This episode is brought to you by Life Aid and I have subscribed to one of their products, FocusAid, for several years now and I'm usually drinking it when I'm doing the interviews.
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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.
As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show, Will Jimeno.
Now as a firefighter in California, I worked on a film called The World Trade Center
and it told the story of the incredible self-survival and rescue of two poor authority police officers
that were pulled from the wreckage of the World Trade Center.
Well, Will is one of those two men and his story is absolutely incredible.
We discuss a host of topics from his burning desire to become a police officer,
his journey into law enforcement, the incredible resilience that allowed him and his partner to survive that horrendous incident,
the physical and mental health journey after the event and so much more.
Before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every single week,
please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.
Every single five-star rating truly does elevate this podcast making it easier for others to find
and this is a free library for you Planet Earth.
So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories
so I can get them to every single person who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I introduce to you Will Jimeno.
Enjoy.
Well, Will, I want to start by saying thank you so much for taking the time to come on the Behind the Shield podcast today.
I appreciate you having me on here and hopefully we'll be able to touch some lives, help some people.
Absolutely. I want to say thank you to Michael Moats as well, your co-author who reached out initially and also to 511.
As I talked to you on the phone yesterday, that's originally who I was about to reach out to you through
because they had you on their podcast. It was an amazing conversation.
So I just want to put it out there and say thank you to those two individuals.
Well, without a doubt, you know, this book that we're going to talk about Sunrise Through the Darkness
would not have happened without Michael Moats.
You know, he's a good friend and 511 is just an awesome company.
Blessed to have done a podcast with them and I thank them for what they do for all the first responders
in making sure that, you know, not only do they outfit people with great gear,
but they care about people, especially after the job is done,
which is something that, you know, this podcast is really going to be about.
Not only for those that are out in the field now on the front lines and on the streets,
but also when all the men and women who give so much of themselves go home after retirement
or after injuries and having to pick up the pieces afterwards.
Absolutely. So I would love to start at the very beginning,
but before we do today, as we have this conversation, where are we finding you on planet Earth?
I live in New Jersey. So that's where I'm at, you know,
and just trying to enjoy life and waiting for the world to come back to normal.
But that's where, you know, I grew up in New Jersey,
but I was born in Columbia, South America in a town called Barranquilla.
For those that don't know where that is, that's where Shakira is from and Sofia Vergara.
So most people know them, but that's where I'm originally from, came here at two years old,
grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey, 12 miles outside New York City.
So grew up seeing that skyline, went to Catholic school from kindergarten to eighth grade.
My parents instilled in me a lot of great things,
but one of the things that my parents instilled in me was to have faith, hope and love,
those three words, and love for our country, you know, taught me
the United States of America is the greatest country on Earth because of the melt and pop that it is.
And they, you know, taught me you're going to bring the good things from the Colombian heritage,
but you're going to be an American, you're going to learn English,
you're going to fly the American flag, and you're going to be an asset to this country
that has given people from around the world just the opportunities that they can't find in their homelands.
And that's something that I took to heart with me and that's at the heart of who I am is service.
So, you know, but I found myself back here in New Jersey.
So that's where I'm at today.
Is there a slight tiny part of you that mourns the fact that you could have grown up in a village
with the women that like Shakira and Sofia?
No, because they came here, you know, they live in the States.
So, but just grateful for my background, to be honest with you.
I always think if I could change anything, I'd say no, you know, I've been a blessed man for my upbringing,
my parents, where I was born and how that's been instrumental to me in being a bilingual person.
That's helped me here, especially when I was on the job.
So I'm very blessed.
So going back a generation then, tell me what your parents did in Colombia
and then what made them make that move to the U.S.?
Well, my dad was a welder and my mom was a beautician.
And just like pretty much every other immigrant, even the ones trying to get here today,
it's just the opportunities that this country offers you.
And at the time too, my dad came over in in 69.
I was born in 1967.
He came over a year before bringing me and my mother over.
I came, like I said, when I was two years old, but there was an immense work here.
There was great opportunity.
And he came here and I he always told me this great, greatest country on earth.
He goes, there was so much work here in the 70s.
He's like, you know, I could leave one job and have another job before even leaving the other job.
There was just great opportunity.
And they just saw a place that they could bring up a young family
and give us opportunities that they might not have had in Colombia.
And that's what they did.
So they came here like every other immigrant, you know, they came here legally,
put in their papers, did everything the right way.
That's something that I don't care what anybody says is been ingrained in me is do the right thing.
Do things the way they're supposed to be done, you know, and they did.
And they were great parents working hard, showing me that hard work is a good thing.
And my mom always instilled in me something that was taught to her is I don't want to hear excuses.
I don't want to hear that.
You know, you're a minority or you're not as smart or you're not as fast.
You know, she basically was telling me what Derek Jeter was taught.
You know, someone might be faster, better than you, but there's no reason that you cannot work them.
You know, and that's something my mom instilled in me.
I don't want to hear about anything except hard work.
And that's something that's paid off for me growing up.
One of my guests I had, I forget who it was now, their roots were in Colombia as well.
And we discussed how, you know, things, especially in the 80s, there was a lot of violence.
