Books and Covers

 

Talat Hamdani has spent the past twenty-one years as a member of an incomprehensibly heartbreaking and tragic club.  A club that neither she nor any of its other members wanted to join and one that each of them wishes was one to which her membership had been denied - or could be revoked.   It, of course, cannot.  

On that terrible Tuesday morning twenty-one Septembers ago, Talat Hamdani's twenty-three-year-old son, Mohammad Salman Hamdani, was among the innocents killed by the murderous cowards who flew the planes into the Twin Towers.   Mohammad was just thirteen months old when his parents moved from Pakistan to the United States, where they settled in Bayside, Queens.  "Sal" as he preferred to be called loved life in America.  He became an American citizen.  He played football at Bayside High School and after high school, he earned his degree in Biochemistry at Queens College in June 2001, while working part-time as an EMT.  His dream was to go to medical school.  In July 2001, he took a job as a research technician in the Protein/DNA Technology Center at Rockefeller University.  He also joined the NYPD's Cadet Program.  

He was on his way to work at Rockefeller University on September 11, 2001 when he saw the flames erupting from the World Trade Center.  Instead of heading to the lab, he headed straight towards the disaster.  He never made it to the lab.  He never made it home.  

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, the Hamdani family did what countless families all over the Tri-State Area did.  They made posters with Sal's picture on them, hung them up every place they could think to hang them, asking strangers "Have You Seen Him?"  Of course, no one had.  

Tragically, and inexcusably, Sal's "disappearance" was not treated initially as if he was a victim of that day's events but, rather, somehow connected to those who perpetrated them.  On October 12, 2001 the New York Post ran a story under William Gorka's by-line, the headline of which was "MISSING - OR HIDING? - MYSTERY OF NYPD CADET FROM PAKISTAN".  

He was, of course, neither missing nor hiding.  He was dead.  Killed in the place he had gone to save other.  

It was not until March 2002 that the Hamdani family was notified that Sal's remains had been found in the rubble of the North Tower, along with some of his belongings, forty-five days after the attack.   He was buried in April 2002 in a hero's funeral, his casket draped with an American flag, and attended by then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg.  

In 2014, a block away from the home in Bayside, Queens where his parents raised him and where his family continued to live, a street was renamed in his honor.  His mother, exuding the grace and dignity that seems to spring from an eternal well to which mothers alone have access, called that day, "a joyous and victorious day."   Sadly, his father did not live to celebrate it.  He died less than three years after his son had been murdered - the result of a broken heart, according to Talat.  

Losing a son can to that to a parent.  Even when that son is a hero.  Perhaps, even especially so.

Mohammad Salman Hamdani

EMT (Metro Ambulance)

End of Watch:  September 11, 2001

-AK 

Honor. Love. Respect.

Today, we remember and honor all those who were killed on September 11, 2001 and all those who have given their lives in service of this nation in the twenty-one years since by giving a shout out to one of my favorite organizations and its signature event.  

On September's final Sunday, as it has done annually on the final Sunday of September since 2002, the Tunnel to Towers New York City 5K will step off on the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and wind its way through Lower Manhattan until it finishes at the new World Trade Center.  

The Siller Family, which established the Tunnel To Towers Foundation in the wake of the death of their youngest sibling, Stephen, a FDNY firefighter, better exemplifies having turned something profoundly horrible into something profoundly helpful than any family or anything with which I am or have ever been familiar.  

Run.  Walk.  Honor.  

2017 Tunnel to Towers New York City 5K

Running through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel

-AK 

Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity

Special Agent Leonard William Hatton, Jr.

FBI Joint Bank Robbery Task Force 

(End of Watch - September 11, 2001) 

Leonard W. Hatton, Jr. was a Jersey guy.  Born and raised in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, his father was a Ridgefield Park police officer and a member of the Ridgefield Park High School Class of 1975.  After graduating from Jersey City State College (now known as New Jersey City University) with his degree in Criminal Justice, he joined the United States Marine Corps where he served the people of the United States for six years.   

In 1985, he joined the FBI, where he specialized in explosives and evidence recovery.  When he joined the FBI he worked in New Orleans but in 1991 he came home (or more precisely, across the Hudson River from home) to New York City as part of a team investigating a bank robbery case.  He would spend the final ten years of his career, which sadly proved to also be the final ten years of his life, working in New York City.  Given his area of specialty, he spent a considerable amount of time in his FBI career investigating terrorist attacks, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1998 bombings of United States Embassys, and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole.  

He did not work at the World Trade Center and he was not assigned to respond there on September 11, 2001.  He was on his way to work in downtown Manhattan when he saw smoke billowing out of the North Tower, which changed his destination.   According to eyewitnesses, he mounted a position on the roof of the Marriott Hotel at 3 World Trade Center and radioed to his squad that people were jumping from the North Tower.  At 9:03 am he radioed to report that a second jet had flown into the South Tower.  When holding his position atop the Marriott became untenable, he moved from it and, consistent with his training as a volunteer firefighter, started helping FDNY firefighters evacuate people trapped in the South Tower.  One survivor told investigators that Mr. Hatton guided him out of the South Tower to safety before heading in to help others.  He was still inside the South Tower when it collapsed at 9:59 am.  

His love of country and his love of public service, as fervent as they were, paled in comparison to his love for his wife, JoAnne (his high school sweetheart) and the couple's three daughters (Tara, Jessica, and Courtney) and son (Lenny).  

