“The stuff I saw, no one should ever see. You can imagine what we found in the rubble.”
Today marks a quarter century since terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon – and a passenger-foiled attempt at another strike – brought the United States to a standstill and changed the world forever.
Dave Schulman, a Siena Public Safety officer, was working at the state criminal court building on Centre Street in lower Manhattan that day. The new shift of court officers was just getting ready in the locker room when someone came in and said a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. Everyone’s initial thought was that a small private craft went off course.
Schulman called his parents in Florida to let them know he was OK. While he was on the phone, the second plane hit, and everyone knew it something catastrophic.
He rarely speaks about his experience at Ground Zero, and he has never returned to the site. Quiet and self-effacing, he said he wanted to remind the Siena community on this 25th anniversary the personal toll suffered by so many, and to ask the campus community to always remember the date.
“Our students were born after 9/11, and I want them know what happened. I’m doing this for the 2,977 who died in New York that day.”
He added that it’s always been easier to work on the anniversary of the attacks.
“I’ve never taken the day off. It’s better than being home alone with the memories.”
In the days that followed 9/11, Schulman and hundreds of other first responders would painstakingly search the rubble for signs of life. After a few days, they switched to looking for something – anything – to simply recover. He estimates that he lost dozens of people he knew, some well, others as acquaintances.
“I must have gone to about 40 funerals over the next 12 months.”
In the heat of search and rescue, Schulman and his fellow officers were ordered to evacuate the court building and as that was underway, several firefighters sprinted past and shouted a one-word order: “RUN.” Tower Five was imploding. Soon, everyone was caked in toxic building dust.
After 60 straight hours of search and rescue, as well as keeping the court building secure, Schulman was ordered home to Queens to rest.
That rest didn’t last long. One of the officers who worked for him had a son, Richard Allen Jr., who was a New York firefighter. Like so many others in the FDNY, he was missing in the rubble. Schulman and other co-workers went with him on their time off to search. The son’s remains were identified by DNA a year later.
Schulman’s then-fiancée Susan was working in the WTC financial building that day, and has struggled with her own horrific experience. Just like the employees in the Twin Towers, she and her co-workers were asked to stay in their buildings to be safe. Most followed those instructions, and most in the towers died as a result.
“They did what they were asked to do by authorities, but the people in the towers ended up jumping to their deaths. She saw that. She saw people jumping. Imagine how bad it was that a 1,000-foot jump to the pavement was your best option.”
The couple went ahead with their wedding that October 7, coincidentally the same day the U.S. attacked Afghanistan in retaliation.
“The judge asked us why we were getting married with everything going on. We told him we wanted to move ahead with our lives. If we cancel or postpone our wedding, the terrorists win.”
Dave and Susan Schulman eventually relocated to Long Island, and later the Capital Region. They raised three children: Chris, Colleen and Molly.
“The kids know to a certain degree what happened that day, but I really don’t like to talk about it. But I do want people to remember.”