Reluctant Hero Page 4

  Man, I was fortunate I never had to serve in a war. My generation didn’t face any drafts. How would I react if I was placed in the most dire of circumstances, forced to fight for something important to me? Would I have the salt to perform, to do my job in the face of death or facing the fear of death? Could I overcome that fear and react?

  Black Hawk Down was difficult and inspiring. It described horrible deaths and unspeakable ruthlessness, but also acts of unbelievable courage and heroic selflessness.

  Two soldiers profiled in the book, Randy Shughart and Gary Gordon, were posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. While on board a rescue Black Hawk helicopter, these soldiers saw a pilot down who was wounded, defenseless, and about to be captured by a swarm of enemy militia. They knew that even for as long as they might be able to hold off the thousand-strong enemy horde, it would not be long enough for help to arrive. Their general told them not to attempt the rescue. Yet they respectfully requested their general to allow them to go down there. The general asked them, “Do you understand what you’re asking permission to do?” In other words, did they understand they had very little chance of surviving? They said they understood perfectly. Who knows what really went through their minds? Maybe they were the kind of ultimate soldiers who felt that a slim chance was chance enough. Maybe they were thrill seekers, adrenaline junkies. Maybe they saw that the fallen pilot was going to be overcome, and God knows what would have happened to him, and they reacted out of overwhelming compassion. Or maybe they just simply knew they couldn’t live with themselves if they didn’t do it. Only they knew. I’m sure their wives and kids would tell you they wished they hadn’t done it. But they might also tell you that knowing their husbands’/ fathers’ codes as human beings and soldiers the way they did, it was the only course of action the men could take. I don’t think I’ve ever had a more palpable emotional moment reading a book than I did reading that part of Black Hawk Down.

  By the end of Monday, most of the office was talking about the Giants playing Monday Night Football. A lot of guys planned to see the game out somewhere in the city. I left the office around 6:30 p.m. and made plans to watch the game at home with Joy. The Giants lost in Denver 31–20. Late in the fourth quarter, I called my old friend Boozer to complain about the Giants’ ineptitude. He told me something about it being “a long season.” I was not consoled.

  It was almost 1:00 a.m. Joy had been asleep since the third quarter. It was harder, in a way, to wake up for Tuesdays than for Mondays. By Tuesday the full workweek had set in. The buzz of the weekend was over, and the next weekend seemed as far away as it could be. I didn’t know what this particular Tuesday would bring, but I knew it would feel like the longest day of the week.

  *Almost exactly two years later, I returned to Harglo’s, got down on one knee, and, with Cia as my witness, proposed marriage to Joy.

  PART II

  THE DAY

  TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

  Despite staying up late watching the Giants game, I planned to go in early on Tuesday. It was an out day. I had to get people out to their appointments.

  In order to get to work by 7:30 a.m., I had to make it to the PATH by 7:15 a.m. Joy didn’t need to be at Atlantic Records on the Upper West Side until 10:00 a.m., but she got up with me and drove me to the PATH. She dropped me off at the station with a quick kiss good-bye. Joy says there was something different about the way we said good-bye that morning. She remembers not saying “Have a great day.” (Joy often kidded me about how the voice mail messages on my cell phone and office phone ended with a semi-tough, semi-sincere “Have a great day.”) She regrets not saying more that morning. We were both in good moods, as I recall. What I distinctly remember—and it strikes me about as ironic as anything ever will—was that on 1010 WINS radio that morning, they were talking about how Mayor Giuliani was declaring that day as 911 Awareness Day in New York in order to promote citizens properly utilizing 911. I don’t know if they still have 911 Awareness Day. I don’t think so.

