Benfante Michael - Reluctant Hero: a 9/11 Survivor Speaks Out About That Unthinkable Day, What Hes Learned, How Hes Struggled, and What No One Should Ever Forget

A 9/11 Survivor Speaks Out About That Unthinkable
Day, What Hes Learned, How Hes Struggled,
and What No One Should Ever Forget

and Dave Hollander

Skyhorse Publishing

Copyright 2011 by Michael Benfante and David Hollander

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
ISBN: 978-1-61608-285-7

Printed in the United States of America

a perfect father to a child, a loving man to a son

who loves me like a rock

FridayMonday, September 710, 2001

Tuesday, September 11, 2001

WednesdayFriday, September 1214, 2001

September 2001September 2002

20032006

20062008

20082011

And we have seen our national character in eloquent acts of sacrifice. Inside the World Trade Center, one man who could have saved himself stayed until the end and at the side of his quadriplegic friend. A beloved priest died giving the last rites to a fire-fighter. Two office workers, finding a disabled stranger, carried her down 68 floors to safety. A group of men drove through the night from Dallas to Washington to bring skin grafts for burn victims.

In these acts and many others, Americans showed a deep commitment to one another and an abiding love for our country. Today, we feel what Franklin Roosevelt called, the warm courage of national unity.

President George W. Bush
Remarks at the National Day of Prayer and Remembrance,
September 14, 2001

And our hearts are full of gratitude for those who saved others. These men and women remind us that heroism is found not only on the fields of battle. They remind us that heroism does not require special training or physical strength. Heroism is here, all around us, in the hearts of so many of our fellow citizens, just waiting to be summonedas it was on Saturday morning.

Their actions, their selflessness, also pose a challenge to each of us. It raises the question of what, beyond the prayers and expressions of concern, is required of us going forward. How can we honor the fallen? How can we be true to their memory?

President Barack Obama
Speech at the memorial service for the victims of the shooting in
Tucson, Arizona, January 12, 2011

When I go home peoplell ask me, Hey Hoot, why do you do it man? What, you some kinda war junkie? You know what Ill say? I wont say a goddamn word. Why? They wont understand. They wont understand why we do it. They wont understand that its about the men next to you, and thats it. Thats all it is.

Black Hawk Down
From the screenplay by Mike Nolan, based on
the book by Mark Bowden

THE WHOLE TOPIC of 9/11 is never a matter of small talk to me. Its no academic discussion. If someone casually says to me, Hey, tell me your story, I tell them, Nah, its not going to work that way. But if somebody asks me, sincerely, You were that guy? Can you talk about it? Then I say, Why dont you ask me questions, tell me what you want to know, and Ill tell you what I can. Thats so much easier. I can handle that. Any other way is exhausting for me, and I dont want to do it.

To this day, its impossible for me to give a summary explanation of how I really felt and what I really went through without telling everythingevery single thing that I went through. I dont know how, psychologically, to tell someone an abbreviated version of what happened to me. People ask, and I say, Yeah, I was there.

Really? they say.

Then they ask for more.

Yes, I carried this woman down sixty-eight floors.

Then what? Then what?

Its a very intense and personal place to go. It takes a lot out of me. I dont like bringing it up. I dont go around telling people I carried a woman down sixty-eight flights in Tower 1 on 9/11.

There I was, World Trade Center, September 11 This isnt the goddamn World of Commander McBragg.

Will I tell the story if asked? It depends on whos asking and what kind of emotional space theyre coming from. But my story is not a cocktail party trick or somebodys cheap entertainment option.

Obviously, and for many reasons, its an experience I now feel compelled to share with all seriousness, honesty, and emotion. But I can only tell it one way. Thats from beginning to end, with nothing left out. And frankly, rarely are there times and places where thats an easy or appropriate thing to do.

Suffice it to say that I dont like telling this story. I dont even like thinking about it. For almost ten years Ive stopped telling it altogether. And Ive never really told the whole thing to anyone. Thats hurt a lot of people. Its hurt me too. I want to tell it now. I need to tell it.

And I want to get it right. I will try hardvery hardto tell it exactly like I remember it.

Im still not sure I understand itwhat its meant, how its changed me. Some call me a hero for itfor what I did on 9/11. Im not very comfortable with that. What I do know is I need to tell everything to everybody (and I need to hear some things as well).

I know that if I retrace my steps, I can tell you how I came to be on the 81st floor of the World Trade Center, Tower 1, on 9/11, sitting at my desk at 8:46 a.m. when the first plane hit just twelve floors above me.

And then I spent the next ninety-six minutes inside Tower 1. I made it out, barely.

I was one of the lucky ones.

Sometimes I feel so awful about it I cant hear myself think a single thought. Other times I draw such hope and clarity from it. Either way, its time to talk about it. So let me try here to tell you, and myself, what happened. Like I said, I will try hard to get it right.

I SAT HALF-DAZED, DOWNING beers and inhaling burgers at OReillys Pub on 31st and Broadway. It was an unusual lunch at OReillys for obvious reasons, but also because I was sitting in the back dining room. Id eaten there a hundred times before, but Id never sat in the back. Thats usually where the business people had lunch, at the round tables with the white linen tablecloths. Thats not where I usually sat. But this day it was sit there or sit nowhere. Thats how crowded it was.

Boozer went to the bar to get more beers. I sat, fidgety, at a table with John. John wasnt saying much. Boozer yelled to me, Raj! (Thats how they know me at OReillys, after Roger Staubach.) He motioned for me to come to the front. You gotta see this.