Derrick Milone
Fire Department of New York
Carla Arcuri, Maria Rubino
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Carla: Now I have Derrick Milone with me, I’m going to do the interview with him. So let’s talk about your history, where you grew up and all that stuff. Derrick: Born in Whittier, California 10-7-54
and stayed there a few years, moved to Brooklyn, 10 years old moved to
Staten Island. I joined the fire department on July 14, 1979.
Carla: You were a fireman for a long
time when 9/11 came.
Carla: So where were you on that
day?
Derrick: Both buildings had already come down by the time we got there. Um, so you
weren’t
Carla: And then when you got there, you
were in your uniform? You were on the job?
Derrick : We had our civilian clothes on, but brought our fire fighting gear because at that time now we knew what had happened. Um, none of the, in fact we went up there with six or seven guys jumped in my friend’s truck and, uh, we got in there so none of us had on our fire department clothes, but we did have our gear. Carla: So when you first saw it what was
going through your head?
Derrick : Well after the first, after the first report of course everybody believed that it was a just a pilot trying to be fancy and drive through the two buildings. When we heard that the second the plane had hit then right off the bat we knew that you know, that it was terror attacks. We, when we first got there sure everybody felt the same way, it was nothing that we would have ever expected you know, it just, uh, I mean it was like a war zone there was nothing, there was nothing there it was amazing. We figured that, uh, you know, you would be going over rubbish of desks and computers and stuff like that figuring that you know God knows how many offices were in there There was nothing, it was pulverized so much that there was nothing. Nothing. When I say nothing, I mean nothing. Carla: It was just ash and dust? Carla: So what did you do, like the whole day when you got there, from the time you got there until like you know, you left? Derrick: Okay when we first got there, of course they had set up some command stations and you know, you report there, you were given orders, let’s go here and let’s go there, but it was a little bit, a little bit chaotic. Um,they were telling us let’s break up into pairs and start searching. But after getting right at the base of Ground Zero, I felt and most firemen felt that you weren’t going to find anybody alive in that building, in the rubbish of that building. As many voids as there were because of the way the building collapsed and different collapses. A-frame collapses where’s on an angle and creates a little void in the shape of an "A". As many of those that there were, there was, there was, we believe that there was no chance that we were going to find anybody alive. After the first, uh, I think it was the first six or seven hours that we were down there, because we got down there early we must have been there just minutes after the second building had collapsed about 9:30, 10:00, we were there six, seven hours, nothing. We didn’t find one person alive. We felt that if we ain’t finding anyone alive in those you know, those peak hours, that we weren’t going to find anybody. So as each day went by we were down there the first fourteen days straight we went down there everyday for fourteen days and each day we started realizing that chances of finding somebody became slimmer and slimmer alive. You know as each day went by, you start to realize that you know, now you’re just trying to look for people, firefighters to bury you know. The worse thing, um, that most of the guys had seen or realized was that out of the, I think it was, well it definitely was 343 firemen were missing was that there was pieces that you did find you know, the gear or anything like, that they weren’t even with their gear.Because of the rubbish and because of the way everything you know, just ran down the street, um, you know somebody could have been on, they could have been on the northern exposure on one side butyou found, you found his gear a block and a half, you know a block and a half away from them. Um, very few people of course were found whole and because of the impact and the explosion actually most people were found you know, with clothes ripped off them just from the combustion, just the way you know, everything had gone. But they, uh, sort of kind of felt that, uh, there was still a chance that you know, you might find somebody. So you know, of course the guys are going to stay you know, no one is going to leave and I think every off duty fireman was there. If you weren’t actually assigned to a firehouse, those days you were giving your time down at Ground Zero. But, um, it was you could see like I said as the days were going on guys were getting more and more down on the chances of finding their, you know, their friends. When, uh, when we first went down there in fact two of the companies that I worked in Brooklyn were right by, right by the tunnel and they were the first two companies to respond on the second alarm. The Manhattan companies were there immediately of course. The timing was bad for the two Brooklyn companies that I came from. By the time they reached the actual Trade Center, got close enough to the building to do what they had to do, when the building came down both those companies, all the guys in it that I worked with, wound up dying because they were you know, trapped in the rig [fire engine] or you know, just like I said, just bad timing. They got there, they got there just as the buildings collapsed. Now if they were detained in any way, and that’s the fireman’s thing you know, one more red light, a little bit more traffic the building comes down prior to them getting there, but that wasn’t the case. We were in the Redhook area which is right outside the Battery Tunnel. So by the time… Carla: Is that
where your firehouse was? Derrick: Right, so
by the time they get through that tunnel and get there, in just those minutes
you know, are when the buildings came down. But, um, it was one of those you
know, right place at the right time for some people and wrong place at the wrong
time you know, for other guys. And that’s you know, that’s it. It was extremely
gruesome, uh, during the recovery when we
were doing the digging for people. Most people, uh, were taken out in compound buckets I mean that's how small the
pieces were. Whatever jewelry and anything that was found, wallets you know we had
buckets stationed all over and you were to throw them in there and pretty
much have an idea of where they were found. And the reason why so then they
could, they know this floor ended up, right, this floor ended up over here and
they were going to be able to, as much as they can, locate you know, people
that you know were missing. Because at
that time, they didn’t really, they weren’t, I’m sure they weren’t 100% sure who came to work late, who took the day
off that day, you know. Carla: They didn’t
have computers either to look at it either. Derrick: Nothing, you wouldn’t even know if anybody logged in. Because like I said not even a key to a
motherboard was there. That's how pulverized everything was, it was amazing. I thought we were going to be stepping on computers all day. Nothing,
nothing. How many chairs would you say? 110 floors? 50 offices a floor? Not even a chair to pull out of the way,
nothing. It was just dust. And that’s the dust now
that as you see each guy every once in a while now you know, who has, who’s
complaining of lung problems and stuff like that. This thing is going to go
on, I believe this thing’s going to go on for, um, five, six, seven, eight years
and one by one even the civilians who nobody’s even going to know about are
going to die one at a time from what they were breathing that day. Yeah,
because you know what? Years ago you know, they built the
building and I don’t know if you’ve ever seen them do, uh, structural steel
they spray it and encase it in you know, with all that going on and all the PVCs
from the plastic that's everything that was there. It was all chemicals besides
the fact the jet fuel was everywhere which is not healthy to begin with anyway
so you know, so everything that was burning, everything that was melting, is
definitely going to cause major problems for people. And, and unfortunately civilians, uh, who you
know like I said three, four, five years down the road who now have difficulty
breathing, who’s going to even know? Who’s even going to know? Carla: How to
prove, yeah, there’s no way to prove unless you were a fireman. Derrick: Yeah, I
mean you might be able to turn around and say you, I was in 9/11, you’re
insurance doesn’t cover that you know. You’re sick you contracted whatever you contracted and that’s it and who
suffers? The family suffers. I don’t know if any of these people are covered
under any act or anything like that. The
firemen are; you know our policies are Carla: Your polices
cover all that?
