Surveys consistently rank the U.S. as the most individualist culture in the world. Our ideal man or woman is independent and self-reliant. Unlike collectivist cultures (Japan, China, Mexico, etc.) we give primacy to the individual over family, community or social class. 

For Americans coming of age in the middle of the 20th century, one Hollywood actor above all others embodied the virtues and bravado of rugged individualism — John Wayne. In John Wayne’s America: The Politics of Celebrity Garry Wills described Wayne (aka Marion Morrison) as our “American Adam — untrammeled, unspoiled, free to roam, breathing a larger air than the cramped men behind desks.” 

In business we are expected to be hyper-competitive. The rules of the game are win, win, win. George C. Scott in his title role as General George S. Patton said it best: “America hates a loser.” But is fierce, no-holds-barred competition the only way to win? Are there strategies that are more effective? How about cooperation?

Game theory — a mathematical theory of situations in which two or more players decide the best course of action — proves it’s not the self-interested, results-oriented, victory-obsessed player who triumphs. It’s the cooperative player.

A classic game theory scenario is The Prisoner’s Dilemma. “Two prisoners jointly charged with a crime are held apart, and each is given the option of confessing, or not confessing,” according to the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. “If neither confesses, the prosecutor will find a lesser charge, and each will serve two (2) years in jail. If each confesses, the prosecutor convicts them both, and they will serve six (6) years each. If prisoner A confesses and B does not, A is released and B serves ten (10) years. If B confesses and A does not, B is released and A serves ten (10) years.”

The best outcome would be for both prisoners not to confess. The prosecutor would then have to give them each two years in jail. But they would have to trust each other and cooperate, i.e., not confess. If neither trusted each other, they would both confess and get six years. And if prisoner A trusted prisoner B but B squealed, then prisoner A would get ten years. Likewise, if prisoner B trusted A but A squealed, then prisoner B would get 10 years.

Clearly, the game shows that a positive result (less time in jail) is not attained by pursuing your self-interests. Instead, it’s best achieved through cooperation. It’s not intuitive, but it is intriguing.

So the next time you think it’s wise to crush your opponent, think again. It might make sense to cooperate and get a bigger payoff.

Copyright © 2009 by Vince Reardon

The late Ayn Rand became famous for promoting the “virtue” of selfishness in bestselling novels (Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead) and non-fiction works. In the process she attracted a devoted following of academics and public intellectuals, including former Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan. Others claim Rand’s circle was more like a cult.

Her philosophy, called Objectivism, “is rational self-interest and self-responsibility – the idea that no man is any other man’s slave,” according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. “The virtues of her philosophy are principled policies based on rational assessment: rationality, productiveness, honesty (in order to rationally make the best decisions we must be privy to the facts), integrity, independence, justice, and pride. Her political philosophy is in the classical liberal tradition, with that tradition’s emphasis upon individualism, the constitutional protection of individual rights to life, liberty, and property, and limited government.”

Ethical Egoism

But it’s her ethics of self-realization, which in philosophy is called “ethical egoism,” that intrigued me — horrified me, too — and which, I believe, accounts for Objectivism’s widespread popular appeal. Ethical egoism says we should always act in accordance with our self interests. In fact, we have an ethical obligation to do so! Moreover, ethical egoism says it’s never our responsibility to satisfy the interests of others, unless of course it would advance our interests as well.

Who thinks like this? Lots of normal people. Monsters too. Think Gordon “Greed is good” Gecko of Oliver Stone’s movie Wall Street.

Ethical egoism may work well in theory or in movies but it wreaks havoc in personal relationships. If there’s no give-and-take, no yielding of self-interest from time to time in personal relationships, get ready for a self-realized but lonely life. 

I’ve long felt that the ethical aspects of Objectivism provided a very poor model for living a satisfied life. But I was mistaken. There is a place for the ethical egoist – at the gambling table.

In June 2003 I read an article in The New York Times Magazine by John Hodgman called “Ayn Rand, in Spades.” Hodgman profiles a highly successful poker player, Adam Wildavsky, who applied the principles of Objectivism to his favorite game with great success. Here are some excerpts from that article.

