether he is working with the relief fund or pastoral work, Ricci is happy to be helping his city.

“We are a church that exists for the city, a church that loves the city. And so we want to care for the city. We think it’s a great place to be,” he says.

—Michele Reed

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Mary Alison Guidone Valle ’86, M ’89 | American Red Cross

Career of Caring Red Cross Staffer’s Been There Before fter the Sept. 11 attacks, Mary Alison Guidone Valle ’86, M ’89 dropped what she was doing and went to help out at an emergency blood drive at Red Cross Square in Washington, D.C. The drive went on until midnight to make sure each person waiting in the long lines could give blood. Pitching in during a disaster is nothing new to Valle, who has worked with the American Red Cross since she graduated from Oswego.

In fact, the World Trade Center disaster hit close to home for Valle, despite the fact that her office as manager of youth involvement is at Red Cross National Headquarters in Washington. Her first job out of college was as a disaster caseworker at the Greater New York Chapter. She provided emergency assistance in the city, which averages 10 fires a day, and later joined the Disaster Services Human Resource system responding to plane crashes, earthquakes and floods.

“I remember vividly the day the World Trade Center was bombed in 1993, as the Greater New York chapter was concluding a two-day training of city mental health workers,” she says. “I assisted with support groups the Red Cross provided to help the workers reduce their anxiety about returning to the buildings.”

Valle continued to help out at emergency blood drives following the Sept. 11 attacks. “It was inspiring to see so many people selflessly wait for hours and hours to be able to help a stranger,” she says. That first day the Washington Blood Services regional office reported over 450 donors. “It felt like thousands!” says Valle. “Normally they have 60 donors per day.”

She was happy to see young people get involved in the disaster relief as well.

“What was amazing to me was the fact that America’s young people as a whole — not just Red Cross youth volunteers — came out in droves to help the victims,”says Valle. “In the days immediately following the disasters, I couldn’t walk down the street in Washington, D.C., without encountering a bake sale or lemonade stand

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PHOTO BY HILARY SCHWAB

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Mary Alison Guidone Valle ’86, M’89 has been on the scene of many disasters with the Red Cross.

set up by young people to help support the Red Cross Disaster Relief effort. It was very touching.”

A psychology major with a master’s in counseling psychology from Oswego, Valle says working for the Red Cross has been rewarding. “I joined the Red Cross to help people. Little did I know then how much helping people would help me.” She is part of a Red Cross family. Her husband, Daniel, director of Africa and the Middle East International Services at the American Red Cross National Headquarters, was assigned to disaster relief in New York City after the

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Sept. 11 attack and worked at the compassion center set up there.

Valle says her experiences have convinced her of one thing. “Whatever the scope of the disaster, whether it is a singlefamily fire or a flood destroying an entire town, there is always one constant — neighbors helping neighbors,” she says. “In the hours, days and weeks after this horrific disaster, as I struggle to come to terms with what occurred, it has been comforting to see that same spirit of giving and caring for others. Only this time we are all neighbors.”

—Michele Reed

Bill Corrigan ’79 | Blue Cross/Blue Shield

Best Present Ever Anniversary Flowers Saved His Life

my keys are in the building,’” she says, ne woman’s love and another adding that she was thankful it was woman’s fear of heights may only his keys and not her husband have meant the difference between that was lost in the building. life and death for Bill Corrigan ’79.

When she met Bill in the station Alumni Bill and Gloria Hayparking lot, all of the debris that had ward Corrigan ’79 will never forget covered him had fallen off from their 19th wedding anniversary — hours of walking around the streets.

Sept. 11. In fact, that milestone may “But the look in his eyes,” she says. well have saved Bill’s life. A few min“You could tell by people’s eyes, the utes before 9 a.m., just before the horror they had seen.” first plane hit his building, the vice The couple had been best friends president for underwriting with before they started dating, living Blue Cross/Blue Shield was staying across the hall from each other in at his desk on the 31st floor of 1 Onondaga Hall. Gloria, head orientaWorld Trade Center, waiting for the tion guide, recruited Bill at the start of florist shops to open so he could senior year to help transfer students order flowers for Gloria. If he had move in. Although they spent a lot of been in the elevators or doing busitime together, it wasn’t until a Halness on a higher floor, he might not loween party at the Pontiac Hotel that have made it home that day, he says. they knew it was more than just “That was the best anniversary friendship. “We’ve been together ever present ever,” Gloria says. “He made since,” says Gloria. it home alive.”

