9/12: The Epic Battle of the Ground Zero Responders
By: William H. Groner, Tom Teicholz / Narrated By: Tom Teicholz
Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins
Good heavens—Didn’t really think about the first responders until Jon Stewart’s shaming of the Senate
I know, I blithely thought that those first responders who rushed to Ground Zero were taken care of. From the get-go, I was pretty sure that reports the air quality was sound and safe was patently untrue, but given the outpouring of love and funds the surviving families of those who lost their lives from within the Towers were granted, I thought: Of COURSE those heroes who responded, who valiantly worked The Pile day and night, night and day, for days streaming into weeks, into months? Of COURSE we’ve taken care of them all.
It wasn’t until I saw Jon Stewart sitting and testifying in Congress, sitting next to an ashen-faced and dying first responder, that I realized that our country had disavowed any obligation to help. No, I wasn’t surprised they were falling so desperately ill; yes, I was shocked that they weren’t even allowed disability and/or early retirement. Had we really fallen so low?
Yup.
9/12 follows the earliest illnesses of responders, the earliest days of the lawsuit to get them financial compensation and decent medical care, some of their many, MANY medical bills taken care of. These responders, whose just-a-year-ago’s annual health checkups showed no problems, were suddenly showing intensive pulmonary and heart conditions and cancers galore. We get to know some of the responders, tho’ not as many as I’d have liked cuz I’m totally into the stories and bios/memories of people, and we get to know some of the early heroes, the early villains.
And the villains start out as being America’s Mayor—Rudy Giuliani—go to the EPA’s Christine Todd Whitman, then trail all the way up to Condoleeza Rice rewording updates so things seem all jolly decent, and on to George W. Bush who from the get-go wanted New York’s financial centers up and running ASAP, air quality be damned, toxins at The Pile be damned. When a billion dollars was set up by the federal government as insurance for removal contractors to get started working, it was decided early on to use that money for legal fees to fight health claims, rather than to give even a penny of it to responders who became gravely ill and who began dropping like flies, leaving their families early to manage on their own.
It was utterly galling to listen to millions of dollars being paid from the fund to defense attorneys who used their funds and their cunning to snow plaintiff lawyers with over a million pages of documents, to stuff a piece of important info into pages upon pages of unmitigated fluff, to argue constantly, challenge even the slightest in court, thereby hindering and delaying proceedings even as more first responders sickened and died. Those lawyers got infinitely rich even as people were dying, leaving families destitute and without loved ones. All of it was better than spending any of that money on victims and true heroes.
So we have a galling Listen to go with journalist Tom Teicholz’s staccato narration. And I reeeeally wish that sometimes Publishers, or whoever, would spend some extra money to get professional narration done for important and historically significant works. Teicholz narrates this with gunshot rhythms, odd emphasis is given to every third syllable in every second line; truly, it was grating to the ears. He adds oomph where none is needed, getting over-excited when doing something such as reciting a mere list of, say, organizations that went to The Pile to work it. And I definitely jacked my listening speed up from x1.2 to x2 cuz the narration was kinda sorta driving me batty. This was good to get it out of the way, but at such a speed, his odd rhythm and emphasis really became obvious, and I had to lower the listening speed back down so it didn’t feel like getting whacked about the head and ears so much.
Still, a significant story with dedicated lawyers on one side, and true heroes, people who saw a definite need and were driven to respond—who would do so again in a heartbeat, even knowing how their lives would end—on another side.
Things don’t turn out well for the plaintiffs, and it’s a sobering realization when you learn that they’d given up for themselves and were moved to settle just in an effort to know that their families could keep their homes once they were dead and gone. Hope had become a tiny place in a huge and hostile world.
That it took years? That it took a public shaming?
I feel shame that I’d never kept abreast of those who poured onto The Pile to help the fallen; I feel shame that I’ve been part of a system of silence.
And I feel anger when I think that yes, it would’ve made Recovery and Clean-up slower if they’d been given and worked in protective equipment. But maybe fewer would be suffering catastrophic illnesses right now.
I’ve heard tell that by the 20th anniversary of 9/11, more first responders will have perished from illness than were lost in the planes and in the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, a field in Pennsylvania on that very day. Here we are at Anniversary 19.
And we’re still counting victims as they pass…
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