To Think or Not to Think

“One of Rand’s basic premises is that man has free will which is expressed primarily through a single choice: to think or not to think,” Hodgson said.

“One of Rand’s favorite adjectives is ‘indifferent’: it describes a kind of Objectivist Zen state of selfish focus, and it describes Wildavsky perfectly,” Hodgson said. “He seems beautifully clueless of the anxiety that permeates the hotel [where a large championship poker competition is being held].”

“When discussing the advantages that his Objectivist approach brings him, Wildavsky often returns to the same motif: reason trumps emotion,” Hodgman said. “This is more than an abstract motto. It is, as he plays, a constant, rigorous, exhausting inner struggle: to resist guesswork and gut reactions and ’spacing out’, to analyze each hand in itself, each bid, play after play after play.”

“…Wildavsky is always tranquil at the table, always silent,” Hodgman said. “He refuses to rehash hands at the table or to listen as other partners chew one another out, an uncommon deaf-muteness he has named ‘The Keller Convention’, after Helen Keller. It wasn’t always this way. He used to be a ‘terror’ of the table, he tells me. Then he stopped looking at the game emotionally and started looking at it Objectively. ‘Selfishness is what led me to the idea that it would be more profitable to be nice to my partner.’”

Other Wildavsky insights are: “Emotions are not a means of cognition.” And, “Look for the selfish, not the sentimental, reason.”

Are there other situations, besides the wagering table, in which you might apply ethical egoism? Let me know.

Copyright © 2009 by Vince Reardon

Gene Kranz had always wanted to be a pilot, but his flying career almost crashed on take-off. Accepted into the U.S. Naval Academy, he flunked the physical due to diabetes.

“I had been working at the A&P warehouse and living on chocolate milk and brownies,” Kranz, 75, said. “We didn’t have money to go to college, so I thought my entire world had ended.”

When his high school teacher, Sister Mary Mark, heard the news, she sat him down for a talk. “She proceeded to give me a lesson in growing up, a lesson in the importance of absolute persistence, in never giving up,” he said.

In a life later crammed with critical, live-and-death decisions, Kranz said of this first crossroads, “I believe it was her getting me back on the right path to find another way to achieve my objective that was probably the most important event in my life.”

A Pilot at Last

His mother, a widow running a rooming house in Toledo, Ohio, scrapped together enough money to send her son to Parks Air College in East St. Louis. Although a big step down from Annapolis, Kranz measured up. He studied aeronautical engineering, took part in a bare-bones flight program, and graduated with a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force Reserve.

In 1954 he took a job at McDonnell Aircraft in St. Louis reading data records of flight tests. In time Kranz became skilled at putting together an accurate story from flight data, a talent that would prove invaluable as a flight controller at NASA.

While at McDonnell Kranz found a mentor in his boss, Harry Carroll. “He was probably the most influential person in my life,” Kranz said. “He was a Renaissance man who did everything. An experienced engineer, great aviator, wrote poetry, acted in dinner theater, led grand portage canoe trips across the Canadian border. But he taught me to have a passion, an absolute commitment, to everything I’d attempt in life.”

In 1955 Kranz reported for pre-flight training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. That same year he married Marta Cadena, a young woman from Texas, who he had been dating. Over the next couple of years Kranz and his young family would hopscotch from one Air Force assignment to another. Eventually, he would fly an F-86 Sabre on patrol operations along the Korean DMZ.

A Future in Space

On October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union took the world by surprise with the launch of Sputnik, the world’s first man-made satellite, and threw into question America’s presumed technological superiority in space.

Fresh from Korea, Kranz landed a job with McDonnell as a test pilot. But with the space race heating up between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, Kranz responded to an ad in Aviation Week from the NASA Space Task Group looking for qualified engineers to work in its Project Mercury Space Program in Langley, Virginia and Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Despite misgivings about leaving his career as a test pilot, Kranz was convinced his future lay in space. He applied for the position and was accepted.

