A Decade of Hope

by Dennis Smith

  The seeds were sown early in 2002, and President Obama signed it into law as part of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act in April 2009. All throughout that period millions of people had been participating in this grassroots initiative, which just grew and grew and grew every year. The notion is very simple: Mark September 11 to engage in some form of good deed. It could be in an organized way or in some self-directed project. You want to buy groceries for your elderly neighbor—great; it counts. You want to donate blood, or write a big check to a worthy cause, or donate clothes, oror do something that is part of an organized thing, walk for breast cancer, or whatever it might be, or do some volunteer work within your company—that sounds terrific. Whatever it is, get out and do something appropriate and meaningful to mark September 11, to remember those who perished.

  And so something good has risen out of the ashes of Ground Zero. The fact that it ultimately became a matter of law is terrific, as it has given an added boost to the initiative. People from all fifty states and from 165 countries participate in one way or another, even if it’s just visiting our Web site MyGoodDeed.org.

  David and I have had much public relations experience, so we know how to get the message out. We have had extraordinary press coverage. There were some PR people on the board who were friends, along with other family members, and we were able to spread the word and build support for it—not only support for it but participation. We had the great help of a lobbyist/attorney in Washington, Fred Dumbo, who worked the halls of Congress and set up meetings for us. There’s not much political about this project—it’s about as safe a spot as you could find. Just mark that day by doing something good for somebody else.

  The first thing we did was to start meeting with the members of the 9/11 organizations, because we felt that if it didn’t make sense to the 9/11 community, then it was not going to make sense to anyone else. And we got unanimous approval from all of the few dozen leaders whom we approached. Then Senators Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer and Congressmen Peter King and Mike Ferguson endorsed us and helped.

  You don’t have to be a 9/11 family member to know how 9/11 changed this country—almost completely for the worst, right? Think of the airport security issues, how we deal with other countries now, how you walk into an office building, what your kids have learned about the way of the world. There’s very little, unfortunately, that hasn’t been touched by 9/11. It’s part of the reason that we’re involved in two wars, and so the economy of our country is negatively affected. It’s pretty much across-the-board negative. And of course it’s negative at its core, because nearly three thousand people died. But there have been some good and inspiring responses to 9/11 too. Former New York Giant George Martin, a Super Bowl champion, lost a few neighbors in New Jersey and wanted to do something. When he learned that thousands were now sick, and some [were] dying as a result of their service, and that proper funding wasn’t there for them, he wanted to help raise money and awareness, and so [he] walked across the country to raise money. Extraordinary. So 9/11 has become a special call to action for many people who are looking for a way to be generous, community-minded, or simply caring. That’s promising, I think.

  I know that there are some things that are terrible and unfair about all of this—that nineteen guys and whoever was supporting them could have had such a huge negative impact on the world. It’s horrific; there’s no justification for it, and there’s no way to fix it. The part of me that is the sibling of a firefighter, though, knows that Glenn knew that he was taking a risk every time he went on a call, whether for a car fire or a burning building. That’s part of what you buy into being a firefighter. While his circumstances were extraordinary in that he was not FDNY and didn’t have to run into that building, the fact that he chose to makes him very heroic in my mind. He had the skills, guts, and the wherewithal to go there and to try to help people he didn’t know, people who were in danger. It’s all the more reason why we have to take care of our firefighters, our police, and anyone who is in the rescue business. The job they choose is to put themselves at risk for others who can’t help themselves.

  I hate having lost my brother; I hate it every single day. But it would have been more bearable if it wasn’t the result of terrorism. This was not an accident, not fate. These were people who went out to kill people. There’s no way to get your arms around that, for there’s no sense to it at all. While Glenn ran in, there were many in the towers who did not make that choice, who did not know that morning when they went to work that they would be facing life-threatening danger.

  During the time when we were battling for federal recognition of Glenn’s firefighting line-of-duty status, I met Governor [George] Pataki one morning at Ground Zero. The governor had signed a New York State law that designated Glenn’s as a line-of-duty death, and [him] as an active firefighter on the day he died. I thanked him for that law, and he talked to me about how meaningful firefighters were to him, that his dad had been a volunteer firefighter too. Not long ago I met Vice President [Joe] Biden at Ground Zero, and he talked to me about the rescue professionals who showed up at the scene when his family had had a horrific car accident, in which he lost his wife and two of his children. The first thing he said to me was how personally indebted he was to firemen and policemen and those folks for saving the life of one of his children at the crash. I think if there’s one good thing that’s come out of 9/11, it’s a greater national appreciation for firefighters and police. And that’s a good thing, because they are really among our greatest heroes.