That was when the drug, what I would consider the, you know, the ripple effect of the drug prohibition laws in America caused,
you know, the supply and demand caused a lot of trouble in Colombia.
But then that has now moved north and we're seeing what we're seeing in Mexico now.
Do you still have roots in Colombia?
And have you heard of that kind of metamorphosis from some of the troubles they had to where they are today?
I do have family in Colombia and I'm very proud to have that family there.
And some of them are instrumental in the government over there.
And, you know, they're proud people and no different than us.
You know, our country has made mistakes.
Their country's made mistakes, but you learn from them.
And there are things that you learn from, you know, I always say the United States is not perfect, but we're the best in the world.
And I think every country should embrace the fact that, hey, we're all human beings.
We make mistakes, you know, Pablo Escobar in that time period was not a great time period for the Colombian people.
You know, actually, I was I joined the U.S.
Navy in 1986 at the height of this drug wars and everything like that or the Colombian drug cartel.
And I remember being asked in the Navy, you know, you put down that you've never done drugs and right away.
Well, you're you're born in Colombia.
And I said, sir, I grew up in Hackensack playing soccer, doing martial arts.
I was very athletic. Just because I'm Colombian doesn't mean I do drugs.
So that stigma was already there.
But it's something, again, going back to what my mom taught me, she's like, you're going to be the good of our heritage.
And she goes, the way you change people's minds is by the way you act, the way you represent not only our family, but our culture.
And for me, it was not only my family and the Colombian heritage, but as an American.
And so I tell people all the time, you want to change something, you start at home.
I think that's one of the major problems we're having today in this generation is, you know, people need to be good parents, need people need to be able to sit down at the dinner table and put the cell phones away and know what's happening in their children's lives.
You know, today, unfortunately, you know, we just recently had that shooting in Illinois.
You know, let's dissect that a little bit and say, hey, how is it that a father of a troubled child was able to sponsor that individual to buy a weapon?
You know, this comes just back down to common sense.
If I know my child is having issues, the last thing I want around them is even a kitchen knife.
You know, this individual had issues with law enforcement, you know, so and this all ties into going back to the attacks of September 11th.
You know, you have an entity in Al Qaeda where these people learn to hate certain entities so much.
And it comes back to the upbringing of people.
You know, I don't care where you're from in the world.
I mean, there's we all believe the same.
We cry the same.
You know, there has to be compassion.
There has to be somebody at some point teaching bad things.
You know, I was blessed to have good parents that taught me to be good to people.
Treat people the way you want to be treated.
That is a huge, huge thing.
And be able to express yourself.
You know, I was able to talk to my parents.
I had a good communication with my parents.
They knew what was going on in my life, you know, and I was brought up a certain way.
You're responsible for your actions.
You know, back then, if a teacher called or the police department called my house, guess who was wrong?
There was no if, ends up, it's about it.
Today, we have through my speaking engagements at schools.
I find out from principals that they can't, you know, right away parents are calling.
Well, I can't be my kid.
Well, yeah, it can be your kid, you know, and you should be open to saying,
let me hear the whole story and find out if my son or daughter are wrong for what they did.
And if they're wrong for what they did, you know, do you reflect back on you?
You know, like, hey, I should send off my child knowing that my child is respectful to teachers,
understands to be kind to other people and understands that, you know, they're responsible for their actions.
You know, and this all comes back to again, I think just us as human beings, you know, how we treat each other, you know.
So I'm blessed to have had parents that were strict with me discipline,
something that I feel that is very important, not only in upbringing, but as we grow as adults,
you know, to have discipline within ourselves, you know, because that's going to help us down the line.
Well, I agree with 100% what you just said, and it echoes in many things I talk about on here.
And I just had this kind of, you know, vision in my head.
When we talk about it starts at home, ask yourself, who would you want to raise your two year old?
Would you want to give your two year old child to Joe, to Donald Trump, last couple of people?
Would you trust them with your child to raise them with ethics?
No, fuck no.
But yet you look to that building to lead the country to solve your problems.
And I agree 100%.
The problem is that we're pointing that one side or the other to fix what we need to roll our sleeves up and fix,
as you said, in the household and in the community that collectively is how we raise this country back up.
Yeah, and I think we will. I mean, I know right now we're at a horrible crossroads between the media, social media.
You know, you would think the world's coming to an end. It's not.
I have, like I said, faith, hope and love those three things my mom instilled in me.
Faith, I don't preach religion. I'm Catholic.
But if you have faith in a religion, have faith in that religion.
And hopefully it's a good religion, one that teaches peace and, you know, helping other people.
And if you don't have a religion, which is fine, if that's what you're an atheist, have faith in yourself.
You know, hope. We have to always have hope.
You know, you never give up hope. I don't care what anybody says.
Hope for a better world. Hope for a better future for your children.
You know, hope for whatever dreams you have and love. Love for those people around you, for your family, for your country, but for yourself.
Start by loving yourself, because if you can love yourself and build yourself up to be a good human being, then you can spread that love to other people.
So I tell people today, you know, I'm an optimist. I believe in the world.
I think that the world goes through very dark times.
And unfortunately, you know, history teaches us that.
And I think that's why it's important for people to be honest with history, the good and the bad.
But we should never erase history like in recent years people want to do.
Erasing history does not help anyone at all.