In 1959 the nascent U.S. space program was in pathetic shape. “The rockets did have an unfortunate tendency at launch to keel over on their side, a scene that reappeared frequently in the newsreels,” Kranz said. “Of the nineteen unmanned U.S. rockets launched in 1959, nine failed their missions.” [1] Expert opinion put the U.S. a year behind the Russians and fading quickly. The pressure on NASA was enormous.

Two weeks into his new job at Langley Research Center, Kranz was approached by flight director Christopher Kraft – whose leadership at NASA would serve as an inspiring model for all future flight directors — and given the task of writing the operating procedures for Mercury flight controllers for the upcoming Mercury-Redstone 1 (MR-1) launch at Cape Canaveral.

Kranz was stunned. What did he know about countdown protocols and mission rules? From his test pilot experience he was familiar with systems, procedures, and checklists. But there’s a huge difference, Kranz realized, between developing operations and procedures for aircraft and spacecraft.

“During a mission countdown, or even a flight test, so many things would be happening so fast that you did not have time for second thoughts or arguments,” Kranz said. “You wanted the debate behind you.” [2]

With the invaluable help of colleague Paul Johnson, Kranz plunged into the groundbreaking work and within a week had written “the book” – the initial procedures for the countdown and the rules for the first Mercury-Redstone (MR-1) mission.

Four-Inch Flight

MR-1 was memorable but for all the wrong reasons. “The Redstone had lifted a few inches off the launch pad and then the engine shut down. By some miracle, the rocket had landed back on the launcher cradle,” Kranz said. [3]

There was, however, a launch of sorts. Unceremoniously, the escape tower sitting atop the Mercury capsule was severed and catapulted 4,000 feet above the launch pad. The smoldering heap landed 1,200 feet away.  Fortunately, the next Redstone launched a month later was a success.

Once a mystery, flight rules now put Kranz at the heart of every mission policy and flight decision. “This task opened the door for me to every technical aspect of Mercury operations,” he said. “I was the scribe sitting in on Kraft’s meetings with crews, controllers, and management.” [4]

Amazingly, this period in NASA’s infancy pre-dated computers. “There were no computers,” Kranz said. “We had no high-speed communications. We used teletype. Give you some idea — high-speed communication was two kilobytes per second. Low-speed was one [kilobyte per second], and we got it in from tracking stations at the Cape, from the California tracking station, the Texas tracking station, and if conditions were favorable we’d get it from Bermuda.”

With its ambitious timeline, the Mercury program strained to keep pace with events. In April 1961 Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space and the first to orbit the Earth – another blow to the U.S. space program. A month later, Alan Shepard became the first American astronaut to fly into space, but it was only a 15-minute, sub-orbital flight. Almost a year later in February 1962 John Glenn became the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth. It looked as though the U.S. would never catch the Soviets.

By 1965 Kranz had been promoted to flight director. His “coming out” mission would be Gemini 4 in June 1965. Astronaut Ed White became the first American to “walk” in space. But, once again, the Soviets had trumped the Americans with conducting the first space walk in March 1965.

Out of the Ashes of Tragedy

Despite the obvious risks of space exploration, no one was prepared for the tragedy that befell Apollo 1. Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee died in a mysterious fire that flashed through their oxygen-pressurized cabin on January 27, 1967. The astronauts died on the launch pad during a simulated countdown.

“A rational feeling or not, I felt that I had personally let down the crew of Apollo 1,” Kranz said. “But I also knew that I had to put aside these feelings and take the lead in rallying the controllers to get us moving forward again.” [5]

Kranz had probably read more by and about General George S. Patton than anyone else in his life. “There is in Patton the philosophy of ‘seize the moment, seize the opportunity’, which is very important,” he said. Now speaking to 250 controllers in the aftermath of Apollo 1, Kranz believed such a moment had arrived.

He told the somber, shaken audience, “From this day forward, Flight Control will be known by two words: ‘Tough and competent.’ Tough means we are forever accountable for what we do or what we fail to do. We will never again compromise our responsibilities…Competent means we will never take anything for granted. We will never be found short in our knowledge and in our skills. Mission Control will be perfect.” [6]

Asked more than 40 years later if Grissom, White and Chafee died in vain, Kranz said firmly, “No. As we found out after the fire, we really had several significant deficiencies in the Command and Service Module, the space systems that we were flying, and I think we would have tried to repair those things in line instead of calling a halt and fixing them all at once. I believe they paid the price for Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins [landing on the Moon]. And that’s part of their legacy.”