In the twenty-one years since his death, Leonard Hatton's legacy has lived on in the Leonard W. Hatton Memorial Golf Classic, the 21st Annual Edition of which was held on June 3, 2022 (the fifth anniversary of my mother's death) at Pebble Creek Golf Club in Colts Neck, New Jersey.  100% of the Tournament's proceeds since its inception in 2002 have gone to the Burchette, Conners, Ellington, Hereford, Lynch Memorial College Scholarship Fund, which is a 501 (c) (3) organization that provides college scholarhips to the children of deceased FBI agents.   Through 2021, the Classic's contribution to the fund was $564,000.  

-AK 

The Captain

 

Captain Vincent Brunton, FDNY

Ladder 105 - Brooklyn

(End of Watch September 11, 2001)

For Vincent Brunton, 1979 was a big year.  It was the year he and his wife Cathy were married.  It was the year his daughter Kelly was born.  It was the year he became a New York City Firefighter.  

At the time of his death on Tuesday, September 11, 2001 he was a Captain in the FDNY in Ladder 105 in Brooklyn.   His dedication and devotion to training were so well-known in the FDNY that after he died a pillar at the Fire Academy was dedicated to him.  In 1992 he was awarded a departmental medal for saving a handicapped woman from a fire.  

Captain Brunton was also renowned among those with whom he worked at the FDNY for his ability to maintain his calm in high-pressure situations.   So profound was his influence that after he died one of his firefighters, Will Hickey, carried a small photograph of Captain Brunton inside of his helmet that he would touch every now and again because, according to FF Hickey, it reminded him to stay calm, to keep it simple, and to think on his feet.  

Three great lessons by which to live one’s life.  

-AK

Twenty-One to Twenty-One

 

Twenty-one days from today marks twenty-one years from the September 11 attacks.  Twenty-one to twenty-one.   

One way to measure time's passage from a particular event is to look at it through the lives of those directed affected by that event.  To that end, in connection with the twentieth anniversary of the attacks last year, Mary Biekert of Bloomberg wrote a terrific piece, entitled "Generation 9/11:  Following Parents They Lost Onto Wall Street."   

It might make you cry - or at least tear up a little - but it might also make you smile.   A generation of young men and women, deprived of a parent's companionship in their day-to-day, nevertheless following in their footsteps.  

The living honoring the dead.  Spend a few minutes today reading Mary Biekert's piece.  It will allow you to honor both.   

-AK    

A Long Walk Home

 Here, everybody has a neighbor

Everybody has a friend.

Everybody has a reason 

To begin again.

"Long Walk Home" 

- Bruce Springsteen

Imagine if you can that in addition to keeping up with all its current cases, the Office of the Medical Examiner in New York City continues to devote its time to working on an open case - a mass casualty event - that in less than thirty days shall be twenty-one years old.   You need not imagine it.  For the men and women of the Medical Examiner's Office, it is not a dream.  It is their job.  

Last September, shortly before the twentieth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, using DNA analysis on the unidentified remains recovered from the mass grave that had once been the World Trade Center, identified Dorothy Morgan of Hempstead, New York.  Ms. Morgan became the 1,646th person the Office has identified.   

She was a broker for Marsh & McLennan in its confidential services department.  On September 11, 2001 Marsh & McLennan had more than 1,900 employees in the World Trade Center, including eight hundred and forty-five in its offices on Floors 93-100 in the North Tower.  Nine hundred thirty-four worked in the South Tower, occupying offices on Floors 48-54.   Three hundred fifty-eight Marsh McLennan employees were murdered on that terrible Tuesday morning.   Dorothy Morgan, tragically, was one of them. 

Dorothy Morgan grew up a 'middle child', the fifth-born in a family of nine.  She was just forty-seven years old when she died.  She was a loving mother and a doting grandmother.  She found comfort in routines, the most important of which for her included visiting her mother on Fridays, shopping with her daughter, Nykiah, on Saturdays, and sitting in the same pew at her church in Jamaica, Queens every Sunday morning.  

When Nykiah was notified in August 2021 that her mom's remains had been identified and shortly thereafter the news was made public, she told various press outlets when asked that she really did not know what to do - other than that she was not planning on having a funeral.  I know not  whether she held true to that plan and frankly it is none of my business - or anyone's for that matter - whether she did.  

The decision how to honor Dorothy Morgan belongs exclusively to those who loved her and those she loved most of all.  It belongs to them much in the same way that she does.  Whatever they decided, their decision was the right one.  

At long last, Dorothy Morgan made it home to her family.  It was indeed an excruciatingly long walk. 

-AK 

The Gentle Giant

Middlesex Borough

September 11 Memorial

Richard B. Madden was only thirty-five years old when he was murdered on September 11, 2001.  Knowing that his situation was hopeless, in the final minutes of his life he called home to Westfield, New Jersey to speak to his wife, Maura, and the couple's nineteen-month-old daughter, Patricia.  He told her his situation and that he loved her.  It was the last conversation the couple ever had.  

He worked on the 100th floor of the South Tower for Aon Corp. as an insurance broker.  He graduated from New York Law School after he earned his Bachelor's Degree at Denison University.  He loved his wife.  He loved his little girl. 

And it was that love that helped bring him home.

At the time he died, Richard Madden was wearing his wedding ring into which Maura had inscribed, "Rich, all my love, Maura."  When his body was recovered from the rubble, it was those five words that identifed him.  

Five words that expressed a sentiment as true in the final moments of Richard's life as it was at the moment Maura had them inscribed on the ring.  

-AK