You know, I tell people to, you know, they talk a lot about these safe spaces.
You know, you got to understand on September 11th, there was no safe space.
You know, when evil comes, it comes. It comes in a lot of different forms on that day was terrorism.
I tell people evil comes from, you know, bullying, marital issues, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, rape, murder.
And the list goes on and on and on. What the safe space should be is you.
You should be your safe space.
That's why I'm a big proponent of teaching your children that you want to save space.
Educate yourself. Be strong. Be confident.
Understand that there's going to be bad things that happen in your life.
But you yourself have to be able to pick yourself up and be educated enough to overcome these things.
What do I mean by that? Educating kids that, you know what, there's going to be bullying.
And sometimes you don't even realize you're the bully, even if you're a good person, sometimes just the way you treat somebody.
So I'm a big proponent of being able to have your own safe space within yourself.
And that comes again from being educated, being confident, being fit in the mind that, OK,
growing up, I'm going to encounter bad things in life, but I'm going to be able to get over them.
And I think that is something I believe in. And I still believe in this world.
I believe in this country. I believe in human beings.
And I think that, like you said, we need good leaders in this world.
And I think we will get back to that. You know, we're going through some crazy times.
And I hope that it's something that we look back in history and say, you know what,
we're just human beings and we have to work it out. And I think we will work it out.
Yeah, well, I share your optimism to a radio. I think it's also perspective.
I mean, there are nations around the world that would kill to have what we have today, you know, in this country.
Getting to that kind of mentorship and growth and strength. Talk to me about your martial arts journey.
When did you find it and which specific disciplines you enter?
Oh, well, you know, I was a kid and I was again for me, my love for America came from a lot of TV,
a lot of looking at the black and white movies from Vietnam, Korea,
just showing the heroism of Americans fighting for their country.
And it was I think it was in high school. I was playing soccer and around eighth grade,
I started getting interested in martial arts. There was a lot of TV shows back then up in the New Jersey,
New York area that used to have Channel 5 and they would have like Saturdays, double matinees of kung fu movies.
So I ended up joining a school, Tang Sudo, which is a Korean martial arts, which Chuck Norris started with.
So I started at Hackensack, New Jersey, training with Master So who was actually still a good friend of mine,
good mentor, just great man, and did that for a long time and went off to the military,
you know, was kind of messing around with that there, came back and did some Fu Jiao Pai,
which is tiger claw under Sifu Vizio out of North Bergen, great guy.
And, you know, for me, it was just part of growing up, you know, tough kids.
We used to spar on the weekends back when there was no pad.
So, you know, I always laugh because I'd come home all ripped up, you know, we're sparring with tennis sneakers.
So we'd hit ourselves and my mom would be like, what do you where do you go that you're coming back beat up?
And back then it was just a way of being tough, you know, and learning.
There was no pads back then.
I mean, we sparred, it was open hands and, you know, sneakers.
So it was a good time.
I think it was a good learning for me.
But, you know, I was also doing soccer.
So it's just athletic in that aspect.
So it taught me a lot taught me how to take a punch, how to give a punch taught me teamwork with soccer.
So I always encourage people that to find some type of activity.
It doesn't have to be martial arts or soccer.
It could be from, you know, tennis to something athletic, you know, that teaches you a little bit how to function physically, I think is important.
And it also allows for me, my one of the things I think, you know, back then we would have fistfights in school.
You know, it was kind of on a way that you just ironed out stuff and let out, you know, whatever aggressions you had, you know, today.
I'm not saying that kids need to fight, but, you know, we tell these kids you can't you shouldn't do this.
You shouldn't do that. And you kind of create some ticking time bombs.
You know, we used to be like, all right, if I had a problem with someone, we would iron it out.
And it was like, OK, that negative energy came out today.
You have these kids that, you know, on top of like video games and all kinds of stuff, they build up these these this anger.
And then also they just don't have feelings toward anybody.
You knew that when you had a fistfight with somebody, you might have hurt somebody or you got hurt.
And you started realizing, yeah, you know, it hurts to get punched, you know, in the face.
And also sometimes you feel bad punching somebody in the face.
So that interaction kind of like I felt allowed us to let out that energy.
And you didn't hear all the cases of these people wanted to hurt a lot of people.
You kind of just let that out, you know, different times.
I wish we could bring some of that back to let kids understand that it's OK to feel mad at somebody.
And, you know, it's not good to fight, but sometimes it is good to fight because you kind of leave it out there without weapons and all that stuff.
Because when I was growing up, maybe a fistfight was a fistfight.
You know, there was maybe somebody would pull out a knife.
And that was very rare. But again, I'm kind of aging myself to a point where, you know, I'm 54 going to be 55 this year.
But it was a good time growing up for me in the 70s and 80s.
You know, it really was. I would never.
I wish all the kids could grow up like that. You know, we didn't have people getting killed.
We didn't have people doing some diabolical things they're doing today.
You know, and I don't think even if there was the access to weapons back then that people would do such things.
They just wasn't, you know. So, again, it goes back to our upbringing, the way we're brought up.
And also, I think the respect factor was very huge.
You know, was everybody growing up in as far as I can remember, 70s and 80s was respect.
There was a lot of respect. And for me, a lot of that came from my parents.