The Soviet program knew tragedy too. In April 1967 a new Soviet spacecraft, the Soyuz, crashed when its parachutes became tangled. The sole cosmonaut was killed.

As the successes of the Apollo program pushed the U.S. ahead of the Soviets, Kranz’s career and family life blossomed. Now a father of six, Kranz, at 36, reached one of the high points of his career. He was selected to be the flight director for the Lunar Module’s descent to the surface of the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission.

The Eagle Has Landed

About an hour before Armstrong’s and Aldrin’s historic Moon landing, Kranz spoke to hundreds of his controllers over a private communications loop. He said: “Today is our day, and the hopes and the dreams of the entire world are with us. This is our time and our place, and we will remember this day and what we will do here always. In the next hour we will do something that has never been done before. We will land an American on the Moon. The risks are high…that is the nature of the business. We worked long hours and had some tough times but we have mastered our work. Now we are going to make this work pay off. You are a hell of a good team. One that I feel privileged to lead. Whatever happens, I will stand behind every call that you will make. Good luck and God bless us today.”  [7]

After a tense but flawlessly executed landing, astronaut Neil Armstrong informed Mission Control, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”  It was July 20, 1969. Capsule Communicator (CapCom) Charles Duke captured the mood in Mission Control when he said, “Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot.” [8]

Kranz was elated but busy. “I didn’t spend much time enjoying the moment because we were tied to the console for the next two hours with very time-critical activities,” he said. “While everyone else was cheering and celebrating and everything else, I almost felt that I and the team were cheated of that absolute joy the instant we landed.”

Houston, We Have a Problem

Some will argue that the Moon landing, however monumental, was not the pinnacle of Kranz’s career. They will point to his performance along with the entire Mission Operations Team in rescuing Apollo 13 from certain destruction.

Two days into the mission an oxygen tank exploded in the Command Service Module (CSM), knocking out vital fuel cells. With round-the-clock assistance from Mission Control, veteran astronaut Jim Lovell and civilian astronauts Fred Haisse, Jr. and John Swigert piloted the crippled spacecraft, first around the Moon and then back to Earth, some 250,000 miles away. Four days after the errant explosion, Apollo 13 splashed into the South Pacific Ocean.

“Our crew was home. We – crew, contractors, controllers – had done the impossible. The human factor had carried the day…When our glittering technology failed us, our resourcefulness and courage, as well as every bit of the experience gained since the abortive four-inch Mercury launch, had carried the day,” Kranz said. [9]

Over the years Kranz has been frequently asked if he really believed they would get the crew home. “I had no doubt,” he said. “You have to believe in your mission; you have to believe you’re going to complete your mission. I liken myself to a heart surgeon looking into the patient’s eyes, and the patient wants to see that when I open up his chest I have 100 percent confidence I’m going to be able to close it up, and this patient is going to come through. Also, what about this: what would the crewmen be thinking? You have to have this attitude and you have to communicate it to the people in your team.”

For their magnificent efforts President Nixon awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to Apollo 13’s Mission Control Team. In 1974 Kranz became deputy of NASA Mission Operations and director in 1983. He retired in March 1994.

Bitter-Sweet Reunion

During the summer of 2009 Kranz attended numerous commemorations marking the 40^th anniversary of the Moon landing. “We had a marvelous celebration but it was tinged with sadness,” he said. “A bitter-sweet reunion. We don’t see a direction in the space program.”

Kranz said he’s disappointed that President Obama did not continue Michael Griffin’s tenure as NASA Administrator. “I think Mike was the first true leader we’ve had in the Agency [NASA] in over a decade,” he said. “If we’re going to go anywhere in space, it’s going to start with leadership, and Mike was the guy to lead. I have nothing against Charlie Bolden, Jr., the new guy. He’s a good guy, but the failure to continue with Mike Griffin was an indication the Obama Administration does not really see space as an important element in our nation’s future. I think this is a signal. The next generation is really going to be wondering what we stand for. Are we no longer explorers? First, I think we should be building the next generation space systems we need, both to support the international space station and get onto the moon. Once we’ve learned to live for extensive periods of time outside near-Earth orbit, then it’s time to go to Mars. First, the Moon, then Mars.”

