Larry Pincus, an EEOC public affairs specialist, tells the story of how retired firefighter John Misha recovered the EEOC seal from the rubble at Ground Zero and, after relentlessly searching for its rightful owners, returned the seal to the New York District Office.
New York firefighter John Misha (right)
presents the battered EEOC seal to New York District Director
Spencer Lewis. Misha found the seal during recovery efforts at
Ground Zero. The memento is permanently housed in the New York
District Office at its new location at 33 Whitehall Street in lower
Manhattan.
"He said he was a fireman and had found something of ours, and he wanted to return it." These words from our front desk receptionist made the hairs on the back of my neck stand. Here we were, months after the tragedy, no office, only memories of what once was.
"Did you get his name, what did he find?" I asked.
"No, he said he would call again," she answered.
Suddenly, I had hope that maybe something, a piece of the past, had survived.
The question had been on everyone's lips for weeks. Could anything be salvaged? Our building, 7 World Trade Center, had been in the shadow of the Twin Towers and all the photos, gifts, awards, mementos of years of service had been lost. A child's first pair of baby shoes that sat on an investigator's desk, an old sepia photograph of a great grandma standing in front of a church, a framed print of a jazz player handed down from father to son. Did any of these things survive? Our building had collapsed and burned, but could the collective spirit of these objects have kept them safe and clear of the accelerated misery of that day. Was it possible that during the months of digging, these possessions had been found and catalogued to be returned to the rightful owners at a later time.
Now we awaited the mystery caller; staff members were on alert to transfer any call that was fire department related to me. And this time get a telephone number! All week I tried to imagine what he had found. In our old law library, we had a wall devoted to awards the District had won-oak plaques from the Chair, framed certificates for litigation, stars for service.
John Misha, a retired New York City firefighter, had been busy working on the recovery, and he did call again several days later. He explained that immediately after September 11, he volunteered to help find some of his brothers at arms who were missing. He had been doing this five days a week, twelve hours each day, and sleeping in St. Paul's Church which had been converted to an aid station for rescue workers.
He had been working on what they referred to as "the Hill," a four-story pile of concrete and steel rubble equidistant between what had been the North Tower and our building when his shovel struck a round object. While he couldn't tell what the bronze plaque said-2000-degree temperatures and compressed soot and ash had seen to that-he could make out the grand eagle and the letters "U. EQU EMPLO M COMM" which ran around the border of the seal.
He went straight to one of the FBI agents who ringed the site. They were posted there to insure that evidence found belonging to any government agency was seized and marked. The agent instructed John to put the seal in the dumpster and continue working. John did just that, but as his shift ended he walked back and peeked inside. The plaque was still there. He had been thinking about the seal all day.
You have to understand that rescue had turned to recovery very fast, and it meant digging up horrible things, the worst imaginable. You could dig all day and only find cloth or a fragment. John said the cops and firefighters were easiest to spot in the debris; their uniforms identified them. So when he found the plaque, his rescue instinct kicked in, and he knew he had something that needed his personal attention.
Soon John had the seal and a mission of his own. Over the next few weeks, he called city, state, and county agency after agency trying to find the plaque's rightful owner.
On one occasion, he went to a state office and presented the seal at the door. The person in charge said, "Great, leave it here."
But John asked, "Is it yours?"
When he couldn't get a satisfactory response, he abruptly picked up the seal and continued his search-which leads us to his call to our makeshift office and why he was so guarded in his response. After all, he was a knight, and this was his charge that only he alone could deliver.
When we spoke on the phone, I told him his search was over; what he had found was ours. I told him how important his find was to the staff, that we now had something that provided a link to the past, and, of course, that he was a hero. At that point I heard John cry quietly.
You see, recovery hadn't brought one husband, wife, mother, or son home alive since the day, and here he, John Misha, had made a discovery, while not flesh and blood, that meant something to someone somewhere.
John arrived at our office in mid-February. Under his arm, he was holding a large, flat box. I greeted him at the checkpoint and brought him up to the office. He untied the box, and in it was the grand seal that had been mounted outside our front entrance, 75 pounds of scarred and pockmarked bronze, with a sea green patina from 1000 hours of torment and pain. It was almost unrecognizable.
"I want to present this to your commanding officer," John said. He had been in paramilitary organizations all his life.
I said the director was in Boston and I was as good as anyone. With that, he dropped the seal into my hands. I summoned all my strength; I didn't want to embarrass myself and drop it. John, as you guessed, was built like a big powerful fireman and had carried the thing around with ease.
We went into our main staff room, which is little more than an open space, like a telemarketing office, with desks for 30 people. Word had been put out about the fireman, and everyone had anticipated this event for weeks. Now, in front of a room full of some very battered government employees, many still in shock, I made a brief statement and unveiled the seal. There was a rush to see it up close. Everyone converged on the seal and instantly became one. Everyone wanted to touch it. Everyone wanted to shake John's hand or hug him. The staff needed this; it was the first good thing emotionally that had happened to us since our prayer vigil in Central Park. Touching the seal became a ritual; it was a connection that rekindled a small fiber in the soul. You could feel a presence transfer from finger tip to metal. We now had what they call closure. We knew that nothing, nothing-no picture, baby shoe, or print-could have survived that fiery pile. No one would have to lay awake and wonder.
On March 1, Chair Dominguez presented John Misha with an engraved plaque of his own for outstanding service to the Commission. She also gave him a hero's medal with a red, white and blue ribbon. There was newspaper and television coverage. People hugged each other, and people hugged John. Even the reporters laughed and hugged, which was very unusual for the working press of this city. Six months of emotion escaped from some very weary New Yorkers, and it seeped out for several hours. Everyone wanted to hear a positive human interest story, and they heard it that night. And around and around the city there was joy, for a while anyway. Although if you listened closely, a mother still cried, and cried, and cried.
This page was last modified on November 15, 2002.