Also, again, the martial arts and playing soccer, you know, as a team, you respected your teammates, you respected other teams.
And the competitive edge was something that was big. You wanted to be good at what you did.
And that came from hard work. And again, it comes back to the basis, hard work and respect.
So the martial arts was something for me that was was immense because it really did teach me a lot of good things.
Yeah, I found even to this day, I still do jiu-jitsu and then do, you know, kickboxing once in a while.
It is really hard to even get road rage after you've been training for a couple of hours, kicking, punching, you know, all that stuff.
So even in my garage next door, I have a hundred and fifty pound heavy bag.
And, you know, there's been times in my life, I mean, I'm divorced now where things have happened and just wailing on that
and inanimate object that you're not hurting, that is not going to sue you, that you can just physically exude that emotion.
Once you're done, you're done. Like you said, versus you have this kind of detached, suppressed emotion.
And now you have access to a weapon that can create a very, very dangerous scenario where if that same kid's energy had just been channeled
into an outlet that would leave them physically and mentally exhausted, you know, they wouldn't be in prison and people wouldn't be dead.
Yeah, and it's true. You know, and we'll talk about this a little bit later with the PTSD,
that physical negative energy to be allowed to be, you know, put in an area, it makes a huge difference.
Later for me, it did. You know, my PTSD was anger.
I had to learn how to live with it and how to take that negative energy and put it somewhere.
And I think if we educate people, which Michael and me really strive to do in the book Sunrise Through the Darkness
with exercises Michael has in there, is to really teach people that, you know, you can actually take over whatever darkness
you're going through, whether it's alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence.
If you're the person doing the domestic violence to PTSD, to be able to control that, there's no excuses.
It's a matter of you wanting to do that. You know what I mean?
You know, I wish I could have done jiu-jitsu because of my injuries. There's just no way I can do it.
But, you know, going back then, I mean, I grew up in a time where it was like, hey, what style is the best?
You know, kung fu, karate, this, that, you know, and looking back now, you look at, well, if you knew jiu-jitsu,
you'd beat everybody, you know, but on a one-on-one.
And but again, I think it's something that I see with some of my friends who do jiu-jitsu.
They get their kids in it. It just instills so much confidence in these children.
Again, it makes them understand they're their own safe space and they learn so much.
So, you know, I always encourage people get your kids involved in anything,
whether it be martial arts, soccer, football, get them involved in something that becomes an obsession for them.
And it gives them also an outlet to allow negative things to go out.
But more importantly, to love something, because if you love something,
that changes your perspective in life that you don't want to be hurting things.
You want to create good things. Beautiful.
Well, you mentioned going into the Navy when you were the high school age.
Was that your career aspiration to join the military or was there something else in mind?
Well, you know what? My thing, I didn't really know what I wanted to do.
But as I went through my high school years, I just really had a love for this country and what it had given my parents.
And I wanted to serve. I was going to end up going to college,
but I also, too, wanted to take advantage of the GI Bill.
And so my dad wanted me to go straight to college.
And I said, you know that I want to be able to give back to this country and at the same time, help my parents.
You know, they were hardworking people.
I can't complain. Always had a roof over my head, clothes on my back, food on the table.
They paid for many, many years of my sister and me going to Catholic school, private school.
You know, that's how much it meant to them of our education.
But I just felt that I just wanted to serve this country.
So I joined the U.S. Navy in 1986, went off to boot camp in Chicago, Illinois,
where it was very cold during the winter there, was blessed to be put on a amphibious ship,
which I didn't even know is called the Gator Navy, which we the USS LPH 10 Tripoli.
We carried Marines. I learned a lot while I was in the military.
I got to see 11 different countries and I was blessed because, you know, to see those 11 different countries,
I got to meet many different cultures.
And I always say one of the things that I learned was that people are people no matter where you go.
You know, they have the same dreams and aspirations as many of us do.
You know, they want a good job. They want a good life.
They want to see their kids grow up and get married.
They want the best for their country and they're proud of their country as they should be.
And so that really educated me a lot.
I think the military is a great, great educational place to be.
You grow up real quick, you know, at 18 years old, there's no mommy, daddy to take care of you.
You have to take care of your own bills.
You realize that when you spend your first paycheck, you're broken.
For me, I would be on the ship during the weekend doing nothing.
And then you start getting smart learning how to budget things, learning responsibility.
And one of the things that I learned the most of was, you know,
after going through those 11 different countries is every time we pulled back into San Diego,
I just knew this was the greatest country on earth, as well as all my counterparts around me, you know.
It's just because the opportunities we have here, you know, again, 11 different countries, great places.
But some of those countries, women don't have rights, you know,
you as a man still can't do certain things if you're not of a certain background or certain family.
You know, there's no excuses here.
Yes, will you run into obstacles in the United States?
Absolutely. That's just the world.
But at the same time, if you press forward, you can overcome so much.
And, you know, there's nobody can argue with me because I can, for every argument you have,
I have an example of a person, whether they're Black, Hispanic, white, non-educated, educated, that have made it.
You know, there's those examples out there that will prove you wrong that the word I can't does not exist.
It's I can in this country.
And that's one of the things that the military most of all taught me was that I can do whatever I want in this way.
