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This is Later with Lee Matthews the
Lee Matthews Podcast More What You Here weekday

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afternoons on the Drive. David DeMarco
is an actor and a writer. Father

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Jim Martin is a Jesuit priest.
Both were on the grounds of a New

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York City when nine to eleven occurred, and Damon, I want to start

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with you and your new book,
Tower Stories, an oral history of nine

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eleven where a lot of these stories
come together. I think everybody remembers where

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they were when the world stopped turning, as the song says, where were

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you? And I was in my
apartment, had a roommate at the time,

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I had several roommates. I was
a young man, and that's what

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we do in New York. Like
Peberdy just comes together pretty lives in a

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different room. Unfortunately, he was
down at the foot of the towers that

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day and we feared that we had
lost him, and so we were all

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glued to the TV set and around
mid afternoon I went outside just to get

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a breath of fresh air, and
there's this police officer walking by, and

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he's covered head to foot in this
strange white dust and he's weeping. And

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that was the moment when I first
said are you okay, and this gentleman

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the police officers started telling me his
entire story of what he had done,

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that he had gone down to the
pile and he had done what he could

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to help all the survivors, who, of course there were none. And

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I was going out of my head
at that moment, lead because my city

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had been attacked and my nation had
been attacked, and I thought that I

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just lost friends, and indeed it
turned out that I had, and the

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whole world had just turned upside down, and I needed to give myself something

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to do. And so for the
next eighteen months, I interviewed hundreds of

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people, policeman, fireman, paramedics, rescue recovery workers, volunteers, people

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who had survived as high up as
the eighty sixth floor of Tower one,

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families of the bereaved. And later
on a publisher came to me and they

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said, well, this is something
that we should remember, and I said,

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well, I agree, and so
we published this book. It's called

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Tower Stories, An Oral History of
eleven. Damon DeMarco is the author and

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father Jim Martin was down at ground
zero. You weren't on site immediately,

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were you father? So on nine
to eleven I went to a treage center

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to help out that night, you
know, no survivors. Of course,

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the next day I was at a
family counseling center downtown. And then on

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September thirteenth, I was back at
the treage center and a police cruiser passed

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by and saw me in my collar
and said, do you want to go

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down there? And I said okay, So he drove me all the way

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down. We pulled up right at
the site, you know, one hundred

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yards away, and he just opened
the door and said good luck. And

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so I started ministering there. I
didn't know what I could do, but

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I ended up ministering to the firefighters
and the rescue workers. That's what my

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ministry was for a couple next couple
of weeks. When the when the first

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responders saw you, did did you
immediately say, okay, I'm going to

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find a place where we can pray, a place where we can share experiences.

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And we went what was what was
the first step? I know you

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were overwhelmed when something like this,
Well that's a very good question. I

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was overwhelmed. I mean, you
know, you still the kind of the

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scale of things, right. I
mean, I'm sure everyone has seen the

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pictures. And it was very noisy
and chaotic, and there was this great

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stench. It was kind of burning
plastic and all these sorts of things.

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So some of them wanted to pray
right there, but it was mainly just

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listening to them, you know,
as they came up to me. Right.

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So it wasn't that we found a
particular place or there wasn't there was

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you know, just a mess too. You know, there was just paper

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everywhere and rubble and all this stuff, so you're kind of climbing over things.

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So it was mostly just meeting people
where they were, you know what

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I mean, And I mean that
spiritually as well as physically, right,

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just kind of going up to where
they were, and some of them wanted

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prast, some of them just wanted
to talk, and a lot of them,

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uh, you know, I think, which was so moving to me,

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wanted to talk about you know,
how are you doing? Father?

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Right? You know, how are
you doing? Because they you know said

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that you know, we came here, you know, sort of expecting this

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in our profession, you never did, so, you know, even even

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in my kind of connections with them, their their selfs and they're kind of

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other directedness came out, you know. So that was really moving for me

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that they were so attentive to me, you know that, really I found

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that very moving. The stories are
all chronicled in Tower Stories in Oral History

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of nine to eleven. We're talking
to Father Jim Martin and Damon DeMarco is

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the author of the book Damon you
Meete. You mentioned something that caught my

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attention here just a moment ago,
the pile, the pile what they referred

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to, the to the rubble.
As you know, we had our own

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pile in Oklahoma with the Murra building, So I wouldn't to that scale certainly.