Recalling his legacy, Kranz said, “I’d like to be remembered as the individual who established Mission Control as a leadership laboratory where we taught our young controllers to reach for excellence, individually and as team members. I’d like to be remembered as the individual who built the teams that accomplished the mission given to us by President Kennedy of reaching the Moon. I was a parent, father, husband and companion to my wife and children, and my wife and I provided them with the foundation for a life of service to the people in our community. Finally, I’d like to be remembered as a good listener, thoughtful in my actions, and when the time came I would take any action necessary for crew safety and mission success.”

Copyright © 2009 by Vince Reardon

Endnotes

[1] Kranz, Gene.Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond,  (New York: Berkley Books, 2000), p. 115.

[2] Ibid., p. 21.

[3] Ibid., p. 30.

[4] Ibid., p. 43.

[5] Ibid., p. 203.

[6] Ibid., p. 204.

[7] Ibid. p. 283-4.

[8] Ibid., p. 292.

[9] Ibid., p. 337.

Port Authority Police Officer David Lim felt the building shake at 8:46 a.m. “It was like a jolt and lasted about five seconds,” he said.

Sitting in his basement office (B-1 level) in Two World Trade Center (South Tower), Lim said he knew something was wrong. Within seconds a transmission crackled over his high-frequency radio – a report of an explosion on the upper levels of One World Trade Center (North Tower).

Since 6 a.m. Lim and his canine partner Sirius, a specially trained bomb dog, had been doing what they did every day — checking for explosives in trucks entering the WTC basement.

“My first thought was that something had gotten through on one of the trucks,” he said. “At the time it seemed like the end of the world to me. I looked at Sirius and said, ‘Buddy, I think we missed one.’”

Unknown to Lim and 50,000 WTC office workers, American Airlines Flight 11, hijacked from Boston’s Logan Airport, had slammed into 1 WTC, crashing through floors 93 to 99.

“A jet fuel fireball erupted upon impact and shot down at least one bank of elevators,” according to The 9/11 Commission Report. “The fireball exploded onto numerous lower floors, including the 77th and 22nd, the West Street lobby level, and the B-4 level, four stories below ground. The burning jet fuel immediately created thick, black smoke that enveloped the upper floors and roof of the North Tower. The roof of the South Tower was also engulfed in smoke because of the prevailing light winds from the northwest.” [1] Hundreds died immediately; hundreds more were trapped alive.

Lim, a second-generation Chinese-American and 22-year veteran cop, was embarking on the longest, most arduous, and most heart-breaking day of his life.

I’ll Be Back

He locked Sirius, his yellow, four-year-old Labrador, in the kennel of his office. “He’s a bomb dog, not a search and rescue dog,” Lim said. “I thought he’d be safe in the building, in the basement. I said to him, ‘I’m going to help the people [in the other building]. I’ll be back for you.’”

Running north through the basement to 1 WTC, he saw others racing in the same direction. “The basement was an underground city,” he said. “You didn’t have to cross over anything to get to other buildings, it was all connected underneath. At that moment we were like little ants in a cavern getting to that building.”

Lim got up to the Plaza level and noticed people exiting the A staircase. “A lot of women were hurrying down from above, carrying their shoes,” he said. “People were also trying to get down the escalator to the next level on West Street. I asked a New York City cop to turn off the ‘up’ escalator; we didn’t need an ‘up’ escalator. It would help people get down more quickly.”

Then someone screamed. Turning around, Lim could see that someone had fallen onto the Plaza outside the building from a great height. “I ran over and could see the body had landed on the outdoor stage, the Summertime Stage, where live music was performed during lunch time.”