Derrick: Yeah, you’re
going to have coverage. I’ll tell you
right now, the guys would rather say, I’d rather have no coverage and not have
been there but, uh, you’re going to see. Years ago and I’m sure you’re familiar with it, there was a telephone
company went on fire and they had PVC pipe and that sets off a polyvinyl
chloride which is a very, very poisonous gas. There is not a fireman today who was at that fire that’s alive; everybody
had died and the cause was cancer from this particular chemical. And that’s what I think is going to happen
with all these guys, everybody who was down there. I don’t think they’ll be, there might be a
few guys who escaped it you know, and it had rained a couple of days after it,
definitely keeping down the dust. But I
believe the guys who responded the first couple of days, prior to this being
wet down and not digging, yeah.
Derrick : They, they didn’t give us any type of
safety equipment as we were running, there
was just too many guys, too quick, to be organized. It wasn’t organized, and no
fault to the fire department it’s
just that, it’s just that the other 8,000 guys wanted to get there and do whatever
they can. Whatever, uh, happened the
next few days they starting a little bit more organized and there were masks available for the guys like that, difficult
to breath with because you know you’re digging and you got this mask on your face, you can’t even take a deep breath. But,
um, the protection for the guys who came a couple of days later would be
much greater, you know what I mean? Than the guys who were there right away. The guys that were there right
away, uh, I believe they’re going to have, I think they’re going to have respiratory
problems because it was bad, you couldn’t take a deep breath. Once you felt it inside you, now whatever that stuff is your lining,
you know what I mean? So it was, it was, uh, it was difficult to breathe after
you had gotten that into you, your nose, your eyes like that. You probably see a lot of photos where guys
were flushing out their eyes. Any
place that was moist on your body where this thing landed on you, um, it was
almost like cement dust from a bag. If
anything was wet it would actually adhere to you and now you couldn’t even
blink because it was like that, and that why you saw guys constantly washing
their eyes.
Carla: So you were there that day and fourteen days after? Derrick: Right.
Carla: So what did
you actually do, like from the morning? Were you just digging up?
Derrick : Yup, a ll we did was dig we had, uh, it was almost like a chain gang; where one
guy was digging or two guys were digging and as they dug, they
filled up a compound bucket you know a five gallon bucket and handed it to the
next guys. And they brought it out and dumped it away from the pile. And when those two guys got tired, the
next two guys in line moved up and they started digging while these two guys went,
took a break. And they just kept on moving
that line. Um, once, they had dogs there also and these dogs were like you know,
sniffing out for bodies so if they
got excited in a particular area that was the area we concentrated on whether they had found somebody or
part or that’s where we concentrated on
so that we could have at least identification of these particular people. Every
person that I or the group I was
with dug up was totally unclothed just from the impact and if I remember correctly, maybe three or four people whole,
everybody else, and I’m going to say at least two hundred pieces of different
people and only a hand full of people whole. Everything else was pieces.
Carla: What’s going through your head
when you see that?
Derrick : It was, you know what? Being on the job for 22 years prior to this going and responding to auto accidents, and you know all the other stuff that goes on, um, at that particular point it’s like everything else it doesn’t bother you right then. You know what I mean? Because you got a job to do so you’re not really paying attention and you know you start to dwell on oh my God, oh my God, and then you’re useless, then step aside and let the next guy start digging. At the end of each day when we were being bused from there back to our quarters at the firehouse you could tell that it started bothering guys. Because the bus ride, a fire department bus ride when you got a bunch of firemen there’s joking going on, their laughing at other guys, there’s so much going on. There’s stories. Who’s talking sports. The bus rides home were getting quieter and quieter everyday because it was becoming more and more apparent what you were doing now. You were starting to realize that everybody there has been gone and now there is no hope, you know what I mean? When you first went there, there was like so much hope and like you know we got to find Billy, I know Billy he was supposed to be in this area. All my friends from 131 Truck, oh they were supposed to be in this area, here’s their rig right here. The rig was flipped over, um, so you now you still had that little bit of hope that hey maybe I’ll be lucky enough to find somebody but as each day went on the rides home were quieter and quieter and now you started to realize just what happened. In the beginning it was like you know… Carla: It was too
much to comprehend. Derrick: Right, out of the 343 guys, 114 of them were very close friends of mine. Guys that were at my wedding and my kid’s birthday parties. Not just firemen, you know, I probably could go through the list and say well, I’ve either worked with this guy or that guy and I know him from somewhere. I’m talking about 114 guys that were, I consider my friends. I mean good friends that you know helped me, you know, fix my house, you know what I mean, I went on motorcycle rides with. Friends that you’d call up and, you know, let’s go have a beer down in Jenkinsons or whatever. So the guys who were on the job longer seemed to be affected a little bit more because what wined up happening was they made all these close friends over the years. Like one of the guys who had died was a guy I was the chauffer for, he was an officer, um, what wined up happening was for five years I drove him everyday we went to work, you know what I mean? So me and him we’re in the cab, yeah I knew everything about his kids, I knew his daughter was trying to get her belly button pierced...I knew everything about the guy so and his family. So now you got to go over to his wife, you know we were asked because I’m good friends with him, to go over from house to house to house. The guys who knew certain guys well were asked don’t let a stranger go over. Even the fire department chaplain, it’s great don’t get me wrong but he doesn’t know them, he doesn’t know the kids’ names. I mean we know the guys’ dogs’ names. So they wanted to bring uh, somebody familiar for the wife to see, to come up to the house and say I’m going to ring the doorbell and I’m going to, you know, Jenny, you know we found him but I’m sorry. Instead of some guy saying oh what’s the wife’s name again? You know so, so for about I’m going to say about 12 to 15 people I went to their houses to tell their wife, their kids whatever, and you know, that’s the way it is. Carla: Did you feel like you were the bearer
of bad news?
Derrick : Well I got to tell you, after the first few weeks and every one of these
people who were hoping that their
husband was alive started to realize that now they just wanted them back. So
although I was the bearer of bad news
because of what happened, the families were very grateful now just for
the recovery of the bodies. To say you know what you’re going to have a
funeral.
Carla: You’re going to have a funeral.
Derrick: Yeah, you could, you could now get on with your you know, it’s sad but you could
get on with your life. And not wonder
every day what happened? What happened? Where is he?
Carla: There are
still people like that.
Carla: What
about the people that they didn’t find bodies, how would they approach like the
families?