  I think it’s amazing what volunteer firefighters do. Of course they don’t get paid, so it’s very altruistic. I know the training that my two brothers received was extraordinary. In many ways I wonder if the firefighters of Long Island have training that is better than, or matched by, that of any fire department in America. Maybe they don’t go to as many fires, and so maybe there’s a lot less on-the-job training, so therefore they have to do an extraordinary amount of coursework. All I know is that none of the volunteer firefighters I met through my brothers were slouches in any way. It is like an exclusive club, but so is a big city firehouse. I’ve really come to see this in the years since 9/11. They have a fraternity that’s very aggressive about what they do, men and women. They have to have relationships that make the difficult and the dangerous tolerable. I don’t make the distinction between career firefighters and volunteer firefighters, for many of the volunteer firefighters I know are for the most part also career firefighters. All of these men and women are balancing their regular jobs and their families with being firefighters. It is not a job for them, and yet they treat it as if it were. They do it for their communities, and it’s hard work, a lot of risk, and time spent away from their families What these volunteer firefighters sacrifice for their communities truly is impressive, and I’m proud that Glenn was a part of that.

  Akiko Takahashi

  Akiko Takahashi lost her father, Keiichiro Takahashi, when the Twin Towers fell. Twenty-four Japanese citizens died that terrible day, and Keiichiro, a Long Island resident and New York banker, was one of them. By 9/11 he had advanced in his profession to become the senior vice president of Euro Brokers, which had offices high up in the South Tower. Keiichiro’s greatest love was spending time with his wife, Harumi, and their children: his son, Hiroyuki, who was living and working in Japan, and his daughter, Akiko, who was at Tufts University on 9/11. He was very excited about his plans to retire from business when Akiko graduated from college. Now, in honor of her father, Akiko volunteers, giving tours and sharing her story with others, at the Tribute WTC Visitor Center.

  My parents had just moved from London to Los Angeles when I was born. I’ve never lived in Japan, and we moved to New York when I was two. We have been serious about preserving Japanese culture within our family, and so my parents sent me to Japanese school on the weekends all through grammar school. I learned to read and write there, and I don’t have any trouble getting by when I travel to Japan.

>   We actually spoke Japanese in the house all the time. I was not allowed to talk in English, and even when I spoke to my brother in English, my mother would tell us to stop. We used to always watch Japanese TV, Japanese news in the morning, and then the movies. My friends were always surprised that I hadn’t seen some of the classic [American] eighties films. We were very sheltered, culturally sheltered.

  I went to a public high school, East Schreiber High, in Port Washington. It’s not that big—a little under three hundred kids in my graduating class. Port Washington is on the water, and is a very pretty town. I think that’s probably what drew my dad to the town. There’s a dock you can walk along. It’s nice.

  I spent a lot of time with my family, especially with my dad, who was often home. I had a lot of friends whose dads were doctors and always at the hospital or on call, and they didn’t work regular nine-to-five, Mondaythrough-Friday jobs, like my father did. Now I appreciate more that he was home so often. It was great that he was there. He helped around the house. He helped my mom prepare food or helped with the dishes after dinner. He did a lot of puzzles, and I’d do them with him.

  Our family was a close unit, and we did a lot together. I was really lucky that way. We would take two trips every year—to a beach during the winter, and in the summer we would go to Europe. I remember all my Japanese friends would always go to Japan for the entire summer, and growing up I was a little bit jealous of that, because I always wanted to spend my summer in Japan. But my parents wanted to go to Europe.

  Now I’d take Europe over Japan any day, and I’m really grateful that we took these trips. When I was in sixth grade I had to give a history report, and my assigned country was the Netherlands. And so my dad planned a trip there, which was great.

  When I was growing up, my dad was definitely the good cop. My mom was definitely the disciplinarian. He never yelled at my brother and me, never raised his voice. I remember one time I had a class project to make tepees, because we were learning about Native Americans or something. I had to make a diorama and was having trouble with it, and my dad began helping me. But he ended up doing it for me, and then my mom got so mad at the both of us. He always liked helping out.

  I had no idea what my father did for a living, to be honest. I knew he worked for a bank, and traded something, but I had no idea what. It wasn’t until I had to fill out college applications and list my father’s occupation that I asked him. He finally said he was like a money broker, in currencies. My dad never really talked about work much.

  My dad started at Mitsubishi Trust, which sent him to London and Los Angeles, and then New York. We would move every couple of years. The company wanted to send him back to Japan, and to move to another place in Asia a year later. But he didn’t want my brother and me to keep moving so often, so he actually left that firm and joined another company that promised he would not have to relocate from New York.

  My brother recently moved back to Japan. He’s seven years older than I and works for a record company. My mother has moved to Midtown, just twenty blocks from me. She sold our house in Port Washington after I graduated from college because it was a big house and she was there all by herself. I think it’s a lot better for her in the city, and she keeps herself busy there. She volunteers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art once a week. She’s in a choir group. She has practice and concerts. It’s good.

  My father’s company, Euro Brokers, lost sixty-one employees that day. I think they were on the eighty-fifth floor, so they were right around the impact zone. Sometime after 9/11 they invited all the family members to visit the company. I got to meet the other employees, and it wasn’t until then that I really understood what my dad did on a daily basis.