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Yeah. I mean I remember that
tragedy well, and what I remember

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most about it is the same thing
I remember from nine to eleven. That

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people put everything aside, their politics, their religion, their divisions, who

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they vote for, their sociological lines, their sexuality. There oriented all this

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stuff that normally deviseses Lee. It
fell by the wayside as it should,

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so that we could recognize our common
humanity and see what we could salvage out

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of this bad situation. You know, j was just talking, Father Martin

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was just talking about the choices that
we make, and he just wrote a

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great book about it. As a
matter of fact, Come forth the promise

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of Jesus's greatest miracle. It's the
story of Lazarus. Right, you probably

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know it. Oh yeah, you
don't have to be a you don't have

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to be a Christian who appreciate this
story. What Father Martin's writing about is

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that Lazar. You know, the
miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus is a

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great story. But Lazarus has to
make a choice whether he heeds the call.

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Does he come out of the darkness, does he come out of the

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cold crypt, and does he go
into the sunlight, or does he stay

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locked inside of himself and not fulfilling
his potential. And that's the call that

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we all face on a day to
day level. It doesn't take a tragedy

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like what happened in your city or
what happened in my city, you know,

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to bring this out of us.
We have a choice to make every

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single day, and if we remind
ourselves that, you know, when we're

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getting our first cup of coffee,
hopefully that intention will state with us by

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the second cup of calls and we
can start to treat each other the way

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that we want to be treated with
respect and dignity. Even if we disagree

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with each other. It's okay to
disagree. At the end of the day,

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you vote the way you want and
I vote the way I'm on.

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But we can love each other,
we can be respectful of one another.

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There's room to agree and disagree at
the same time. Well, damon,

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DeMarco, you are preaching to me
on this. This is something I've been

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shouting from the rooftops on this program
ever since I began it. I call

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it polite discourse. We need to
return to polite discourse. Father Martin.

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You know when you it was very
easy for the first responders to try to

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heal the physical wounds of the city. But from a spiritual standpoint, did

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you ever worry about the soul of
the city. Well, at that time,

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I didn't because I just saw this
outpouring of love. You know,

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when I would go down walk down
usually or take the subway, and I

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would walk into this people would see
my collar, they would cheer, and

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sometimes I would get to ride out
from a police officer and people would be

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cheering. So I found this great
sense of other directedness. So at the

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time, I didn't, you know, I think, as you know,

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I think that idea of polite discourse
is really important. You know. Since

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then, I think things have kind
of, you know, taken a step

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backward, and I think that you
know, that spirit is down there,

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you know, if we want to
access it, and we can always,

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as you say, choose to you
know, engage politely or respectfully, and

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we can choose to be charitable.
At that time, people did make that

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choice, and I think we can
always make that choice. You know,

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it's always a choice that I mean
that that we're given and or you can

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say that God gives us. But
at the time, I wasn't worried because

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I just saw this outpouring of charity. Tower Stories on Oral History of nine

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eleven Reverend Jim Martin along with Damon
DeMarco, who has composed the book.

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Damon, let's circle back to the
roommate you had did. Did the roommate

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of yours survive? I'm so glad
that you asked. Yes, he did.

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He came home that day and he
was still a dear friend of mine.

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Very tall. Imagine if he's like
six foot three and he was.

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He was dressed in a suit.
When he went down there and he came

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back, he looked like an eskimo
because he was covered and head to foot

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in this dust. Again, that
was prevalent throughout the city. And Lee

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he was speechless. He was in
a state of shows as one can only

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imagine. And I remember pouring him
a bourbon and sitting him down on the

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couch and the rest of us kind
of sitting around him and just saying,

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you don't have to say a damn
word. You just take your time and

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when you're ready to talk, we're
here. And it's exactly like you know

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now that I've gotten to know,
Father Jim. That's that's this, this

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spirit of meeting people where they are
not about preaching to them. It's not

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about telling them this is how you
can feel or anything. It's just I'm

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here for you. You tell me
what you need and I'll see what I

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can do to accommodate it. And
you know, we got lucky that day

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with David. A lot of people
didn't get lucky, but it taught me

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a great lesson. Damon DeMarco,
Father Jim Martin. I don't mind telling

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you both the connection we feel in
Oklahoma two nine to eleven, knowing that

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the memorials that came both in Washington, DC and in New York somewhat inspired

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by our own Murrah Building memorial.
So there's that connection that I think Oklahoma

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City feels and Oklahoma's feel with New
Yorkers. Yes, sir, we're right

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there with you, and I think
we should also remember the people in Shanksville,

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Pennsylvania that also plays a huge role
in the Pentagon as you said,

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So yes, we're I think I
speak for Father Martin when I say that

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our hearts are right there with you, Damon DeMarco, Father Jim Martin.

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Thank you for joining us. Tower
Stories, the Oral History of nine to

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eleven available everywhere you get your books, and thank you for bringing the story

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to us today. Please also look
for Come Forth, the Promise of Jesus

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Greatest Miracle. Thanks for listening to
Later with Lee Matthews, the Leave Matthews

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Podcast, and remember to listen to
The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to

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seven and iHeartMedia Presentation