Derrick : Actually, no fire department personnel who wasn’t identified was approached to be able to say your son is dead, they were able to say we haven’t found anything yet. We know he was there, yeah because we can’t really I guess it’s almost like a murder. Without a body you can’t really say yeah. How do I know that guy even went there that day? How do I know that guy didn’t go to a coffee show and say hey this is a great time for me to get the heck out of here you know and just leave? So they didn’t do, all they did was say nothing was found. As of right now nothing was found but as soon as we find something, um. I went to a few houses where I needed to ask the wife for a, uh, for a brush so we could get hair for DNA testing , toothbrush, anything that would have had some type of body, you know what I mean, um, and still they haven’t found some and haven’t been able to identify. They found helmets of guys, they found their jackets, but actually nothing of that particular person where it would be enough to say yeah this is the area, this is where he passed away and this is what happened. There is still a lot of open you know, open cases right now and that’s why when they found those two other people you know, like I said a block and half away I believe it was, they were, those people were happy. They were happy. And what is it five years later almost? I mean in September it’s five years I think right? So it was you know? And like I said to find body parts, to find body parts is a little spooky too. Yeah, you know because, uh, you can’t identify certain body parts. A lot of the things we found, uh, very, very few bones. Very, very few bones, mainly skin. Because the skin, it’s almost, it’s almost like elastic. So what happened was as much weight that’s on it all it’s doing is flattening but it’s still in a piece of almost like a material, so it’s this rubberized thing and they were able to identify like that. And those are like I said, those are the pieces that are being dropped into buckets, sealed, tagged, and brought to certain areas and they tried identifying. Carla: How was that, picking up pieces of body? Derrick : It was, again you know like I said 22 years, you don’t--it never bothered
me. You know in the beginning, yeah, it
bothers you, you go to auto accidents, and you know, if a child is hurt it
bothers you a little bit more because you start thinking to yourself hey, you
know, I have kids home the whole deal. But, uh, you get used to it and that’s why you always see people
sometimes, you know firemen are at a scene where there’s a big auto accident
where people got hurt and firemen are laughing and joking. We’re not laughing
and joking at that particular person; we don’t wish anything bad on anybody
else. But the firemen have always
thought, like nurses that if you don’t joke a little bit, if you don’t kid around,
if you don’t push the guy next to you and you start sitting down and you start
thinking oh my God, oh this guy did this or this guy got hurt here, or look at
that woman, you’re going to be useless you know? So it goes in your head, you do what you have
to do and you get back on your rig and you go to the next thing. And, um, and
that’s what it was there. Guys were
digging out and you know, you picked up whatever part, bare handed, it wasn’t
like oh God, I’m not going to touch that. You grabbed it bare handed, you threw it in the bucket, you removed your
glove, you threw the glove in the you know, bile hazard waste, and you put on
another pair of gloves and you just kept on digging again and if you found
another piece, it just went into the bucket. It was like, like a mass production to try and find this thing it wasn’t a,
okay now let’s you know, like we’re looking for dinosaur bones, let’s just
tinker around. It was picks and shovels
trying to find, because of the amount of rubbish that was on everything. Um, I
remember when we first walked in there. We first walked in there and I’m standing about five stories high on rubbish and I couldn't
understand what street went what way because it was filled for blocks. And
you’re standing there and you’re saying, you know what? Why is this rig parked
right here underneath this building, it
wasn't underneath the building it just that when everything came down and almost like a wave in the sea, it turned it and
flipped it down the block like it was nothing, like it was nothing. In
fact, when we finally dug out the rigs, um, we had found, uh, the shoes of the
fireman, actual boots that the guys were
wearing. A few guys were standing by the rig putting their gear on when the wave flipped the truck
over and wined up crushing them and then just going down the block.
Their shoes stayed there and they were washed in a sea of rubbish right out of their shoes from the impact of everything
coming down. I don't think anybody believed that the building would come down. Our
command post was inside the building;
we do that a lot because normally, under normal conditions something like that you know.
Carla: You wouldn’t
think it would fall.
Derrick: You don't
think it’s going to fall. But I think
they started to realize
that it was getting a lot worse than they thought. The fire department has
video tapes of inside the lobby. And, uh, you could see the faces on the guys
that they know they’re going up there and they’re going to go up twenty,
thirty, forty stories.
Carla: And it takes like a long time to
walk up those stairs.
Derrick: Forget it, yeah, you’re exhausted yeah, yeah; you’re dead by the time you get up there. But they realized that, you could see in their faces that that was it. They’re going up there and there’s a extremely good possibility that they’re not coming back down from there. And uh, and you know like I said you know, you make a lot of friends over the years, and you know guys and you’re seeing them in the lobby saying I never seen Joe with that face on before you know? And you’re capped into one of the Company’s 131 Truck. Um, what winds up happening is, that’s how now you remember him. Unfortunately, that’s how you remember him, that’s the last time you’re seeing him. But uh, they uh, I believe a lot of those guys going up there realized that, that was it. Same way, the guys who were on the ninetieth floor, making phone calls that this was going to be it, this was you know. On the fire department video tape you hear bodies, you hear screaming. When we got there and like I said the buildings had already come down, bodies were lying everywhere you know, no survivors but I mean bodies were everywhere. Carla: No survivors anywhere at all? Not one? Derrick: No, not one. And that, you know and like I said, you’re there, you’re there each day and you don’t find one, not one, not one person comes out of that rubbish, not one person got pushed into a hallway or jumped through a store window you know, you ain’t finding, come the fourteenth day, you ain’t finding anybody. It became more of a recovery than a rescue, fast. You know what I mean? I mean fast. And you’ll see scenes of the firemen, they’re all down at Ground Zero, and they’re taking pictures and who’s smiling and stuff like that. And that was, I feel it was only because of what I was saying. That if they didn’t smile and or joke around or make fun of the guy, they, they would have all cracked up. And just the other day I believe, there was a fireman who committed suicide. His company had lost I think ten guys. Carla: How many guys are in like one house? Derrick: Uh, most companies are manning about twenty
men.
Carla: So half.
Derrick: Yeah, so half of the guys that he knew very well. And not to be funny but you eat with them, you sleep with them, you shower with them, you know these guys. I probably know some guys better than their wives do. Because you work with them. I’m with this guy 24 hours, I know he doesn’t eat onions, this guy likes peas. You know there’s certain things you can’t, this guy’s afraid of bugs. There are so many things you learn about somebody that you’re with all day. Carla: Yeah,
you’re with them all day long and then when you lose them and all at one time.
Derrick; Yes,
that’s what I think happened. And I think psychologically some of these guys
are snapping; I think they’re snapping. I think it’s bothering them that much. And I think the younger guys are having a harder time. The older guys, even though they lost more,
the older guys, more friends, the younger guys are still a 22 year-old guy at
the time this thing happened, five years
on the job, six years on the job that’s what that other guy was, it just
bothered him every day, every day. He
goes into work every day and there’s eleven plaques on the wall of all the guys
you know. You can’t forget it. You can’t
drive in Staten Island without seeing street signs of guys you knew. The guy across the street from me wined up
dying , he lived on my block; I can’t come to my corner without seeing his
name. So you know, the guy right there
when I walk up to the boulevard, that’s the guy I drove for five years. I know him, I know him 22 years and in fact I
gave his eulogy. You know them so well
it’s almost, not a day goes by where a fireman doesn’t think about what
happened besides the fact that you’re tattooed, everybody who was there got
tattooed with their 9/11 tattoos.
Carla: Really, everybody has a tattoo?