  On the morning of 9/11 everything changed. I was at school at Tufts, in Boston, and just starting my sophomore year. It was the first week of classes, and I had an 8:30 macroeconomics class. Most of my friends were in the class with me, and I remember commenting on what a beautiful day it was. Boston is only four hours away from New York, so their weather is pretty similar, and the skies were just a gorgeous blue. The class was about an hour long, so it didn’t end until 9:30 or so.

  I had no idea what had happened during that hour. I had to stay a little longer to talk to the professor, and at the same time I kind of heard people talking about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. My first reaction was like, What happened? A plane? No one would imagine a big passenger plane. I just thought it was a single-engine, a small, single-pilot plane, an accident. The kids who were talking, they had no idea, no details of what kind of plane it was. They didn’t know if anyone had gotten hurt.

  When I got back to my dorm I went to my friends’ room, because I knew they would understand what had happened. I tried to call my dad, but he only had a work phone and no cell phone, and all of his office lines were dead. I couldn’t get in touch with him. And so I called my mom, who hadn’t heard from him either. My father had been in the North Tower in 1993 when the first bombing happened. My mother said, “He lived through one attack. I’m sure he’s fine. He’ll come home. He doesn’t have a cell phone. Don’t worry about it.” And I just had a really bad feeling. I don’t think my mother ever thought he would die. She was concerned, but not too worried.

  September 11 was a really long day. I had a friend whose dad did a lot of business in the World Trade Center, and she was worried, trying to get in touch with him. I remember just trying not to think about it. But every single news channel had it, and after a while they showed some of the people jumping out of the buildings. My brother was in Japan at the time, and I remember him later saying, “I just hope Dad wasn’t one of the people who jumped, because, why would you do that?”

  Now, as I think about it, that whole day, that week, and probably the whole next month is kind of a big blur.

  For the first couple of days I stayed at college. But on Thursday, the thirteenth, my friends drove me home. I didn’t know what was going on, and I just wanted to go home. We crossed the Whitestone Bridge going to Long Island, and we could see New York City from the bridge. I looked over and saw the smoke coming up from the World Trade Center. Every car on the bridge slowed down to look at that, and it was eerie. I had seen it on TV, but seeing it in person was different, horrifying. My mom was so grateful to my friends for driving me home, because there were no planes, no trains, no way for me to get there. It was so good of them.

  My brother, Hiroyuki, was on the first plane out of Japan. I don’t remember what day that was, but he was on the first flight out. He almost couldn’t get on that flight, because of all the journalists from Japan who wanted to cover the Ground Zero story. The flight got booked up, and a family friend got into an argument with whatever airline it was, saying, “This is ridiculous. He’s a family member. You need to give him a seat over a journalist.” So it was good to have him home.

  We went to Pier 94 to fill out all that paperwork you had to fill out for missing persons, to submit DNA samples, and to file the police report.

  One of my father’s coworkers, Brian Clark, actually escaped from the towers and was interviewed by the local newspaper. I read the story and saw he worked for Euro Brokers, so I called the journalist for Brian’s number. I asked Brian, “Do you remember seeing my dad?” But they worked on opposite sides of the floor, he hadn’t seen him, and so he didn’t have any information. I was so disappointed. I remember just trying to call anyone. Looking back, it was probably insensitive to call him, for he probably didn’t want to talk about it. Imagine, escaping the World Trade Center.

  For the first few days I kept up with my schoolwork, my assignments. But I realized I had to ask myself, Do I take the semester off or do I go back to school? There was so much uncertainty at that point. We still weren’t sure if he was alive or not. They were still looking for people at Ground Zero, so I had hope. After a while I decided to take the semester off. One of the classes I was enrolled in was actually about the Hiroshima atomic bomb. I remember reading some of my c
lass assignments, stories about people who had gone into work in Hiroshima like any other day, and the bomb dropped, and their world was turned upside down. I had to read a book about it and write an essay, and I remember comparing it to 9/11. I just saw so many parallels. I actually never got a chance to retake that class.

  On the day we went to Pier 94 to fill out paperwork and give them the DNA samples, you couldn’t walk five feet without someone coming up to you and asking, “Do you want to talk about this? I’m a social worker, if you need to talk,” and I just remember thinking at that point—I had just taken Intro to Psych—that I was going through the natural grieving steps, the whole anger and bargaining process. But now, looking back, I don’t remember being angrier than normal. I remember thinking, Why? Why me, and why my family?

  I have never used the word “murdered.” I just feel that America wasn’t at war against al Qaeda. I guess my father was murdered, but I never say that word, and I feel for some reason that he was an unfortunate victim of al Qaeda trying to send a message to America. Maybe for some it sounds like the same thing as murder, but I don’t know if I like using that word. In our family we actually don’t talk about it too much. While I do kind of blame Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, part of the reason I might not use the word “murder” is because murder, to me, is when someone is targeted specifically, and I don’t think my dad was targeted as a person. He just worked there, although I do think he represented what al Qaeda was trying to destroy.