  On the PATH ride in, I finished the last pages of Black Hawk Down. The book filled me with so many feelings. A lot of people got killed. There was savagery on both sides. But all in all, this group of guys kept together. At its core, it’s a story of survival— getting out of this nasty situation, a human hornet’s nest—by sticking together. One thing that really struck me was how the men reacted when a simple in-and-out forty-five-minute mission went horribly wrong, and, when things continued to go wrong, how they kept overcoming obstacles despite facing the very real threat of death. What they endured in those twelve hours went beyond remarkable. I made a mental note to return the book to Mike Wright, from whom I borrowed it, once I got back to the office.

  I got to work earlier than usual. Looking out our conference room window, admiring the magnificent vista, I could see it was already a beautiful day—blue skies, no clouds, orange sunshine.

  There was only one other person in the office: Kevin Nichols. Did the guy sleep there? I parked myself at the reception desk, to have a good look at my sales reps as they rolled in. I sat there from 7:50 a.m. to 8:20 a.m. Marc Reinstein got to work on time. He and I talked about the Giants game while several of us did the Daily News crossword puzzle. Kevin boasted that he was almost done with his. I went into my office and gazed south out my window, overlooking the lower tip of Manhattan. Man, was it ever a picture-postcard day.

  I called Gina Menella in to “remind” her that she was late again. She wasn’t happy with me reminding her about it and collecting the $2. She left in a huff. I checked my Day-Timer to see what appointments I had scheduled. I began drafting a list, pairing newer hires with veterans. I grew concerned that some of our salespeople were still in the office when it was already well past 8:00 a.m., as it took a half hour to get to a Midtown appointment from the World Trade Center. I kept that concern to myself, for the moment. I paired Marc Reinstein with Jen Sotack and assigned them to the Diamond District. Who next?

  All of a sudden, it felt like a hectic morning. My mind was racing. I wanted to keep people moving and to make sure they got to their appointments on time. I wanted to confirm that the right people were going to the right appointments, see that everyone going out was properly prepared and provided coverage for any incoming deals. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks as it did several times that summer: I’m working my ass off while the stock is in the tank. I lost all my dough. I am engaged to be married. I have to pay for a wedding. But hey, on that particular morning, I wasn’t late to work. I had time to joke with people. The weather looked good, so I felt good. It was an out day. That’s what I lived for. To get out there in the city and walk the streets, ride the subway, and be in front of people. Sure, I had the wedding on my mind. I knew how much it would cost. I knew I had a down payment to make. I knew I couldn’t rely on my stock options because the stock was in the tank. I didn’t know when or if I’d ever be able to cash them in. Nobody knew if the stock would ever rebound. All I knew was I had to make my monthly nut. And the way I did that was by selling, running the sales force, and keeping myself motivated. I thought now, more than ever, I had reason to do that. Try to simplify life: Save for your wedding and honeymoon.

  It was September 11. Summer was over. Labor Day was two weekends ago. It was time to start cranking. Extended vacations were over, and people were back in work mode. Companies were thinking about how to improve their bottom lines and how to streamline their operations. Telecommunications had a lot to do with that. So we had to be ready to hustle. We needed to hit the ground running. Better numbers were expected from us now that it was fall. Technically, this was the first real out day of the second half of our fiscal year, and I was ready for it.

  8:30 a.m.

  I brought Marc Reinstein and Jen Sotack in to my office. She had been with the company only six months and was having some trouble selling. I saw potential in Jen, and I wanted Marc to go out with her on an appointment. It was a good appointment, and I knew Marc could help her
. I looked at Marc and remembered hiring him a year and a half earlier. He was iffy then. Through sheer hustle, the young guy had developed into an excellent salesman. I was proud of him.

  I sent Marc and Jen on their way, sat down at my desk, and called my buddy Paul Rubicam. Ruby worked for a big real estate firm down in Philadelphia. I met him years ago through my college roommate at Brown, while Ruby was playing soccer at Penn, where his father was athletic director. When I first started with Network Plus, Ruby and I lived together down in Princeton. He is the only post-college roommate I’ve ever had. I buzzed him to see what he was up to and to bust his chops. He picks up the phone and answers, with a big sigh, “What do you want, Harry?” No hello. Typical Ruby.