Derrick: Just everybody has
a tattoo of 9/11. Certain you know, my tattoo you know, has the box number, the
9/11 number, and everything like that, because in years to come almost like any war, that these other guys, you know the
guys who fought, just like a veteran you always see they have their ship number
on the thing and where they were and you know. Somebody came up with the thing,
the firemen were getting a tattoo; they made some special tattoos;
some guys designed their own and before you knew it, everybody was being
tattooed and now you know who was there and who wasn’t there. If I’m in Cancun, and a guy’s walking by me
and I see his FDNY tattoo on, hey bro, you were there? How you doing? And it’s
almost, it’s nice because you’re a survivor. And anybody could have been in the wrong place
at the wrong time. Anybody. There’s no such thing, um, this guy like I told you
he was from Staten Island, he just happened to be in Downtown, Brooklyn at that
time, ran to 10 Truck which is right down by the Trade Center, put someone
else’s gear on and that’s what a lot of guys did, ran to the Trade Center, and
it came down.
Derrick : You
felt, you sort of kind of felt obligated to go because of--it’s your job. I think you forget about, I honestly think
you forget about being scared, I don't think it crosses your mind, it
doesn’t cross your mind. It crosses your
mind later when you get home and your kids are there and you just showered up
and you’re saying to yourself, you know what? 343 guys died, 114 of them were
my best friends, could it have been any other way? Yeah, I would have got there
sooner, if I would have heard possibly the first plane hitting and I says, you
know what? Let’s not delay, let’s get right in there, who knows? Maybe me and
my friends jumped in the car, instead of stopping at the fire house, and go
straight in. There are hundreds of
stories of guys, my friend, good friend of mine, Sal Calabro, what happened
with him was, uh, the fire department has a thing where when one guy comes in,
he could ride for you and you could go home. The truck has to leave with a full amount of guys. So if a guy came in a little bit early and
you had something to do home, you could say okay as soon as you get dressed and
all your gear is ready I’m going to go home, you’re going to ride for me, okay,
thank you. Well he got changed in his
civilian clothes, he was ready to go home, having a cup of coffee in the
kitchen, plane hits, he told the other guy, I’m coming too. Now he could have
went home, he could have been done, he says I’m going too. He squeezed on the rig which was two extra
guys that day went on the rig, so instead of the regular six guys going on the
rig, eight guys went on the rig. All
eight guys died. Now he goes home for whatever reason and says you know what?
It’s no big deal, I’m going to go, he’s with his kids on their birthday,
unfortunately firefighters, yeah it’s an obligation, this is what I signed up
to do, they went. And wrong place at the
wrong time, and you know will his kids ever know the story? Possibly not you know? The guys who know the
story are the guys who were in that kitchen that morning, you know? And guys might have even told him, don’t come,
get out of here, go home, you got a picnic today, you’re going to your
mother-in-law’s, whatever it is. But
they wave that off and they go do what they signed up to do. And that might be one of the reasons why, you
know, the fire department; some of the guys
are a little bitter. They uh, they feel
it was, you know, not handled, you know...
Carla: The right
way?
Derrick: Yeah, I
mean, the fire department feels, some guys that feel, you know what? They agree
with the war. Let’s go in there, do what
we have to do, you know what? They
didn’t think twice about hitting. Listen
you go in, you go in, we have a war, and you go in and you start killing our
military well that’s what war is all about. You take a plane and you go in and you kill a bunch of people who all they do is pass insurance papers back and forth, make
quotes, whatever they do up there, I don’t even know what building what the
people do up there. There’s no military
there. So if you took these planes and
you say I’m going to go drive them into the Pentagon, I understand. You’re going into the White House, I
understand. You’re going into the middle of
Manhattan to knock down a building where, like I said where a bunch of you know,
people handling insurance
papers, and I don’t know Dow Jones quotes, who cares? What did you gain out of that? I mean what
did you get? You’re going to win a war on that? All they did, and they did a
tremendous effect. It’s going to have a
tremendous snowball effect. You’re going
to turn around now, these kids and I mean young kids growing up without fathers
or mothers. These parents are growing old without their kids, you got brothers
and sisters who lost people, and that mental effect, that’s bad. You know what I mean? You might now think, you know. I mean you
could claim, you go out and you could kill somebody today and you could say
well you know, I lost somebody in 9/11, I’m crazy now. I think they got names for half these things
now, you know. Yeah because of the
effects it’s going to have but like I said you’re going to have kids who grow
up without a father, they’re going to have a completely different attitude on
life and when you talk about being prejudice, here’s a kid who you know, whose
father was taken away because some wacko wants to drive a plane you know into a
building, he’s going to have an attitude. You can’t expect him to love.
Carla: So that was common after the attack that everybody felt resentment towards, that country, to foreigners? Derrick: Yeah, I mean yeah to foreigners. I’m not saying they’re all bad but how do you know which one is and which one isn’t now? I mean, so I could see those kids having a little bit of a chip on their shoulder and I can’t blame them because I’m not in that situation. But I could see them being a little, to somebody who shouldn’t be yeah, you know what I mean, go back to your country or do whatever you have to do. And some of the people might be great citizens, unfortunately those people are living next door to somebody and I guarantee that those people who are living next door to these terrorists must have thought, nice guy, waves to me every day, look how nice he keeps his lawn. Carla: So you feel that it was terrorists, you don’t believe in any conspiracy theories?Derrick : Oh no, no, no. I do believe that we were aware it, I don't think this was a total surprise. I do believe that they didn't know how severe it was going to be. I was at the first, the first bombing. I happen to be right at the first bombing. I believe it was 1993 when they brought the van into the parking garage, the whole deal. We responded to there and I said to myself, you know what? You know, they can't touch this building, look at this building, this build is tremendous, this building ain’t coming down. So they gave an attempt and ten years later, here they are trying again. These people were so patient that they were going to wait ten years to put a plan into effect to a point where, well send who we have to do, to do training. We’ll teach everybody what they have to do, we’ll watch the stupid Americans let people walk right by them, whatever metal they need yeah, that’s fine--you’re allowed to bring that on the plane--don’t worry about it. We just dropped our guard to a point where it was worse than I believe the government thought it would be. You know, is it going to happen again? It’s going to happen again. I believe it’s going to happen again. I believe it’s going to happen in places like the mall where any clown could bring a back pack, put it down, go shopping in American Eagle and walk out of the mall as if he forgot his bag and now you have a bombing in a mall. Now you have a bombing on a bus. Who’s going to stop that?
Carla: They say that they can check your bags, but
how many times do they really check your bags?
Carla: Oh why, because
his skin is a little darker than mine?