When I put my soul, my body, you know, my mind into it in the United States, you can be whatever it is that you want to be.
I agree 100 percent.
I mean, I'm an English immigrant that became a firefighter paramedic.
So there we go. I love this place.
Two years into your military career, sadly, the fire service recognized Hackensack for one of the biggest disasters that killed multiple fire fires, which was the Ford fire.
So you were deployed.
Was there an impact?
What was your kind of perspective of that in your hometown?
I was actually in San Diego and the news came on.
And, you know, again, now I'm on the other side of the country and I actually went to high school with one of the firefighters that passed.
And that that that was heavy to see Hackensack, New Jersey, you know, and I'm in San Diego.
That was hurtful. And it just dawned on you that, you know, life is short.
You know, so you try to make the best of it.
And, you know, again, those four those firefighters we lost there, you know, it kind of hit really hard for me because I went to high school with one of them.
So but again, at the same time, I was doing my part and, you know, I was blessed to, again, have been on a great ship with a great crew of people.
And and again, I came out of those four years learning a lot and going on to what my dream was ever since a child was to become a police officer.
And I was really influenced by the Hackensack Police Department.
They're very paramilitary growing up. They were very sharp looking.
So that was something I was always attracted to, just the paramilitary, the discipline, you know, that also to help people.
You know, that was the one thing my which I talk about in the children's book.
I have immigrant American survivor was I was a child.
I had actually knocked myself out. And I remember when I woke up, there was a Hackensack police officer there and he looked sharp in his uniform.
And I just knew that's what I wanted to be growing up was a police officer.
So after the military, that was my focus was to go to school and then become a police officer.
So walk me through that. You transition out the Navy.
What is your law enforcement path look like?
Well, in the beginning, I came out in 1990.
I had just got off the ship of the USS Tripoli.
The war started in 91.
My ship was the only one to get hit by a mine during that first Gulf War and the only one to see combat.
But I had gone off just prior to the war. I did my four years enlistment and came out,
went to Bergen Community College to start study criminal criminal justice.
And then up in the New York, New Jersey area, especially New Jersey, the municipalities up here, the towns were very good at paying police officers.
They still are. And it was very competitive to get on there.
It took me six years to become a cop. During that time, I got my education.
I met my beautiful wife, Allison. We ended up getting married, had a little girl named Bianca.
And I remember, you know, working in private security and I was actually going up the ranks in the private sector.
And it was probably my close to my fifth year trying to get on on the job.
And my mother-in-law, Pat, God rest her soul, said to me, hey, you know, you've been trying for a while to become a police officer.
And, you know, you got you're married. My my daughter, you got a little girl.
We were renting a two floor apartment. And I understood where she was coming from.
She was like, you know, maybe it's time to move on. And, you know, you're doing well in this.
Maybe you stay in this and continue to rise in the private sector of security.
And I said, you know, Pat, I understand where you're coming from.
But would you say the same thing to me if I was trying to be a doctor?
Because we know that sometimes it could take you up to 10 years to become a certain type of doctor.
You know, easy six to eight years to become a doctor somewhere along the line.
And she says no. And I said, well, why would you tell me different on my dream?
And why I'm saying this is anybody listening to this podcast is no matter what your dream is,
make sure you don't let anybody deter you from your dream, but most importantly, yourself.
And that's something that I had the support of my wife, Allison.
And there were times I was like, man, maybe I should give up on being a cop.
You know, I'm doing well in the private sector, but in me was still that dream.
And luckily for me, it was less than a year later, I ended up getting called for the
Port Authority Police of New York and New Jersey and went in August of 2000, August 8th of 2000, August 7th, 2000
to the police academy and I attained my dream, you know, and that was a long, long time to become a cop.
And there were times there I almost gave up, but I didn't.
And I finally attained that dream that I had since I was a child.
So what was the academy like for Port Authority?
The kind of training level, but also the fitness standards.
It was it was challenging.
It was challenging for many reasons for me, because at the time I was 33 years old.
So I was a little older and getting on to the Academy.
Also, it's a six month Academy and we were living in Seagirt, New Jersey on the New Jersey State Police military base there.
So it's a military base that the state police use to train their their men and women that go on in state police.
But there's all barracks there.
So we were there. The Port Authority Police, the New Jersey State Police.
You had New Jersey corrections as well.
And it was tougher for me because I had a wife and a child that I had to leave from Monday to Friday.
So for six months, Monday to Friday, I was down at the Academy.
I had to sleep there. So that was challenging for me.
The physical part wasn't bad.
I mean, it was especially for someone who had already been through the military, you know, the running and the push ups and and all that.
That was just your meal ticket to get through.
But being Port Authority, for those that don't know who the Port Authority Police of New York and New Jersey are,
we're a bi-state agency. We're cops in both New York and New Jersey.
We have all the major transportation facilities in New York and New Jersey.
So we have the three major airports, LaGuardia, Kennedy, Newark, as well as Tito Barra Airport.
We have the bridges and the tunnels, the George Washington, the Gothels Bridge, the tunnels.
We have the Lincoln Tunnel, the Holland Tunnel.
We have the bus tunnel in Midtown Manhattan where I was assigned, the World Trade Center, as well as the PATH trains and Port Newark.
So we have all the major transportation facilities in New York and New Jersey.