  “What kind of a greeting is that?” I said.

  “Listen, you’re costing me money. I got some high-powered attorney in my office who is charging me—how much are you charging me?” I don’t hear any response. “You just cost me $500.”

  “All right, Ruby, I’ll talk to you later.” I hung up the phone.

  8:46 a.m.

  I peeked out my office doorway and saw Marc Reinstein messing with some papers.

  “Reinstein, why aren’t you out the door?”

  That was the last moment of normalcy—seeing Marc Rein-stein. That’s when it happened.

  First I heard Jim Gaffney scream, like I’d never heard a man scream, “OH MY GOD!” I’ll never forget that scream.

  In our office, Jim was standing closest to the impact. My corner office was located all the way on the south side of the building. You couldn’t get any farther south in the building than I was. The plane hit the north side. If you walked directly north from my corner office, you would go straight through the huge wooden doors at the office’s entrance, which stood in front of two banks of three elevators. That was the northernmost point of our office. Before you passed through those wooden doors, there was a little wall mirror, which salespeople liked to use to “button up” before leaving for an appointment. Jim Gaffney was in front of that mirror checking his tie when the plane hit. The impact blew in those huge wooden office doors, coming within inches of striking Jim.

  I heard Jim screaming, and a second later, I felt the impact. I felt it more than I heard it. It wasn’t a sharp boom or pow like a gunshot, but a deep, expansive sound. It was less of a sound and more of a vibration—a percussive rumble that sounded and felt like it was closing in on you.

  Sitting in the southernmost point of the office, I was the last to feel it. I stood up slowly. God knows why, but I was strangely calm. It didn’t register with me that we were in the midst of a terrible, profound emergency. I remember thinking, OK, this is something bad, but another part of my brain immediately disciplined me. It’s nothing. Whatever it is, be calm. Deal with it. Figure it out. But the screams from people out in the office conveyed another message entirely. To hear sounds like those from grown men and women—sounds of sheer terror—and to see looks of paralyzing uncertainty—it shocked me as much for its bizarre nature as for its stark reality. My reaction to their screams was just as odd. I reacted with a half-annoyed “What the hell is going on out there? You people should be working!” attitude and half “I’m not sure what the hell’s really happening right now because they are really acting weird out there.” A big part of me felt that I had to assume my head-of-the-office role.

  I yelled at everyone: “Calm down. What the hell is going on! Calm down now!” I swung around and looked out my office window behind me. I saw bright orange flames shooting out and down from directly above me. I didn’t know it at the time, but what I saw was the nose of the airliner pushing through the tower’s south end. It didn’t go through, but it pushed in enough that fire exploded out through broken windows. Chunks of the building and paper debris burst in the air, creating what I can only describe as a large, dirty cloud.

  Looking back now, I’m amazed that I wasn’t more alarmed. It was pretty intense, horror film stuff. I say this not to impress anybody; it’s just that to this day, I’m surprised at my own reaction. I’ve had some time to think about why I wasn’t terrified and overcome with fear from the obviously deadly catastrophe that I was looking at right outside my window. It could be that because we’re so used to seeing this kind of thing on TV and film on a daily basis, it didn’t look like anything that catastrophic. It’s funny how faulty perception can work to your advantage in a situation like this. Even though you felt the impact and you felt the building shaking—and all of that felt catastrophic—you never think you are in real danger. You don’t know what real danger is, because you’ve never been in it. That ignorance may have been the only thing that kept me from lapsing into petrified terror. In my head, I was thinking, Well, real danger is something much, much greater than this. I’m still standing. It didn’t knock me off my feet. How bad could it be? These are the games you play in your head to internalize a sense of relative safety, to give yourself a chance to avoid thinking the unthinkable. I did that immediately. It was no conscious act of bravery, just an unconscious reflex. Or maybe it was a subconscious choice, or just luck—a random confluence of factors, added up from my entire life, leading me up to this critical cognitive moment. For whatever reason, I stepped to the right, mentally, when I could’ve stepped to the left. I’ll never know for sure, but that mental dodge may have made all the difference. That’s what you do when you have no idea what’s really going on.