Derrick: Exactly,
did that guy who did the Oklahoma City bombing look suspicious? Right? Timothy McVeigh? Did he look suspicious? He looked like a regular guy! How could you pick them up? That’s why we can’t, we can’t protect
ourselves against terrorism. The war against terrorism I feel is something we’re not used to fighting. The
people who have it every day yeah, they might be a little bit prepared. We’re a bunch of let’s go get our nails
done. Like I was saying you know we live
in a world where, I don’t think we’re prepared for terrorism. I tell my kids now and I’ve done for a while,
you go into a movie theater. You get your seat, you know what? It takes 2
minutes where is the exit if somebody behind me yells something? Which way am I
going out? Which way am I leaving? I go
into a restaurant, I want to know where the other exit is. Because these
things, they’re going to happen, they’re going to happen. I was at fires where, I was at the Happy Land
fire, where I think it was 56 people died, because they only knew of one
exit. The one they came in at. Now the few people that did live, who went
out the other exit were fine. That was
a, that wasn’t terrorism that was just a spiteful somebody doing something but
they fire bombed and these people couldn’t get out. Now, if you keep your head, and you walk into
the theater and you say alright listen, I came in that door there but either
one of these is going to take me out to the street. Just be prepared.
Carla: Do you think that would have worked for people that were working in
9/11?
Carla: They
couldn’t care less. And that’s what it
is how they also, the guys driving the planes, that’s how they were brought up,
they died for their country and they’re going to heaven.
Derrick: They
think, to their country they are heroes. Just a short time after 9/11, when they were filming you know, the story
of the buildings collapsing, they had kids, our kids’ ages, jumping up and down
in the street, stamping all over our flag. Get ready because those kids are the next generation. They’re going to come up and they think, they
think it’s great. So you’re not, you’re
not going to stop. This thing is not
going to stop; it’s always going to be around. I just believe it’s time for us to start saying, hey let’s, you know let’s
start preparing ourselves. Carla: So you feel like nothing was done. Do you feel they did a little bit but didn’t follow through Derrick: Yeah, they did, yeah forget it. You know what? I’m just one of those guys who
likes to try things just to see if it could happen, I believe I could bring
things, you know what I mean? If three
people walked with each piece of something and met or sat in different seats
under different names, you don’t think they could create something to bring on
a plane to bring the plane down? Like I
said we went away. They pull up here’s
my bag. Right, yeah what do you think I’m going to tell you there’s a bomb in
here? Yeah, there’s a bomb in here. Oh now I’m arrested. It’s ridiculous. They have people as they’re bullshitting with
someone else, yeah, yeah come on, come on, go through, go through, go
through. They don’t care for us, you
think they care if a child--children are never checked. All three of my kids
walked right on, not checked, nothing. You know they feel that, you don’t think that a wacko could put a bomb
on, the whole plane is going down anyway, they’re all dying anyway so is it a
difference if the kid’s got a bomb strapped to him? He’s dying anyway what’s
the difference how? You know why, because it’s on him, he might live? So they’re, they’re just not watching. You watch our airports security, it’s
terrible. So still till this day, I get
on the plane, yeah, like I said, I still go away on vacation; I still do
everything but you say to yourself it could happen anytime, anywhere. And
I and I don’t think we could do enough to stop it. Unless…
Carla: You don’t feel we’re prepared? Derrick: No, we’re not prepared, we’re
not prepared for another attack, no. My
opinion our next time we get attacked will be one of our holy days and I
believe that only because these people are extremely holy. That, they, you know what I mean? I believe
now we’re going to hit you on your holy day and this is going to be the way
they’re going to show you there’s no day that’s going to be safe for you. Right,
I just think that, I just think that we’re going to welcome ourselves into a
whole new world, and this whole new world is going to be you’re going to be
living with terrorism like they do. Right,
I also find it hard to believe that you know, that they know where a lot of
these people are, they know exactly where to go to get them but yet these
people are just walking the streets. You
know now the fire department families who have lost people are wondering, what
are you doing man? You knew this guy was doing this, you knew these guys were
taking flight lessons?
Carla: Yeah the flight lessons, don’t
you think that’s a little sketchy like how America was so open to letting
everybody do everything?
Derrick: No, because you know why? You know why? How much is a flight lesson? $500 dollars? Just give me that money. Yeah
I’m more than happy to take your money, I’ll teach you how to fly.
Derrick: That day if you had better airport security and these guys can’t bring knives on the plane. They had knives, they had weapons. Now as much as you might say a box cutter is not weapon, well nobody’s charging you if I’m going to start slashing at you, so it’s a weapon? How did they get into the cabin? How did they get into that cabin? I thought you couldn’t get into that cabin to get to get to the thing. So what clown doesn’t, don’t get me wrong, it’s not the captain’s fault, it’s just the way we’ve learned to live. I’m flying Americans back all day, nobody’s going to hijack me, nobody’s going to hijack. So I say, every plane sit a guy up front, back to the captain’s door, give him a gun, give him a gun, what do you got a box cutter? Everybody should be, every plane that takes off whatever it costs, put a man with a gun on the plane. Put a security, and I’m not talking about the guy who stands in the bank the 67 years old, retired. I’m talking about a trained guy to sit there, not to nod out on the two hour flight; sit there. All I’m doing is looking at 56 passengers down the row, that’s it. Here’s what I’m doing, that’s it. You want to get up, get up. You better have a better weapon than a box cutter, because I got a gun. Now, if you can’t get a gun on the plane, no you can do whatever you want, poof that’s it. You know, you’re going to stop them. Carla: But I think
that the government won’t do that, because that would scare us. I think that they hide, you don’t think they
hide stuff from us?
Derrick: Do you
see the people walking in Manhattan? Did
you see Times Square, New Years? They’re all walking around with machine
guns. Well if we’re going to still fill
Times Square and it’s a party thing and anybody knows at any given time, Times
Square could have been a perfect hit again. If it didn’t stop all those people… no, I don’t think, I don’t think police officers walking on the platform with
machine guns would bother me. Actually,
I’ll walk right with them because it’s not going to be a one guy with one gun,
and that’s how you’re going to protect us and I say do it, I say do it. If it means you got to hire more people...
Carla: A lot of
the complaints are time. Like to check
every person’s bags, to check every person’s carry on, everything.
Derrick: You know
what? I was on line, I was coming in
from Puerto Rico and of course you can’t you know, they got to check everything. Let me ask you something, would it bother you
to know you’re going to be on line for two hours instead of the regular one
hour but yet it’s going to be safe?
Carla: Yes, it wouldn’t bother me.
Derrick: I’ll get to the airport an hour earlier, it’s
not a big deal for me to get there.
Carla: Right,
because everybody gets there early anyway.
Derrick: Right, so now you check in and you go for
breakfast, what’s the big deal? And if that’s the way you’re brought up, just
like our kids today are brought up to put on a seat belt. My kids jump in the car now you don’t tell
them to put on the seat belt. All they know is to put on the seat belt. So
that’s the way it’s brought up, it’s the two hours at the airport, period. You don’t like it? You don’t go. Right, that’s
it. I think, I don’t think there’s
anything wrong with that. And if you
don’t think you could give up an hour of your time to land safely or not kill
thirty-five hundred people then you’re in the wrong place, you’re in the wrong
country. Go over there. It’s --everything
is so quick; we think that if you’re not moving quick, you’re not getting
anything done.
