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