The Corrigans — Bill ’79, Gloria ’79 and Kevin — had a The couple are loyal to their alma Being on a lower floor certainly happy day after all. mater.“We come up to reunion every helped, too. When the company year,” Gloria says. “This summer we moved into the World Trade Center over our faces and could still breathe.”With didn’t, because it was my high school rein 1998, they were slated to have space on a touch of understatement Bill says, “It was union.Thank God we get another chance the 98th floor. One of the senior vice presia little unnerving.” next year.” dents went to see the offices. She was afraid While Bill was escaping the building —Michele Reed of heights and insisted on a lower floor.“Beand wandering the streets, Gloria was at lieve me, I gave her a big hug the next day,” home worrying. At first she didn’t know Bill says.

Coincidence Saves Colonel anything about the crash until Bill’s brothOn the morning of Sept. 11,“We heard er, Gregg Corrigan ’84, called. a loud noise and the building began to FATE WAS ON THE SIDE OF U.S. AIR She spent the morning surrounded by shake,” says Bill. He and his co-workers Force Col. Keith J. Wagner ’76. He was friends and relatives. Her sister-in-law and a headed for the stairs and made their way supposed to be at work in the Pentagon friend went to get the couple’s son Kevin, down, helping each other calmly. About the the morning of Sept. 11 and frequents 11, from school. While they were gone, Glo20th floor they met firefighters coming up the offices that were destroyed. But the ria got the call she had been hoping for. One the stairs in full gear.“They were walking up Chief of the Joint Training Branch was of Bill’s co-workers had gotten through to as we were going out and telling us not to called out of town and was visiting relahis mother and she called to say Bill was all worry, we’re going to get out. They were tives in Utica when terrorists attacked right. Gloria was able to get the word to wonderful,” Bill says. “I’ll never look at a the Pentagon.

Kevin, before he saw the buildings collapse fireman or policeman the same way.”

“In fact, all of my uniforms were in an on TV. After going through the mall below the office only 50 feet from where the nose It was another two hours before she building, they were ushered by more fireof the airplane came to rest,” he says. would get a call from Bill himself, and even fighters out onto the street. They were Later on in the crisis, he would be a later before she would see him again. He about two blocks away when the first buildmember of one of the teams on duty at was able to get one of the first trains out of ing fell. They were able to tuck behind a the National Military Command Center.

Penn Station.“Bill called and said,‘You have building and avoid the worst of the wall of to pick me up at the train station, because smoke that hit them. “We put our shirts

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DebbieScheuerman Mardenfeld ’97 ’93 || Nexxt American Express Liesel Health Gregory Kipp ’99 | Reuters

Wedding Waltz ‘Jane Doe’ Saved by Doctors is an Oswego Grad he doctors didn’t even know who it was they were saving. But a team of dedicated surgeons made it possible for Debbie Mardenfeld ’93 to look forward to dancing at her wedding.

Mardenfeld was brought into New York University Downtown Hospital shortly after the attack on the World Trade Center. She had been hit by falling debris — probably the landing gear of the first plane, according to Pam McDonnell of the NYU public affairs office.

A member of the American Express staff, Mardenfeld had just arrived to work at the Trade Center when the first building collapsed.

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She was brought to NYU Downtown as Jane Doe #1, according to a “Dateline NBC” story on the MSNBC Web site. “Her legs were almost cut off, almost completely cut off,”“Dateline” quoted Dr. Gerald Ginsberg as saying in the story “Saving a life and a bride.”

The trauma team concluded Mardenfeld’s legs needed to be amputated quickly to stem the loss of blood and save her life, the “Dateline” report continued.

Orthopedic surgeon Nelson Botwinick urged the team to reconsider. An orthopedic specialist, he felt he could save Mardenfeld’s legs.“I felt confident that I knew what to do. . . I made the call,”he told People mag-

Tom Varian ’98 | J.P. Morgan Chase Manhattan

Banker’s Night Deposits TOM VARIAN ’98 WAS AT A business meeting in the Chase Bank in the mall beneath the World Trade Center when it was hit by terrorists, and he escaped safely. But within days he was back there, bringing much-needed supplies to rescue workers.

Varian, who is a system vice president in charge of small business accounts for J. P. Morgan Chase Manhattan, and his client Michael Packes, a volunteer firefighter who owns a flatbed truck, organized a relief effort in their home area of Rockland County.

Tom Varian ’98 (second from left)

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People donated goods at their local volunteer firehouses, like gloves, boots, food and water.

Volunteers loaded the supplies onto the flatbed truck, and Varian and Packes drove it into Ground Zero. They got mayor’s badges, which provided the only access to Ground Zero. "There were 20 or 30 checkpoints a night to get through," said Varian.