Carla: Yeah, well that’s how our country’s
philosophy is so different from everybody else’s.
Derrick: Yeah, and
they knew it, they knew it. We’re, we’re
just mass production, get them in, get them out. Fill the plane go, take off,
next plane, next plane, next plane.
Carla: Yeah, well
Bush also had a meeting I think it was with Bin Laden or one of them, so they
would come into our county, so they see how we work, the see how our president
is.
Derrick: We’re a
joke, we’re a joke. Am I not right by saying they flew all their people out of here right after 9/11, why? You didn’t want to keep
anybody here and find out what the hell is going on? No, let’s get them out of
here and back to their country, why? I
want them here, I want to find out what’s going on. You know what? They just killed thirty-five
hundred civilians, actually when that building came down I turned and I told my
buddies I was with, I thought fifty thousand people would be dead. I figured fifty thousand; I figured God knows
how many people are in those buildings. I never even imagined how many people.
Carla: Because you
didn’t think, because then again it also said a lot on the news, that the
bosses were telling people you stay or you’re going to get fired. And people
would stay.
Derrick: Right,
you can’t do that, you can’t do that. And you know then maybe the guy felt, maybe these people felt, you know
that it would never happen. Right, but
I’m going to tell you right now, and I tell everybody, you got to make your own
decisions and that’s why I say be aware. You’re in a building that’s on fire, you’re in a theater that someone,
there’s a problem with, don’t rely on somebody oh you know it’s not a big deal,
don’t worry about it, you got to watch for yourself.
Carla: And as
Americans we don’t.
Derrick: We
don’t. We expect everybody else to pick
up the brunt and you know what, oh he’ll get it, he’ll take this, he’ll do, no you
got to watch for yourself and it should always be like that. Because what’s going to happen is one day
your ass is going to be on the line, and the guy who’s telling you, like in
situations like that, where you’re safe here, you could have been out of
there. There were a lot of people, when
that other building got hit, when the first building got hit everybody should
have got out. Get out of there, don’t watch it, don’t film it, don’t think this
is great, don’t call your friend and say oh man this is unbelievable. We got a problem here, you know, get out of
here. Everybody had hope.
Carla: Yeah, you
think they should have dispatched it, like to the whole building?
Derrick:
Immediately, immediately. I think Port
Authority should have told, and it’s not their fault because again, nobody’s
trained, no because we weren’t prepared for it. So now we turn around and you tell everybody, get out, get on the street
and get the heck out of here. I know
people in the other building, a guy who lives into my backyard. Soon as the plane hit, down, ferry,
home. He was, he was on the ferry by the time the second plane hit.
He says I ain’t staying here, there’s nothing I could do now anyway. Business is not operating, business is not
operating. The fire department has got
control of the buildings now, get out of there. There’s nothing you’re going to do. What’s your boss going to say, you shouldn’t have left, you’re fired. You know what then? Fire me, fire me. You were so worried about what people are
going to say, what people are going to do, and you know should I have been
afraid, maybe I shouldn’t have left. Do
what you feel is right, get the heck out of there, get another job tomorrow. The easiest thing, you know so. Yeah, you got
to be aware, you got to be aware and that’s in everything. That’s standing on the corner, that’s
standing on the corner as traffic is going by, be aware! Don’t be goofing off
with your friends. I went to several incidents where people were bumped into
and fell on, fell on the tracks. Accidently
bumped or pushed, or two kids throwing a football on the platform bump into
somebody, that person falls on the track. So we go to a lot of that. And I
tell my son who travels back and forth by train now, step back, the train is
coming step back let everybody push to get their one seat door opens walk in,
you’ll be fine. But the second you turn
your back and you’re horsing around and somebody trips or falls or you trip
over a book bag, that’s laying on the floor, be aware. That’s it and that’s all
it is; that’s what we’re going to have to live with. Being aware of what’s going on around us. And
you got to protect yourself and your family and then the people around
you. And if I see things I would let
people know, so.
Carla: That’s what
it is, how many people when they tell you to go say something, really go to
other people look it’s not safe get out of here?
Derrick: Right,
no. Nobody would do that, nobody would do that. I, you know, we see telephone wires down or wires from telephone poles
down you know, people oh, this is nothing, this is the cable you know what? So
it’s the cable, do you have to be that close? Maybe it ain’t the cable, maybe you made a mistake, why do you got to be
that close, walk around it, stay on the other side of the street. You don’t
have to, oh let me go see what’s going on over there. You know, it’s, we’re
bad, we’re bad.
Carla: How do you feel about the war?
Derrick : I like the war. You know I’m not, I can't say everything we
are doing is one hundred percent, but I believe military wise we have to have
one. We can’t be pushed around. I’m not even sure of all the issues and how true they are. I don’t even know
how true they are. Maybe three years down the road or ten years down the road the story might come out of really why we
were there. I was drafted for Vietnam. Did I know we shouldn’t have been there at that time? No, I’m a high
school kid, I’m graduating, I’m getting out, you’re going to Vietnam. That’s the story you know. Um, did that war
prove to be wrong? Yeah, but what would happen if we didn’t? I don’t know, you
know what I mean? Politically, I’m going
to tell you right now, firemen, cops, politically, they’re not that interested
in that kind of stuff that’s going on. Do we agree with everything that’s going on? Nobody wants to send their
kid to war, you know but the reason why you’re here living like you’re living
is because there were kids before us that went to war. And that’s what I tell
my son yeah, you know we went to Vietnam, we went to Vietnam for a
purpose. We’re believing our government,
we’re believing our president, this is what he’s telling us has to be done,
let’s go. So what winds up happening
now, is these, these wars who’s saying it’s over oil, who’s saying oh if we
don’t do this, you know this is going to happen, you know. So I, you got to
believe somebody. Who do you, I don’t know how true everything is up
there. You know.
Carla: Do you think
we waited too long to retaliate?
Derrick: Yeah. That...
Carla: Do you think
we should have went like the next day?
Derrick: That day,
that day. The fighters should have been
up and going in and you have to, I believe, I’m one of those tit for tat, an
eye for an eye guy. You have to go in
there and let them know and let every other country know you cannot come in
here and do that. And I know we have too
many liberals to say we can’t kill their women and children, but you know what
that wasn’t thought about when they did it to ours. So you got to go in there and I believe, I
would have made that place a desert. There would have been nothing standing there. I don’t mean bombing some hills looking for
one guy. We’re bombing hills, what are
you getting? Let’s see if we could find
Bin Laden, that’s another thing. I can’t
believe they can’t find one guy, that’s ridiculous. I don’t get it. I don’t even know if they want to get
him. I don’t even know if they want to
get him.
Carla: They might
be using it as an excuse.
Derrick: Exactly, exactly. There’s something else going on that they’re
saying they can’t find him but maybe, maybe they know everything about him,
maybe they know his whereabouts, maybe you don’t even know. There’s great material to write a book, you
know. But I don’t think, I don’t think
we should have let them get away. I
believe they got away with it, they got away with it. And every, every widow feels this, every
widow I spoke to felt like they came in here, they came into our backyard, beat
us up and left. And we allowed that to
happen and like I said you could have went in there, you could have devastated
that country and then I don’t care if you find Bin Laden. Because there is nothing left. Why didn’t they go get Bin Laden’s wife? They knew where she was.