And it was a unique opportunity for me because with the 26 largest department in the country,
we have various units within the department, not only patrol, but canine, the detective bureau.
You know, we have ESU, which is our SWAC guys.
We have CVI, which is our trucking and checking all the trucks that come through our facilities.
So we have a broad range of jobs within the Port Authority.
So it was a great opportunity for me because I could see myself growing there.
And it was a tough Academy. But you know what?
We bonded there. There was about 77 or 78 of us that graduated in the 100th class.
So we do a Centennial class. So that was a big deal for the Port Authority.
We actually graduated January 19th of 2001 at the World Trade Center at the Marriott, coincidentally.
So I remember graduating that day. It was a very proud moment for me.
After six years of trying, it was a really good feeling to be able to have my wife by my side,
hold my little girl and kind of show her like, you know, no matter what your dream is, you can attain it.
And being sworn in that day, I was an example to her of being able to go for your dreams,
no matter how hard it is, and attain those dreams.
Well, one thing I meant to ask you before, and I just want to make sure we do before we kind of progress on chronologically,
something that was made very apparent to me after 600 plus interviews was a lot of the conversations on mental health
in the first responder professions are targeted at what we see in our career.
And very little is discussed on what happened to us before we ever put that uniform on.
When you look back now, especially after writing the second book and having more of a kind of mental health lens,
were there any elements of your formative years that you would consider contributed to mental health struggles later on?
No, I, you know what? Excuse me.
I've been blessed. I've had a blessed life.
I mean, up to September 11th, the amount of death that I saw was very minimal.
You know, my parents kind of didn't even take me to wakes when I was young.
I remember the first death I can remember was a friend of my Rolando Curious, his grandfather, who I knew past.
You know, of course, in the military was exposed to some more tragedies that happened there,
but nothing that I could say bared on me in a negative way.
For me, basically, my world changed on that Tuesday of September 11th.
So but I think it's something very important to talk about because going into the line of work of first responders or military,
you know, if you're going in with some mental struggles, because again,
I always say there's a difference between mental illness and mental struggles.
And, you know, of course, the jobs that we do, whether it be as first responders in the military,
you know, you're going to find that you're going to find that you're going to have some mental struggles with things that you are,
unfortunately, have to encounter, you know, like the saying goes,
if my mind could just unsee what my eyes saw, my life would be better.
But we're going to see things because of our service and what we do that are going to definitely take a toll on you.
I don't care how tough you are, you know, if it's not the gory stuff,
it could be just seeing a fellow first responder or military person injured or what they're going through.
So there's just it's so it's a cobweb, you know, when you talk about the mental struggles, there's just there's no one set thing.
It's just things come from all different directions.
Things affect people differently.
And I've learned that through meeting people and talking to many first responders and military people over the years on what bothers them,
you know, when it might be things that you feel like, hey, that doesn't bother me, but it does bother somebody else.
And I think the way it's very important is that we take care of each other by listening and not judging other people
because of what might be bothering them, might not bother you.
You know, it's just we're all different. We're wired differently.
So things affect us in many different ways. But leading up to for me, no, I was mentally strong and that came from my parents, first of all.
And then my experiences within the martial arts, within my soccer, within the military, I was blessed to have a very strong base.
And that's something again, I go back to the beginning.
It starts in the family. That's where we start, you know, with the foundation of who our children going to be giving them a good, strong foundation, both physically and mentally.
Beautiful. Yeah. I mean, there are people that report that.
And I think that is that is it.
There is a spectrum of early lives from all four that I've had on here all the way through to to people.
And I would count myself in this group. Yes, there was some traumatic events when I was younger.
But the love and the support structure and just all the things that you would identify as healthy coping mechanisms now were just kind of intrinsically and built into into my upbringing.
And so I think the important conversation with that is if you are one of those people, as you said,
if you were doing well, it's important that you create an environment for other people to be vulnerable, to ask for help and then help lift them up.
And some of the things that you had in your toolbox that totally by chance, you just were born into that family at that time,
that you understand that you're one of the people that gets to raise other people up rather than, as you said, judging people.
What's wrong with you? I'm fine. I can see this stuff. Stop being a pussy.
You know, but conversely, all right today, for some reason, my shoulders are strong.
You know, lean on me. Let me help you on this one.
Yeah. And it's important to people understand that, you know, if you're asking for help, absolutely, people should be there to help you.
But also not to make it a crutch. And I go back to what my mom said.
You know, I don't want to hear that you're a minority or not strong enough, you're not smart enough or you're having an issue.
You have to work as well. You have to give.
So if you're somebody out there who's struggling mentally, understand that, yes, people are there to help you, but you also have to give.
They can't just carry. Don't let people carry you. Let people help you walk.
But don't put all the effort on them. You give more than what they're giving you to get to your goal.
As I always say, the sunrise. So I stress that the people understand that people should be there for you.
But also you should be giving as much as you can from yourself to be able to reach your goals.
Now, how familiar with were you with the World Trade Center in that area in the first few months of your probation?
Not much at all. I had been down there for three different protests.
So I didn't know the buildings. I was very fortunate.
Well, as we get into the story that I had a good boss and Sergeant McLaughlin that had helped set up the security after 93 bombing.
