A reminder.
Karnes hadn't been near the World Trade Center. He wasn't even in New York when the planes hit the towers. He was in Wilton, Conn., working in his job as a senior accountant with Deloitte Touche. When the second plane hit, Karnes told his colleagues, "We're at war." He had spent 23 years in the Marine Corps infantry and felt it was his duty to help. Karnes told his boss he might not see him for a while. Then he went to get a haircut.The small barbershop in Stamford, Conn., near his home, was deserted. "Give me a good Marine Corps squared-off haircut," he told the barber. When it was done, he drove home to put on his uniform. Karnes always kept two sets of Marine fatigues hanging in his closet, pressed and starched. "It's kind of weird to do, but it comes in handy," he says. Next Karnes stopped by the storage facility where he kept his equipment—he'd need rappelling gear, ropes, canteens of water, his Marine Corps K-Bar knife, and a flashlight, at least. Then he drove to church. He asked the pastor and parishioners to say a prayer that God would lead him to survivors. A devout Christian, Karnes often turned to God when faced with decisions.
Finally, Karnes lowered the convertible top on his Porsche. This would make it easier for the authorities to look in and see a Marine, he reasoned. If they could see who he was, he'd be able to zip past checkpoints and more easily gain access to the site. For Karnes, it was a "God thing" that he was in the Porsche—a Porsche 911—that day. He'd only purchased it a month earlier—it had been a stretch, financially. But he decided to buy it after his pastor suggested that he "pray on it." He had no choice but to take it that day because his Mercury was in the shop. Driving the Porsche at speeds of up to 120 miles per hour, he reached Manhattan—after stopping at McDonald's for a hamburger—in the late afternoon.Bless these men.His plan worked. With the top off, the cops could see his pressed fatigues, his neatly cropped hair, and his gear up front. They waved him past the barricades. He arrived at the site—"the pile"—at about 5:30. Building 7 of the World Trade Center, a 47-story office structure adjacent to the fallen twin towers, had just dramatically collapsed. Rescue workers had been ordered off the pile—it was too unsafe to let them continue. Flames were bursting from a number of buildings, and the whole site was considered unstable. Standing on the edge of the burning pile, Karnes spotted … another Marine dressed in camouflage. His name was Sgt. Thomas. Karnes never learned his first name, and he's never come forward in the time since.
Together Karnes and Thomas walked around the pile looking for a point of entry farther from the burning buildings. They also wanted to move away from officials trying to keep rescue workers off the pile. Thick, black smoke blanketed the site. The two Marines couldn't see where to enter. But then "the smoke just opened up." The sun was setting and through the opening Karnes, for the first time, saw clearly the massive destruction. "I just said 'Oh, my God, it's totally gone.' " With the sudden parting of the smoke, Karnes and Thomas entered the pile. "We just disappeared into the smoke—and we ran."
They climbed over the tangled steel and began looking into voids. They saw no one else searching the pile—the rescue workers having obeyed the order to leave the area. "United States Marines," Karnes began shouting. "If you can hear us, yell or tap!"
Over and over, Karnes shouted the words. Then he would pause and listen. Debris was shifting and parts of the building were collapsing further. Fires burned all around. "I just had a sense, an overwhelming sense come over me that we were walking on hallowed ground, that tens of thousands of people could be trapped and dead beneath us," he said.
After about an hour of searching and yelling, Karnes stopped.
"Be quiet," he told Thomas, "I think I can hear something."
He yelled again. "We can hear you. Yell louder." He heard a faint muffled sound in the distance.
"Keep yelling. We can hear you." Karnes and Thomas zeroed in on the sound.
"We're over here," they heard.
Two Port Authority police officers, Will Jimeno and Sgt. John McLoughlin, were buried in the center of the World Trade Center ruins, 20 feet below the surface. They could be heard but not seen. By jumping into a larger opening, Karnes could hear Jimeno better. But he still couldn't see him. Karnes sent Thomas to look for help. Then he used his cell phone to call his wife, Rosemary, in Stamford and his sister Joy in Pittsburgh. (He thought they could work the phones and get through to New York police headquarters.)
"Don't leave us," Officer Jimeno pleaded.[...]
Officer Strauss tells a story that gets at this. When he was out on the pile a year ago, trying to pull Officer Jimeno free, Strauss shouted orders to his volunteer helpers—"Medic, I need air," or "Marine, get me some water." At one point, in the middle of this exhausting work, Strauss, asked if he could call them by their names to facilitate the process. The medic said he was "Chuck."
Karnes said: "You can call me 'staff sergeant.'"
"That's three syllables!" said Strauss, who needed every bit of energy and every second of time. "Isn't there something shorter?"
Karnes replied: "You can call me 'staff sergeant.'"
Because every day is, a bit, Veterans Day, and Memorial Day, and September 11th Remembrance Day. Not just one day.
Read The Rest Scale: 4 out of 5. (Via Ogged.)
Great story, one I've read before, but I'm a skeptic. The only documented rescues I've heard of are a fire company in a stairwell of the north tower, and a guy who somehow ended up on a ledge. From the first-in teams I've talked to, and from my own experience, this story just doesn't ring true.
On teh other hand, if anyone can pull something liek this off, it would be someone with a Globe and Anchor tattoo ......
FWIW. In todays NY Daily News there is an article about P.O. Jimeno and Lt McLoughlin's retirement from the Port Authority P.D.
I tried to attach the link:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/201402p-173826c.html
"From the first-in teams I've talked to, and from my own experience, this story just doesn't ring true."
I suggest clicking on the link to the rest of the Slate story.
Also:
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/lookupstoryref/2003911222515
There's a niggling part of me that was irked at someone pulling something like that. On the other hand, if true, the guy makes ya proud to be a human being.
Folks, have you noticed what it says at the top of the comment box?
What happens when you post those URLs naked, outside of HTML, is they are published without wraparound on the right side of the blog where the five Most Recent Comments are listed, and as a result, on most people's browsers, the entries are now reduced to less than a third of the blog while the right sidebar, so long as those comments are listed, becomes two thirds of the blog.
Welcome to the Comments section. RE: Links... we've had some trouble with long URLs altering the layout of our blog! So, I've taken away the auto-URL feature... now you'll have to include them the hard way:
*HIGHLIGHTED TEXT*
Just keep the asterisks, because otherwise your links may be hard to see. I'm working on that....
Don't do that, please.
This is a workaround to push them off the front page.
Please don't do that again.
Thank you for your cooperation in this.
Skepticism cured - at least in this case.
These men are heros and are deserving of anything that comes their way in the future. Put yourself there in their shoes. I can't bear to think of it! These men need to enjoy their lives and their families. God gave them that second chance. If any of them read this. Your story has changed our family and put into perspective what is really important in life. God Bless You, your strength, your courage and your will to live!