Carla: Why didn’t
they get her? And they could have tortured her and said you’ll get her back
when we get him.
Derrick: We want him. They’re cutting heads off, off of our journalists. Like it’s, you know what? You could do that and
now liberals are crying that we were going to go in there and hurt a couple of
possible civilians. They just, I don’t
get it. And I knew the longer it went
the softer we were going to be. It’s
like you being mad at someone, at your mom, and next week ehhh, it’s not that
big of a deal.
Carla: If we had done it that day we would have accomplished something. Derrick: That day,
as vicious as can be, go in there and take them down. You know who it was, there was no
secret. I don’t believe it was a secret,
we knew exactly who and what. I just don’t believe they knew how bad it was
going to come. And actually if that
building doesn’t come down with that first plane, and they put that fire out,
and the casualty number is two hundred…
Carla: Compared to thirty-five.
Derrick: Right, and
you know what and the fire department, and we’ll rebuild what was destroyed on
the thing, and the fire department doesn’t lose the amount of men that it lost,
it goes you know, no big deal. But
because of the impact that it’s going to have, it’s I think that uh, we
definitely didn’t respond the way people are happy.
Carla: Well don’t you think that as America, we
should have, you know we’re brought up in the sense that we are safe. Nothing like this can happen. Regardless if something like this should
happen, we are you know one of the biggest countries in the world, with the
most money, the most everything; we’re a very powerful country. How could we not be able to retaliate? Like
you know or have a sense--all these government agencies…
Derrick: Because every time, it seems to me every time
they want to spend money on the military people think it’s a waste of
money. There’s x amount of dollars to be
allotted for the military well you know, we haven’t really been in a war. God knows, Desert Storm, but that was joke
war that was fought with computers. You know what I mean? We are sending out
missals eh, you know what I mean? Hit it, hit it, hit it. So, so we weren’t
really aware of a real street fight war; this is a street fight war. We don’t know how to fight like this. These are people like I said walking around
on your buses with bombs we don’t fight like that. We fight, okay let me see the strategy, we
come up over this hill you come up over here. That’s how we fight so, so I
think if you would have went in there and you would have devastated them, you
think the next country would even think about planting a bomb on a bus or a
tunnel. What’s next the bridges, the
tunnels? You know what I mean, your water supply? You know, what’s next? So if
they, and all kidding aside, I don’t know what they could put in but, you think
anybody is watching these water supplies? You think anybody’s watching these reservoirs? Who’s watching that? So you just don’t know
what’s next. And I’m not saying to have
somebody posted everywhere, but start to make things a little bit more secure
because as the years progress and you get into this war, this terrorism
war. You’re going to have to be
protected. You’re going to have to protect people because otherwise once they
stop you from doing what you’ve normally done, and you’re not living the so
called American way, and doing what you want when you want, saying what you
want, writing what you want, reading what you want, they’ve won. They’ve won because you’re not living in
America. You’re not free anymore; you’re living in fear. You can’t say Bush is a jerk, or you know you
can’t do that. You can’t do that over
there, they don’t go for that. You can’t
pick what religion you want to be. So
once they get in to a point where they are going to stop us from living and
writing. You could write a book about
Bush tomorrow. You could call him
everything you want, nobody’s even going to come up to your house, knock on
your door.
Carla: But if you did that about Bin Laden…
Derrick: You’re dead, you’re dead. So no if, if we don’t fight for those things that we took thousands of years to get, you don’t have anything. You know you don’t have anything; you don’t have a choice to do anything. You know they all turned around and said listen, this is our religion and this is what you’re going to follow, whether you believe it or not, this is what we’re doing. Don’t let me catch you walking around with a cross on your neck. That ain’t happening! Or a tattoo of Jesus. That ain’t happening! This is what we-we’ve lost then. And you know the reason why? They hate us is because we could do whatever we want. You think that little kid jumping up and down, burning the flag, stamping, yelling, you know laughing at USA, you think he has any clue of what’s going on? No, he’s just seeing the fathers and the parents and his older brother. That’s what he knows. And if you would have, and I would have had, I got to be honest with you, after I left 9/11 and I saw the devastation and after you knock on door after door and tell that wife and those kids that your dad ain’t coming home, I would have had no problem seeing those people being like that. And that’s how bitter most of the fire department was. Because we went to funerals, we were going to one funeral at nine o’clock, jumping on a bus, heading to Long Island for the two o’clock funeral and after that then you went to a wake the night, the next night for one of your buddies. And then you went back to Ground Zero and dug again, and it was never ending. And it’s still never ending. Carla: So you did it for two weeks right? Derrick: Two
straight weeks and then you know, you almost had to sneak back down there. Because
now they didn’t want anybody down there. They were trying to organize a little bit more. Um, so Matt and I we
snuck down there you know what I mean? We got down there, we went down there, yeah uh, you know we’re uh, fire
department, we’re supposed to be with this group right here. It’s illegal but you know, we didn’t want to
know that. We wanted to know I’m going
to help and do whatever I want and if it means just giving out you know, water;
I’m giving out water for the guys that are there. Because they’re there eight hours, digging
stopping for lunch, washing up and digging again. Are they going to find anybody alive? No, but
are they going to be able to tell me I’m bringing home Billy O’Keefe today?
Yes.
Carla: Billy O’Keefe lived around the block. Derrick: Right.
Carla: That was my friend’s father; she went to high school with me, Kaitlin. Derrick: Kaitlin and Tara were the ones I was talking
about that was getting her belly button pierced and Billy says who do you like,
who, who should I go to? You got a
tattoo, who should we go to? I got to her house, yeah, I got to her house
before her mother got home, I came to the door and she knew why I was
there. And that’s the perfect thing I
was telling you about. Her mom happened
to be out, she had a doctor’s appointment and when she returned home, I’m
sitting on her couch with her daughter crying. And that’s the guy I drove for
the five years. It was his eulogy I
gave. And that’s what I was saying, you think that’s easy? That’s what I’m saying, people don’t realize
how it affected everybody. Now I don’t
know her well enough to say has her attitude changed on being prejudice? Did, does
she feel she doesn’t want to be in the car… so I don’t know how it changed for
those people. I know how it changed for
the people I’m able to speak with all the time. But, it might, like I said it snowballed to the point where it’s never
ending.
Carla: Like in the news the other day, how that woman
doesn’t want, I forgot who it was, that woman, about that guy that they want to
prosecute. How she doesn’t want to do it
because she sees how it’s a vicious cycle.