Things Are Not Good Upstairs

He was calling his Command Desk to report the incident when a second body fell right in front of him. “That’s when I realized things are not good and I better get upstairs,” he said. “I mean, helping people on the Plaza is not a bad thing and no one would have faulted me for it. But I figured they needed my help upstairs if they’re jumping out of the building from 70 or 80.”

Lim avoided the elevators and headed for the staircase. On the crowded stairs he wound his way through office workers heading for the lobby and the concourse. Some people seemed annoyed and wanted to know why they had to go down when a cop was going up. “You keep going down,” Lim said, reassuringly. “Down is good; it’s a good thing.”

He grabbed a man’s flashlight. “You’re not going to need this,” he told him. “You’ll have plenty of light down there.”

Lim exited the A staircase at the 27nd floor. “I remember there was a guy in a wheelchair and he was waiting with a friend. I thought ‘I’ve got to help this guy.’ But he said, ‘No, no, we’re waiting for the other people to go down so we don’t get in the way.’”

By now, Lim said, people had realized the situation was serious. They knew something bad had happened and many wanted to get out of the building. Still, others didn’t know what happened. They waited, even remaining at their desks for official instructions. Until then, Lim only knew there had been an explosion on an upper floor of 1 WTC.

“Then I heard my radio go off and they confirmed a plane had hit,” he said. “I lowered the radio so people wouldn’t hear. I thought at first that a small plane had hit, which is bad, but these buildings were rated for a plane crash. I was concerned but not concerned of possible, imminent collapse.”

Lim met up with firefighters on the 27nd floor who had come up the B staircase. “I told them I had to get this guy in the wheelchair down. They said they’d take care of him. So I took their staircase, the B staircase. It didn’t seem very important to me at the time.” But it proved to be a fateful decision.

A Second Plane Hits

“I was working my way up the staircase, and I heard [over the radio] a second plane had hit [2 WTC]. The first plane I thought was an accident, but the second I thought we’re under attack.”

Hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into 2 WTC at 9:03 a.m., demolishing floors 77 through 85. “[T]he largest and most complicated rescue operation in city history instantly doubled in magnitude.” [2]

Lim got to the 44th-floor sky lobby and directed people to take the staircase, not the express elevator. “Never take an elevator in an emergency,” he said. There was a utility closet on the floor that held firefighting equipment. Lim gave the closet key to some nearby firefighters.

At 9:59 a.m. 2 WTC collapsed. Although it was hit second, it fell first, in about 15 agonizing seconds. People who watched the horror on television were incredulous when the Tower disappeared.

“The sound was unbelievable,” Lim said. “The force literally blew out windows on my floor and knocked me and others to the floor and pushed us back to the other window. Once that happened, I started to grab what people were left and said to them, ‘We’re getting out of here.’ That was the moment when the reality hit me that the building I was in could possibly collapse. Up to that point, even with two planes hitting two buildings, I thought, ‘This is the World Trade Center. This is New York. Nothing could make these things collapse.’”

No Panic

Lim gathered as many people as he could and started down the B staircase. Despite the chaos, people in 1 WTC remained resolute and calm. “In general, they were quiet,” Lim said. “No one was in a chatty mood, but as far as panic, I didn’t see a lot of that at all.”

Arriving at the 27nd floor, Lim was pleased to see that the man in the wheelchair was no longer waiting at the escalator. He assumed he had made it out. Moving down to the next floor, he saw Chief James Romito, Captain Kathy Mazza and Lieutenant Robert Cirri, all of the Port Authority Police Department, making a stretcher for an injured man. “I went to the Chief and told him, ‘You know the other building collapsed.’”

Romito grabbed his pager and read the message confirming what Lim has told him. “Oh, shit,” he said. “Okay, let’s get out of here.” Romito and Cirri grabbed the injured man and started down the stairs.

“This is when it started getting bad,” Lim said. “The stairwell was losing electric power. After the explosion in ’93, they put fluorescent paint on the stairwell edges. Now lights were going off, and the strips would light up. Lights would go back on and the strips would go off. Like a light show.”

Descending through the eerie stairwell, Lim calculated his odds. “I’m thinking, ‘I’m not going to make it,’” he said. “This isn’t going to happen. It’s going to come down while I’m still in it.’”

