This is Later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast More What You Here weekday
afternoons on the Drive. David DeMarco is an actor and a writer. Father
Jim Martin is a Jesuit priest. Both were on the grounds of a New
York City when nine to eleven occurred, and Damon, I want to start
with you and your new book, Tower Stories, an oral history of nine
eleven where a lot of these stories come together. I think everybody remembers where
they were when the world stopped turning, as the song says, where were
you? And I was in my apartment, had a roommate at the time,
I had several roommates. I was a young man, and that's what
we do in New York. Like Peberdy just comes together pretty lives in a
different room. Unfortunately, he was down at the foot of the towers that
day and we feared that we had lost him, and so we were all
glued to the TV set and around mid afternoon I went outside just to get
a breath of fresh air, and there's this police officer walking by, and
he's covered head to foot in this strange white dust and he's weeping. And
that was the moment when I first said are you okay, and this gentleman
the police officers started telling me his entire story of what he had done,
that he had gone down to the pile and he had done what he could
to help all the survivors, who, of course there were none. And
I was going out of my head at that moment, lead because my city
had been attacked and my nation had been attacked, and I thought that I
just lost friends, and indeed it turned out that I had, and the
whole world had just turned upside down, and I needed to give myself something
to do. And so for the next eighteen months, I interviewed hundreds of
people, policeman, fireman, paramedics, rescue recovery workers, volunteers, people
who had survived as high up as the eighty sixth floor of Tower one,
families of the bereaved. And later on a publisher came to me and they
said, well, this is something that we should remember, and I said,
well, I agree, and so we published this book. It's called
Tower Stories, An Oral History of eleven. Damon DeMarco is the author and
father Jim Martin was down at ground zero. You weren't on site immediately,
were you father? So on nine to eleven I went to a treage center
to help out that night, you know, no survivors. Of course,
the next day I was at a family counseling center downtown. And then on
September thirteenth, I was back at the treage center and a police cruiser passed
by and saw me in my collar and said, do you want to go
down there? And I said okay, So he drove me all the way
down. We pulled up right at the site, you know, one hundred
yards away, and he just opened the door and said good luck. And
so I started ministering there. I didn't know what I could do, but
I ended up ministering to the firefighters and the rescue workers. That's what my
ministry was for a couple next couple of weeks. When the when the first
responders saw you, did did you immediately say, okay, I'm going to
find a place where we can pray, a place where we can share experiences.
And we went what was what was the first step? I know you
were overwhelmed when something like this, Well that's a very good question. I
was overwhelmed. I mean, you know, you still the kind of the
scale of things, right. I mean, I'm sure everyone has seen the
pictures. And it was very noisy and chaotic, and there was this great
stench. It was kind of burning plastic and all these sorts of things.
So some of them wanted to pray right there, but it was mainly just
listening to them, you know, as they came up to me. Right.
So it wasn't that we found a particular place or there wasn't there was
you know, just a mess too. You know, there was just paper
everywhere and rubble and all this stuff, so you're kind of climbing over things.
So it was mostly just meeting people where they were, you know what
I mean, And I mean that spiritually as well as physically, right,
just kind of going up to where they were, and some of them wanted
prast, some of them just wanted to talk, and a lot of them,
uh, you know, I think, which was so moving to me,
wanted to talk about you know, how are you doing? Father?
Right? You know, how are you doing? Because they you know said
that you know, we came here, you know, sort of expecting this
in our profession, you never did, so, you know, even even
in my kind of connections with them, their their selfs and they're kind of
other directedness came out, you know. So that was really moving for me
that they were so attentive to me, you know that, really I found
that very moving. The stories are all chronicled in Tower Stories in Oral History
of nine to eleven. We're talking to Father Jim Martin and Damon DeMarco is
the author of the book Damon you Meete. You mentioned something that caught my
attention here just a moment ago, the pile, the pile what they referred
to, the to the rubble. As you know, we had our own
pile in Oklahoma with the Murra building, So I wouldn't to that scale certainly.