Derrick: Yeah well, is there going to be any punishment
for people who do something wrong, or if there’s not going to be any punishment,
it’s like me trying to tell my kids you know, if you don’t do your homework I
have to punish you. You can’t have
television. Well if he doesn’t do his
homework and I don’t do anything, do you think he’s doing it tomorrow night? He’s not going to do it tomorrow night. And it’s just going to go on and on. And from not doing your homework one day and
maybe not doing your work when, when you go to work, tt’s just going to
progress to a point where now what did we produce? A bunch of nobodies. You
know what I mean? A bunch of people who don’t care about anything. So you have to do something and like I said
with Kaitlin and Tara, you know that sucked for me to go in there, you know?
And I was at every company picnic with these kids growing up.
Carla: And you know what? Kaitlin, I remember, Kaitlin
was in my homeroom and I didn’t see her for like two months and it was so sad,
because my father had died only three months before that. So you know what I mean? So we were both in
the same position and I was just like oh my God, like I didn’t take it, I guess
because of the way it happened, as hard. You know?
Derrick: Right, but you could think and realize… I mean
simple things, simple things like she had a flat tire you know what? Dad used
to come out and change that flat tire for her. You know, now they’re lost. They’re three girls in there, three girls, two dogs and what do you do
now? You know so that had an effect on
her. And years to come down the road when her kids are reading the history
books and reading about oh my God, your uncle was there, you know what I mean or
your grandfather was there, you know what I mean? Your so and so passed away there you know
trying to help people. And that has an
effect on everybody. So that’s what I’m
saying, years down the road, this is going, this is going to affect whether it
be physical from breathing this stuff in or mental from you just sitting home
and saying you know oh terrorism oh it could happen anytime. You could just freak out just being home,
just sitting. We did the same thing,
every time a plane passed by, we look oh, oh man that’s you know?
Carla: Oh as you were digging?
Derrick: Yeah, we
didn’t know what was going on. Yeah, they had coppers flying around, they had
jets all over, I says well they’re not going to hit here again, but you know
what, how about the people in L.A.? What
do they do? Office buildings closed all
over. Disney emptied out. You know that could happen anytime. But now what because 9/11 is over, they can’t
hit Disney? What makes you think you
know? I’m not even sure about the whole
conspiracy thing about maybe we shot down that other plane. For all I know, the
one that crashed in the field in Philadelphia.
Carla: The one
that’s a new movie?
Derrick: Could we have shot it down? Could we have
gotten right on the side of them and told them, hey you know, we’re right here,
land the plane. No, not landing it. Land
the plane or then we got to take you down, and whoever has to die on that plane
has to die. We’ll save thousands for the,
I don’t even know how many were on the plane. It’s sad to say but I’m not even sure how many were on the plane, you
know. Those guys, those guys, those,
even the women on the plane are they heroes? Yeah, they could have saved
thousands of people. Because God knows
if that would have went into, even if it doesn’t, even if it doesn’t hit the
White House, maybe it hits downtown Philadelphia. What you can’t do thirty five hundred people
worth of damage? You know what I mean? The same thing so you know? What do I
believe? I’m not even sure, but I couldn’t go to court saying I don’t believe
either way, because I’ve always had reasonable doubt that it could be and I
can’t say a hundred percent. There will
always be, there will always be, did he know? Did Bush know? He could have, could I say he definitely
didn’t? He can’t. I don’t know what they knew. And they ain’t going to tell
you, I don’t believe they’re going to tell you. I don’t believe they’re trying to play a game with me. The bottom line is you got to be a little annoyed with our government due to the
fact that I don’t want to know that you knew something
was going to happen and you didn't know it was going to be as bad as it is. That
doesn’t help. That isn’t helping these
people who you know, lost husbands, fathers, sons, and daughters so I am a
little annoyed. If I ever did find out
truly that we definitely knew it was going to happen and we let it, then I
think that we were let down as American people. I think we were let down; we put these people into office to protect us
also, I mean you know what I mean? They’re there for protection. Out military is there to protect us. If they’re going to allow things to happen to
us, so that the price of oil could drop or we could get more of it or we could
have more fields so we could plant on to feed us, then you’re doing the wrong
thing. Then we’re taking a turn the
wrong way. We got to make do with what
we have? Well then we got to make do with what we have. And you know what I mean? If we have to rely
on another country for something and we can’t get along with them, well then we
can’t allow them to bomb us because well they supply us. Because if that’s the case, we got to, we got
to try and come up economically with other solutions you know? And be dependent
upon ourselves. And you know but that to me, every American, if everybody found
that out, every American would be sick, that thirty five hundred people died
because we want to bring down the price of oil ten cents a barrel. But you know it’s ridiculous. I’ll pay the ten cents, bring me back thirty
five hundred people. We’re in an economy
where we could make as much money as we want. So like I was saying, it would be
devastating to, I believe, to America to find out that we’re going to allow
stuff like that to happen, just for a dollar value because there’s really no
value you could put on someone’s life.
Carla: That has a
lot to do with that we’re a capitalist country.
Derrick: And I have to go along with some of the
decisions made and I don’t believe everything that should be made and they
spend money on certain things that I don’t think are right. But if, if that ever did you know come out
and that was then, then you’ve lost all faith in your country. It would be ridiculous so but I don’t think Bush
is any better or any worse than anybody else who would be in there. I don’t think uh, if you had somebody who was
a little bit more cooler, uh, might not have went to war. I don’t know for sure
if Bush was looking for a reason to jump in there and maybe this was the
reason; hey, let’s let something happen, we’ll jump into war and that’ll
justify the reason why we’re there. I
don’t know, I don’t think anybody knows except the people in that white
building and you’re not going to get the truth out of them until years down the
road when one guy decides I don’t have as much money as I think I have, I’m
going to write a little book and that’s when it’s going to start to come back
out again. Until then, I have to believe
what I’m being told, I don't have to accept it but I have to go with you know,
this is the reason why he’s doing this thing. In our country we are able to vote for the guy we think best suited for
that thing. I know many times you’re
taking the lesser of two evils, that there’s two shmoes running up there. What
do you do? These are our choices. You can’t, you know at least we have a
choice.
Carla: So, who
would be better? Would John Kerry be better than Bush?
Derrick: Right, would the vote have went better if Gore would have won Florida? I don’t know, I don’t know. For all I know, Gore could have been a moron and did nothing. I don’t know. It’s very, very easy to make comment now because you don’t have the opportunity for both these things to happen in the same situation with two guys as your leader, so how do you know who would have done what? You know, you go along with it. And all the people saying well you know what? I don’t want Bush okay well the next time it comes around we vote again you pick the other guy. Am I going to be able to turn around and say you shouldn’t have picked this guy? You don’t know. You’re just you know, you take a chance at the guy you think best suited for that, you know for that thing. And you see what happens. Football’s a perfect example, hey let’s draft this guy as our number one draft choice. He’s the quarterback; he bombs out go to plan B. There’s no plan B for the president; it’s four years becomes plan B, by that time who knows what went on. So we’re, I don’t mean to say we’re stuck, you know it’s what it is, and we’re just going to have to deal with it you know, and hope maybe someday we get a choice or something that, uh, brings us back up to the top, where we should be as Americans and you know that’s it.
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