On the fifth floor he noticed an older woman, a Port Authority employee named Josephine Harris, sitting on the side of the stairs. People were moving past her, stepping around her, to get downstairs. New York Firemen from Ladder Co. No. 6 were trying to find a chair to carry her down.

“I told them they wouldn’t find a chair on the fifth floor, only mechanical equipment,” Lim said. “So I pick her up by one arm and a fireman took the other, and we started downstairs.”

Nearing the exit of the stairwell, Mazza called up to Lim to leave the woman with the firemen and come with her. “I remember shouting to her, ‘Go ahead, boss. I’ll be right behind you. I’ve already got her.’” Never in his career did he question a senior officer’s command or request. It proved to be another fateful decision.

Like Being in a Blender

At 10:28 a.m. the tower began to collapse. Romito, Mazza and Cirri were making their way through the lobby. “I got down one more floor when I felt the building shaking, rumbling,” he said. “It sounded like someone stuck me in blender. I actually could hear the floors [above me] pancaking – boom, boom, boom! The thing I remember most is putting Josephine down on the floor and covering her with my body. I’m lying there thinking of my family and hoping it works out for everyone.”

The collapsing tower compressed gale-force winds through the stairwell. “It was like a hurricane,” Lim said. “One of the firemen behind me was lifted up and was thrown over me.”

Lim said he had a selfish thought. “I hope it’s quick,” he said. “I don’t want to be lying here for days, legs broken, dying of thirst.”

After 15 to 20 seconds the magnificent building was a pile of rubble. In complete darkness, buried under dust and debris, Lim thought, “’I must be dead.’ Then I coughed. Dead men don’t cough. A weird thought, I admit.”

Captain Jonas, one of the firemen in the stairwell, called out, “Is everyone alright? Sound off!” Lim got off Josephine Harris; she was okay. All 14 had survived the largest collapse of a superstructure in history.

“I had the only cell phone,” he said, his voice barely audible. “I called my wife. It was difficult. I have to say goodbye but I really don’t want to depress her. I was happy to be alive, but I could be buried here for the rest of my life. I have 105 stories above my head. I had that thought almost instantaneously when the building stopped collapsing.” At this point in the interview Lim falls silent, struggling with his memories of the collapse and being separated from his family forever.

After several hours, he received a radio transmission from the fire department asking for their location. “I told them to find the globe in the middle of the Plaza and then go about 100 yards west, and they’d run right into us,” he said.  “I remember the fireman on the other end saying, ‘What globe?’ This thing is a mini-moon, it’s enormous, but it’s gone.”

Meanwhile, others on the landing were trying to find a way out. During the collapse part of the staircase leading down had broken away, so they decided to climb up and out of the rubble.

A Salt Shaker

“The building had collapsed around us, leaving us like a salt shaker on a table,” he said. “We started digging and I saw some light. I thought the light was from the floor above us, but as we dug it turned out to be the sun. I thought, ‘How could this be?’”

Lim was feeling much better now. “I went from almost getting killed in the collapse, to being buried alive, now my only concern is getting down,” he said. They still have to descend through four stories of jagged, smoldering debris.

Besides a concussion and a lower-back injury, Lim said his condition was not severe. After about five hours, a fire company arrived at the staircase with ladders, ropes and an emergency basket to carry out Josephine Harris who now couldn’t move.

Lim helped fireman Mike Meldrum who had a more serious concussion. “I kept talking to him,” he said. “Don’t ask me why, but they say it’s better to keep someone with a concussion awake.”

As firemen helped them climb down through the debris, he saw bodies and body parts covered in gray, filmy dust. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “I focused on shoes. There were empty women’s shoes all over the place. It took my mind away from the other things that were lying next to the shoes.”

Eventually, he got off the debris field and walked to West Street where a team of emergency medical techs (EMTs) had set up a triage station. “They started to rip my shirt off and examine me,” he said. “I told them, ‘Look, look, I’ve got to get back to my command.’”