Once there, they gave the supplies to workers through the American Red Cross and Salvation Army.

They made the run for eight or nine days, hauling in 10 pallets 5 to 6 feet high each night. "We probably delivered half a million to a million dollars of supplies," he said.

Once the perimeters were closed to all but professional rescue workers and welders, the supply runs stopped. The volunteers were left with about 40 pallets of goods in a warehouse.

They donated it to “People for People” in Rockland County and other groups.

Varian, who earned a degree in business administration, was a member of Sigma Gamma, where he was the little brother of Bob Bacon (see story, p. 2).

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azine in a Sept. 20 article.

Through a seven-hour surgery — which People reported included a power failure when a nearby building collapsed — the surgeons worked to restore Mardenfeld’s legs.

The next day they found out the identity of the woman they had saved. When Mardenfeld awoke, she whispered her name and phone number, “Dateline” reported. Her fiancé, Greg St. John, answered the phone.

“I heard the word ‘fiancé,’”Ginsberg, director of plastic surgery at NYU Downtown, told “Dateline.” “I said to myself, she’s going to dance at her wedding on her own feet.”

Mardenfeld told “Dateline” about St. John.“I have this amazing fiancé. He is one of those few special people in life that I know I found a truly unique and vibrant person.”

Mardenfeld told the “Dateline” reporter that she had gone to work early the morning of Sept. 11. “What I remember is walking out of the subway into the street and seeing the top of one of the buildings on fire and I said that can’t be true. And then I saw the other tower explode and I knew I had to run for my life and that’s all I remember,” she is quoted as saying in the “Dateline” story.

“I can say I am so thrilled and so impressed with the people who have spent time with me,” she told “Dateline” about the hospital staff. “They have changed my life all for the better and I love them.”

A psychology major at Oswego, Mardenfeld was a member of Phi Lambda Phi sorority.

Mardenfeld is doing better and was still in the hospital at press time, according to St. John. “It will be a very long and slow process, but she is healing,” he said.

Her doctors spoke about Mardenfeld’s spirit and shared a telling story with “Dateline” and People. The day after the surgery, Ginsberg said, she grabbed a tablet and wrote “So doc, my butt is smaller?” Ginsberg told People: “She has the attitude to get through this.”

Liesel Scheuerman ’97 | Nexxt Health

To Have and to Hold Brush with Death Inspires Life Together or Liesel Scheuerman ’97 Sept. 11 began in horror and ended in happiness. After escaping from her office in 1 World Trade Center, she returned home and her boyfriend, Gregory Kipp ’99, proposed marriage.

“I proposed to her about an hour after she got home,” Kipp said. He had planned to ask her to marry him at a later date, when he’d saved the money to buy a ring. “But sometimes your schedule doesn’t coincide with reality,” he said.

“You shouldn’t wait for what’s important to you in life. I knew she was important to me and what’s the sense of waiting?”

Scheuerman began the day by telling Kipp she didn’t want to go to work.“Everybody feels that way now and then, I guess,” she said.

A coincidence may have saved her life.

Her department at NexxtHealth, a subsidiary of Blue Cross/Blue Shield, has a meeting every Tuesday at 9 a.m. When she arrived at her 19th floor office Sept. 11, the Spanish major now doing web-tech work found the meeting was cancelled. “At 8:44, I stood up to call to my co-worker,‘The meet-

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ing is cancelled,’ then all of a sudden the building moved — far. We heard an explosion and saw stuff flying off the building.”

They ran through the smoke-filled hallway to the stairs. “Everybody was really amazingly calm for New Yorkers on a staircase,” she said. World Trade Center staff pulled the workers off the staircase onto a floor and told them to wait, but Scheuerman decided to find another way down.

She and her co-workers were on that second staircase when they heard a noise — the other building was hit.

Out on the street there was “mass hysteria,” Scheuerman said. She saw people

“You shouldn’t wait for what’s important to you in life. I knew she was important to me and what’s the sense of waiting?”

—Gregory Kipp ’99

Gregory Kipp ’99 and Liesel Scheuerman ’97 will be wed in August.

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walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, but she and her friend walked to the friend’s apartment in mid-town.

Later that day Grand Central Station reopened and she was able to take a train to her apartment, where she found Kipp acting as “contact point central for family and friends.” It had been about three hours after the attack before she could get in contact with him via cell phone.