Yeah. I mean I remember that tragedy well, and what I remember
most about it is the same thing I remember from nine to eleven. That
people put everything aside, their politics, their religion, their divisions, who
they vote for, their sociological lines, their sexuality. There oriented all this
stuff that normally deviseses Lee. It fell by the wayside as it should,
so that we could recognize our common humanity and see what we could salvage out
of this bad situation. You know, j was just talking, Father Martin
was just talking about the choices that we make, and he just wrote a
great book about it. As a matter of fact, Come forth the promise
of Jesus's greatest miracle. It's the story of Lazarus. Right, you probably
know it. Oh yeah, you don't have to be a you don't have
to be a Christian who appreciate this story. What Father Martin's writing about is
that Lazar. You know, the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus is a
great story. But Lazarus has to make a choice whether he heeds the call.
Does he come out of the darkness, does he come out of the
cold crypt, and does he go into the sunlight, or does he stay
locked inside of himself and not fulfilling his potential. And that's the call that
we all face on a day to day level. It doesn't take a tragedy
like what happened in your city or what happened in my city, you know,
to bring this out of us. We have a choice to make every
single day, and if we remind ourselves that, you know, when we're
getting our first cup of coffee, hopefully that intention will state with us by
the second cup of calls and we can start to treat each other the way
that we want to be treated with respect and dignity. Even if we disagree
with each other. It's okay to disagree. At the end of the day,
you vote the way you want and I vote the way I'm on.
But we can love each other, we can be respectful of one another.
There's room to agree and disagree at the same time. Well, damon,
DeMarco, you are preaching to me on this. This is something I've been
shouting from the rooftops on this program ever since I began it. I call
it polite discourse. We need to return to polite discourse. Father Martin.
You know when you it was very easy for the first responders to try to
heal the physical wounds of the city. But from a spiritual standpoint, did
you ever worry about the soul of the city. Well, at that time,
I didn't because I just saw this outpouring of love. You know,
when I would go down walk down usually or take the subway, and I
would walk into this people would see my collar, they would cheer, and
sometimes I would get to ride out from a police officer and people would be
cheering. So I found this great sense of other directedness. So at the
time, I didn't, you know, I think, as you know,
I think that idea of polite discourse is really important. You know. Since
then, I think things have kind of, you know, taken a step
backward, and I think that you know, that spirit is down there,
you know, if we want to access it, and we can always,
as you say, choose to you know, engage politely or respectfully, and
we can choose to be charitable. At that time, people did make that
choice, and I think we can always make that choice. You know,
it's always a choice that I mean that that we're given and or you can
say that God gives us. But at the time, I wasn't worried because
I just saw this outpouring of charity. Tower Stories on Oral History of nine
eleven Reverend Jim Martin along with Damon DeMarco, who has composed the book.
Damon, let's circle back to the roommate you had did. Did the roommate
of yours survive? I'm so glad that you asked. Yes, he did.
He came home that day and he was still a dear friend of mine.
Very tall. Imagine if he's like six foot three and he was.
He was dressed in a suit. When he went down there and he came
back, he looked like an eskimo because he was covered and head to foot
in this dust. Again, that was prevalent throughout the city. And Lee
he was speechless. He was in a state of shows as one can only
imagine. And I remember pouring him a bourbon and sitting him down on the
couch and the rest of us kind of sitting around him and just saying,
you don't have to say a damn word. You just take your time and
when you're ready to talk, we're here. And it's exactly like you know
now that I've gotten to know, Father Jim. That's that's this, this
spirit of meeting people where they are not about preaching to them. It's not
about telling them this is how you can feel or anything. It's just I'm
here for you. You tell me what you need and I'll see what I
can do to accommodate it. And you know, we got lucky that day
with David. A lot of people didn't get lucky, but it taught me
a great lesson. Damon DeMarco, Father Jim Martin. I don't mind telling
you both the connection we feel in Oklahoma two nine to eleven, knowing that
the memorials that came both in Washington, DC and in New York somewhat inspired
by our own Murrah Building memorial. So there's that connection that I think Oklahoma
City feels and Oklahoma's feel with New Yorkers. Yes, sir, we're right
there with you, and I think we should also remember the people in Shanksville,
Pennsylvania that also plays a huge role in the Pentagon as you said,
So yes, we're I think I speak for Father Martin when I say that
our hearts are right there with you, Damon DeMarco, Father Jim Martin.
Thank you for joining us. Tower Stories, the Oral History of nine to
eleven available everywhere you get your books, and thank you for bringing the story
to us today. Please also look for Come Forth, the Promise of Jesus
Greatest Miracle. Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Leave Matthews
Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to
seven and iHeartMedia Presentation