Everyone’s So Clean

At 3:30 p.m. Lim headed north toward World Financial Center. “There was nothing left,” he said. “I looked around and seemed to be one of the only guys covered from head to toe in dust and debris. All gray. I was wondering, ‘Why does everyone look clean? Am I the only guy working today?’”

Lim said he was probably in shock at the time and didn’t realize it. “It didn’t occur to me that these guys on the sidelines were new troops, and that everyone who looked like me had already been taken away,” he said.

He worked his way back to 7 World Trade Center to get to Sirius, his dog, who he left hours ago when the world still made sense. But before he could get down the Barclay Street ramp, he was stopped by a Port Authority Police car. “Officers Demrowski and Greenstein grabbed me, threw me into the car, and took me to the command post. “We were ready to report you dead on a preliminary list,” Demrowski said.

When he walked into the command post, everyone started cheering. Lim was the only surviving Port Authority Police Officer at that time. Later, Police Officers John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno would be recovered alive.

Lim was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital where he was reunited with his wife and two children. “There was no one at St. Vincent’s,” Lim said. “Obviously, there were victims at hospitals closer to the World Trade Center, but not many at my hospital. It was eerie. You either made it or you didn’t. If you were down there, chances are you were dead.”

He was released from the hospital that evening, went home, and watched news coverage of the disaster into the early morning hours. His wife checked on him every couple of hours.

Lim learned later that Romito, Mazza, and Cirri died in the lobby when the building collapsed. They were assisting a man in a wheelchair.

“On September 11, the nation suffered the largest loss of life – 2,973 – on its soil as a result of hostile attack in its history,” according to The 9/11 Commission Report. “The Fire Department of New York (FDNY) suffered 343 fatalities – the largest loss of life of any emergency response agency in history. The Port Authority Police Department (PAPD) suffered 37 fatalities – the largest loss of life of any police force in history. The New York Police Department (NYPD) suffered 23 fatalities – the second largest loss of life of any police force in history, exceeded only by the number of PAPD officers lost the same day.” [3]

Sirius Touched People

Sirius also died, the only K-9 lost on 9/11. Lim helped in his recovery, giving rescue workers precise directions to his office in the basement of 2 WTC. “When they brought Sirius up, they stopped everything, the machines, everything,” Lim said proudly. “A priest said a few words about ‘creatures great and small’ over his flag-draped body. He received full honors. Cops saluted the K-9.”

When they gave him the flag covering Sirius’ body, Lim remembered breaking down. “He was my partner and my friend,” he said.

Sirius was brought to the autopsy room of Bellevue Hospital. When the coroner saw the battered dog, she too broke down and wept.

In April 2002 a memorial service was held for Sirius. One hundred dog-handlers and their dogs, representing K-9 units throughout the tri-state area, attended. “It was a wonderful memorial,” Lim said. “I’ve kept the ashes in my home.”

In addition to receiving posthumously the Medal of Honor from the Port Authority Police Department, Sirius also received many touching tributes from people worldwide. Perhaps one of most memorable gestures for Lim came from school children in California. “One school in Lompoc sent Sirius boxes of dog biscuits individually wrapped with a message and a child’s signature on each one,” he said.

The recipient of numerous awards from organizations throughout the country, Lim is proudest of his Meritorious Service Medal from the Port Authority Police Department.

Eight years later Lim is still asking “what if” questions. “What if I had helped the guy in the wheelchair on the 27th floor, maybe Chief Romito, and Kathy and Cirri would have gotten out? What if I hadn’t given the fire closet keys to the firemen on the 44th floor? They went up; I went down. None of them made it.”

He returned to work part-time one and half months after 9/11. In 2005 he was promoted to Sergeant and in 2008 to Lieutenant. Today he works at all Port Authority facilities, spanning New York and New Jersey.

Asked how he wished to be remembered he said, “He lived his life well and he did the best he could to take care of his family.”

Copyright © 2009 by Vince Reardon

Endnotes

1. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report. 1st Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 2003. p. 280.

2. Ibid., p. 285

3. Ibid., p. 285

4. Ibid., p. 293

5. Ibid., p. 311

Copyright © 2009 by Vince Reardon