Scheuerman had only worked in the World Trade Center since May, but was fond of the place.“I loved working there. I got off the subway in the morning and there was a fountain,” she said. She called the attack “a tragic, horrible, awful, unspeakable thing I wish never happened.” But she realizes her day had “a really nice ending. I’m so lucky.”

Liesel’s parents are Louise and Bill Scheuerman. Bill, a professor of political science at Oswego, is president of United University Professions statewide. He was on his way to a meeting in Purchase when he heard the news, turned the car around and headed back up the road to be with his wife in Oswego.

Despite her experience, Liesel said, “I love New York. I left the city in July and wanted to move back . . . Now I have no problem being in Westchester.”

Wherever she ends up, she’ll share that home with Kipp, an economics major who works in the financial offices of Reuters in White Plains.

Although the pair knew each other while they were students — his fraternity and her sorority were connected — it was Reunion Weekend 2000 that brought them together. “We’ve been together ever since,” Scheuerman said.

There will be over 50 Oswego alumni at the wedding.“All the people we socialize with are alums,” said Scheuerman. When she moved to New York City from Boston last year, she had an apartment within two hours, thanks to an Oswego alumna. “My mom used to make jokes.‘You Oswego alums are so tight.’ she’d say.” Scheuerman said, “It’s true.

Oswego was the best place ever.”

—Michele Reed

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Scott W. Stearns ’89 | Dow Jones Newswires

‘Two Front Teeth’ Stearns’ City Takes a One-Two Punch

hen I was 7 years old, my father took me to the observation deck of the brand new World Trade Center, a pair of towers my friends and I found impressive because they were taller than the Empire State Building – until then the tallest building in the city. That was 1973.

Today there’s a hole in the ground where those magnificent towers once stood. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 simply wiped them off the skyline. The destruction of the World Trade Center, the killing that took place there, snapped our cozy sense of invulnerability and exposed our innocence about the state of the world. The swagger of the city before Sept. 11 has given way to tension about future attacks and the numb pain of loss. New York is nursing a scar. People here are Scott W. Stearns ’90 stands outside his office building in Jersey City, N.J. Across the water is the section of lower Manhattan where the World Trade Center used to be. on edge. grateful that neither I nor anyone I know ter was closed due to a “smoke condition,” The emotional toll came home to me was hurt or killed in the attack. which normally means a track fire — usufour days after the attacks. I was riding the I believe New York will emerge from ally nothing more than an inconvenience subway into Manhattan from my apartSept. 11 stronger and more savvy about for passengers. So I was completely unprement in Brooklyn. As my train was crossing the dangers that have come to our shores. pared for what I found as I got off the train the Manhattan Bridge, I could clearly see But the price paid for that transformation at Rector Street, the stop before the trade the trade center site, heavy smoke still bilis too horrible to measure. Beyond the decenter. The air was thick with ash and bits lowing from fires burning under the rubstruction of landmarks and the loss of life, of paper falling from the sky like snow, ble. The conductor, his voice cracking with we pay by losing the life we knew. In the coating the street. Fire raged and black anger, said over the loudspeakers: “Ladies end, I’m left with the realization that we smoke poured from huge gashes where and gentlemen, look to your left. Our city’s can never take anything for granted — not the planes had hit near the tops of both two front teeth were knocked out.” That’s the people we love, the feeling of security towers. I could see people running, people how a lot of people in New York have taken within our own borders or even the conin tears. I saw a burned-out car that looked this, like a personal assault. I feel a great deal veniences and splendor of a landmark like it was hit by a bomb. Police and fireof pride toward New York, and somehow building. fighters were everywhere, directing people hearing the pained voice of a subway con— Scott W. Stearns ’89 away from the area. ductor bemoaning this hit to one of our Scott Stearns ’89 graduated with a BA in When I’ve thought the worst, I’ve contreasured landmarks was more than I could English/Writing Arts. He is an editorial mansidered what might have happened if I’d take. That was the first time I cried about ager at Dow Jones Newswires in Jersey City, been running 20 minutes earlier that the attack, right there on the subway. And I N.J., and is studying for an MBA degree at morning. The chilling fact is that I easily wasn’t the only one.

Fordham University in New York. He lives in could have been entering the buildings For me, the morning of Sept. 11 startBrooklyn with his wife, Marlene Kilimnikwhen they were hit. I know I’m one of the ed like any other. I was on my way to work.

Stearns ’89. lucky ones. I was close enough to see As the subway approached Manhattan, we things I never want to see again, but I’m were told the stop at the World Trade Cen-

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PHOTO BY RON GAESS

OSWEGO

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Fall/Winter 2001

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