But I did not know the buildings well. And that's one of the things that I was first taught when I got to the bus terminal because the bus
from was in Midtown Manhattan. It's the busiest.
It's the largest bus terminal in the United States, actually busiest bus terminal in the world.
And one of the things that we were taught right from the get-go is you need to learn these buildings like the back of your hand
because as a police officer, whether it be at the facilities we work at or if you're a city cop or wherever you work,
you need to learn where you're working and know it.
You have to knowledge, knowledge, knowledge.
And that's one of the things that really I learned from the military is know your job, know what you're doing.
Educate yourself, you know, just because you're a cop and you're working just one area, you should be able to educate yourself every single day.
Learn something new. That's why training is important.
I mean, I was a sponge for training. Any training they gave us the bus terminal I took.
I didn't care if I would qualify for it as silly as it might have been.
I took it. You know, I tell people being educated, learning things is so important.
It's going to not only translate in what you do, but as you grow in rank,
you're going to be able to offer that knowledge to other people who are following you.
And that's something that I learned in the military from a second class post to me, Darren Smeback,
something that stuck with me that actually was pivotal for me in volunteering to go into the World Trade Center was
follow somebody into a bad situation that knows what they're doing
because your chances of coming out of that bad situation are higher with following somebody that knows what they're doing.
And that's something that stuck with me since the military is always really follow people that know what they're doing
because that's really going to be instrumental in succeeding in whatever mission you're doing or whatever goals you're going on to.
And it was something that proved to be pivotal in me volunteering, but also with my survival.
So I had a FDNY firefighter on the show, Mike Dugan, and he was at the initial the first bombing in 93.
And then he actually wasn't there at 9-11 on shift when it happened, but he went to the site right.
After what was John telling you about the 93 bombing and when that was there any takeaways prior to this event that you discussed with him as your mentor?
You know, no, Sergeant John McLaughlin was someone that I respected.
He was one of those leaders that led by example.
So you have to understand that the Port Authority, we have different shifts.
I was working day tours, but we'd always have different lieutenants, different sergeants.
So again, graduated January 19th of 2001 at the World Trade Center at the Marriott was assigned to the bus terminal.
I enjoyed my time, you know, those months leading up to September 11th.
I really learned a lot from senior cops.
I was a guy that wanted to work.
So I was luckily enough thrown into a squad of senior guys that were workers and taught me a lot.
And I had the opportunity to work with Sergeant John McLaughlin many, many times.
And I remember just him being a decisive person, went to different calls, including some gun calls.
He's very authoritative, knowledgeable.
I remember one of my first drug arrests.
He helped me learn how to voucher the evidence, took the time to teach me and teach me how why it's important.
Just report writing and how to be professional because you don't want the bad guy to get off on your technicality because you weren't educated enough or knew how to write up a report properly.
But one of the things I remember about him was having lunch with him one day.
He actually came in the back and what's called our reserve room, our break room and sat down.
And there was something on TV with I want to say, I say, yes, you know, these guys were repelling.
And and he said, oh, I did that.
And that wasn't something normal for him.
He wasn't very open. But I said, oh, you did that.
Sarge is like, yeah, I was ESU before becoming a sergeant.
And he kind of opened up a little bit that, yeah, you know, he did the swatting with our department.
That stayed in the back of my head.
And again, over the months, I went to different calls.
So that was something that stuck with me, especially on September 11th.
You know, he had was someone that I came to respect and someone that really fit the bill of what that second class bossman,
boss mate told me in the military was follow somebody in that knows what they're doing.
He was somebody that showed me he knew what he's doing.
Unfortunately, you know, there were other sergeants that I work with that did not fit that bill, you know,
were promoted and maybe promoted and weren't shouldn't have been promoted, to be honest with you.
But he was one that earned his stripes.
I mean, he was a 19 year veteran at the Port Authority Police.
So he was somebody that really respected it and and was smart enough to remember to follow on any situation.
So I was blessed to have him as a boss.
Beautiful. Well, let's talk about that day then, you know,
lead me into the beginning of the shift and then how that unfolded for you, John and Dominic.
Excuse me. I'll cut that pause out. So Dominic as well.
Yeah, I mean, September 11th started off like a normal day.
I had just bought my first home six weeks before the attack.
My wife, Allison, and my daughter, Bianca, we were enjoying our new home.
My wife was actually pregnant with our second little girl.
She was seven months pregnant.
Got up that morning, work day tour, start off normal day, you know, got ready for work in the morning,
working seven to threes, went into the bedroom, kissed Allison goodbye, kissed her belly.
Goodbye. Went into the other room, kissed my little four year old Bianca goodbye and literally skipped down the stairs to my truck,
drove 20 minutes from Clifton, New Jersey to Midtown Manhattan to the bus terminal, went through Lincoln Tunnel.
And for me, you know, it was never a job. It was just what I love to do.
And, you know, something I always share with everybody is you never outgrow high school.
Get to the bus terminal. Beautiful day.
Go downstairs and the locker room is just like high school.
Guys are busting chops, you know, and I could say this.
I don't care what line of work you're in. You could be on the president on down.
There's incidents that happen during the week every day that you're just like, man, it's just like high school, you know, BS.
