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"Did you find her yet?" -- Two years later, many WTC victims remain unidentified
by Deroy Murdock, National Review Online. Deeply moving; you should go read the whole thing.Just three days before the second anniversary of 9/11, the FDNY will conduct its last memorial service for a firefighter killed at the World Trade Center. That it will have taken 727 days to reach this milestone barely describes the boundless pain that this atrocityâs survivors endure daily. Firefighter Michael Ragusa was 29 years old when al Qaeda attacked America. He and four members of Brooklynâs Engine Company 279 rushed into the conflagration, but never escaped. So why has his family waited so long for a memorial? They simply had nothing to bury. His body never was found at Ground Zero. Michael Ragusa gave blood as a prospective bone marrow donor. The National Marrow Donor Program gave the Ragusas a vial of their eldest sonâs blood. And that is what they will bury on September 8. Meanwhile, others have grieved over even fewer remains. Captain Brian Hickey led seven of Rescue Company 3âs men into Tower Two. None survived. After awaiting his bodyâs recovery for eight months, Hickeyâs family instead buried a coffin bearing his helmet. Only perspiration residue on its sweatband and a few hairs tied the headgear to the 47-year-old father of four. Later, the medical examiner classified a one-inch square bone fragment as Hickeyâs. His family interred it in lieu of his helmet. DNA analysis thus has connected minuscule remains to individual casualties. Incredibly, pathologists linked one atomized, male, South Tower employee to more than 200 body parts. Ghastly though this is, at least these bereaved have something to honor. Each family can visit a grave and commune with a hint of the person they still love and sorely miss. But homicide pilots Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi denied many relatives even this. Of the 2,792 people they butchered at the World Trade Center, only 1,521 have been identified. The 1,271 other men and women essentially were vaporized. There is no discernible speck over which prayers can be said nor tears shed nor tender moments recalled. Of the 19,893 remains recovered, most of the 12,374 bits of tissue and bone that endure are too badly damaged to distinguish, due to exposure to the elements and the fires that raged at Ground Zero until December 19, 2001. Still, experts hope eventually to attach names to the mere particles that once were people. "We have made a commitment to the families that we are not going to stop the identifications until we can go no further based on the technology that is available today," says Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for New Yorkâs Medical Examiner. "That is the reason we are preserving and drying the remains that have not been identified so that in the future, when the technology improves or evolves, we can extract DNA from those samples." Amid the latest adventures of Ben & Jen, Kobe Bryant, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Americans might overlook what all this means: This war aims to avoid further scenes such as those that Gothamâs coroners have faced since 9/11. "Iâm still driven by the families," Robert Shaler, New Yorkâs chief forensic biologist, recently told the Associated Press. "When I see these people, they look at me with eyes that say, âDid you find her yet?â" Never forget. Never "get over it." Posted by: Mike 2003-09-05 |
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