  Marc Reinstein completely froze. He thought the building was going to fall over because that’s how much the tower was swaying. Holy shit, the World Trade Center is swaying! I noticed it too. This swaying was not merely perceptible. It was palpable. I can explain the difference. Standing at the urinal in the men’s room on the 81st floor, one could, guided by the bellwether compass of one’s discharge, observe the clear sway of the building. You could only really notice it in the men’s room. I never felt it in my office. But we always knew the tower swayed. This wasn’t like that. This was more like leaning, not swaying.

  Time to Get Out

  I quickly came to accept that there was something serious going on above us. But there was no reason for panic. Some reps were diving under cubicles. Some lost control of their legs. They didn’t know whether to stand or fall or what. Women were screaming. Guys were hugging other guys. Everyone was grabbing on to someone. (Marc Reinstein remained frozen.) And all I’m doing is yelling, “Calm down. Calm down.”

  I needed to act. The first thing I did was assess the damage. Flames were coming from the south. The big wooden doors that were always locked were blown open from the north. I ran through the office, outside the blown-open doors, and looked in the hallway at the elevators. The Sheetrock walls around the elevator banks were bending inward. The elevators would be of no use. I looked left toward the bathroom, but ceiling tiles and large pieces of the walls lay scattered and broken on the floor in the hallway, impeding access to the entrance. I looked to the right. The staircase was clear. Nothing obstructed it. I turned around, facing north, and noticed more debris. Then I saw someone emerge from the office across the hall on the north side of the floor, staggering and bloodied. I’d seen enough.

  I ran back into my office. People were maintaining relative calm. Somebody shouted that there were people stuck in the bathroom. I yelled back, “I’ll take care of it.” I made a mental note, but first things first. I knew for sure that the flames were to the south and that something bad was going on to the north. So I yelled in no uncertain terms, “Everyone: Move to the center of the office.” I wanted them all in one place, together. Everyone moved. Kevin Nichols held tight to our receptionist, who was crying. Mike Wright came toward me and said, “Ben,”—that’s what they called me at work sometimes, short for Benfante— “we’ve got to get everyone out of here.” Yes, that was the next step. I knew the stairwell was clear. So I sent the group to the stairwell exit. We moved quickly, decisively, and intelligently. Nobody left anybody behind. These were good people. They exited in clusters of two or th
ree—always one with another— nobody alone. They looked out for each other. It was not a spirit of every man for himself. I heard them tell of more of this type of behavior in their stories later on. I credit the amazing fact that they all made it out safely in the end to their collective sense of responsibility to each other. I couldn’t have been more proud of these people, many of whom I had hired and some of whom I’d known for years.

  I was reminded that people were stuck in the bathroom. I darted back into the elevator hallway, climbed over knee-high piles of broken ceiling tile and chunks of Sheetrock, and finally got down to the men’s room. More people started to emerge from the office across the hall on the north side. So many had blood all over their faces. My sense of urgency heightened, I shifted into “moving mode.” As long as I was moving, I was fine. That would be the basic guiding principle from that moment until the end of the experience: Keep moving and you’ll be OK— at least you’ll feel like you’ll be OK. Don’t stop moving.

  I punched in the touch key combination to the men’s room, opened the door—and there was nobody in sight. Good thing. The place was demolished. The stalls were collapsed. Water was spraying everywhere. Smoke filled the room, making it hard to see. It looked as though a bomb had gone off. I wasn’t going farther in than I had to. I yelled, “Anybody in there?” No response. Later, I found out that they wanted me to help the people stuck in the women’s bathroom, not the men’s. I heard that some other guys eventually kicked down that women’s room door, which had become stuck, and everybody got out safely.