But went downstairs and put on our uniforms, went upstairs to what's what's what's called local where we're given our assignments for the day.
My post was post three five out on the corner of 42nd, 8th Avenue and went out to post.
And, you know, normal day for us at the bus terminal in Midtown Manhattan is called in the morning and in the afternoon is called the rush.
So in the morning, people coming in the midtown Manhattan and the afternoon, they're leaving.
But in the mornings, they're coming in from upstate New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, other parts of Manhattan.
And so it's thousands of people just coming through our bus terminals.
And we're strategically placed so we can be there to make sure everybody's safe.
Stop any crime, render aid, give information.
And I was just standing there looking at the doorways from the building I was standing in front of.
And there was an awning above me. And I remember just looking at thousands of people coming out.
And I happen to look to my right. And just when you step out toward the corner, 42nd, 8th, outside that awning, Sergeant Ross,
one of our sergeants, along with two other officers, Pat McNerney and Sanchez were standing there.
And I just remember seeing Sergeant Ross pointing in the air, following something.
And I couldn't hear anything. You know, I looked over to the corner of 42nd, 8th Avenue, which is a large intersection.
And I saw a shadow just come over and cover the whole intersection for a second.
And he was following it. But I didn't pay any mind to it.
I just went back to doing my job. A couple of minutes later, our radios crackled and asked for all our officers to 840,
which is our code for every officer come back to the police desk, which is something that only happened maybe one time before.
So it was kind of rare. And especially at, again, this moment in the morning where it's the rush of people, you know, thousands of people.
So I start hunting across the street, across 41st to the other building between 41st and 40th.
And I met up with my fellow officer, Dominic Pizzullo. Dominic had graduated with me from the 100th class in the Academy just nine months prior.
And he was a high school teacher, actually, that came over to become a Port Authority police officer and just a great guy.
I mean, his kids would ask him to come back to be a high school teacher. That's how much they loved him.
And but in those nine months leading up to September 11th, he learned what it meant to be part of the Thin Blue Line being a cop.
And I remember we're walking back and I go by Will, but he used to call me Willie, like my mom does.
And he was just such a great guy. I never bothered to correct him, say, call me Will.
But he would call me Willie. And we're walking back from 8th Avenue all the way back to 9th Avenue where a police desk was located.
And I remember him just saying, man, something bad must have really happened for them to call us all back.
We had no idea what was going on. We start getting back to the police desk, came around the corner of the police desk.
Our police desk is pretty high. And I remember walking around the corner and I see the sergeants, the lieutenants, and I could just see Sergeant McLaughlin.
I don't know why I fixated on him, but I could see concern in his face. And that kind of like said to me, man, something bad must be going on.
We continue back into what's called again, our reserve room, our break room, came around the back corner and we had a big TV set back there in New York.
And that was the one New York News Channel was on. And all we see is the World Trade Center, both towers, with Tower One with a big black gaping hole and then smoke coming out of it.
And right away, one of the things we were taught as Port Authority police officers is that we're going to do the same job as the NYPD, as well as our counterparts on the New Jersey side, the state police and all the local municipalities.
And what we learned from that was we were attacked in 1993 and all of our facilities are target rich environments.
Because if you think about it, if you go as a terrorist to hurt as many people as you can, where are you going to go?
You're going to go to an airport, a bridge, a tunnel. And that's us. That's who we are.
And right away, you started realizing, wow, we were taught any kind of is actually happening.
And we had a phone and at the time we had pay phones turned around. I grabbed the pay phone and tried to call my wife, Allison, because during those nine months we had shootings.
We had stabbings. We had a lot of gang activity where I worked.
And if something made the news, I always try to call and let it know, hey, I'm OK.
I luckily got through that morning because the phone lines were really tied up from what I understand today.
So I got through to her and she was asking me, hey, what's going on? I said, I don't know. It looks like a plane has flown into the World Trade Center.
And our concern was we had two mutual friends that worked up there. Bill Dakota got racist.
So he was the the time the Port Authority director of aviation, as well as a friend of ours, mother that we knew up there.
And she was asking about them. And I said, you know, I don't know.
It just happened. And we're kind of chit chatting with our inspector, Inspector Fields, who's our commanding officer at the bus terminal, came in the back and said, hey, we commandeered a bus on 9th Avenue.
We're going to load some of you guys on there. We're going to go down and help our brothers and sisters at the World Trade Center because the World Trade Center at the time was owned and operated by the Port Authority.
And we had Port Authority police officers stationed there.
So at that point, I hung up on Allison and she actually reminded me later that that's the first time I ever hung up the phone without saying I love you.
But my my thought pattern was, hey, man, we got a job to do. So I hung up the phone myself, Dominic Pizzullo, as well as another senior officer, Michael Robles.
I remember we didn't even wait for our names to get called. We just went.
We get on this bus and there's about 20 of us. Sergeant McLaughlin gets into a police suburban along with Inspector Fields and other sergeant sergeant Feely.
And usually it takes you about could take you 20 minutes to half hour to get downtown, depending on traffic.
And but that morning we flew Sergeant McLaughlin was leading the way.
We're on the bus. And again, going back to high school, guys are kind of talking. We still really don't know what's going on.
And guys are like, man, it has to be just an accident.
But again, I tell people, look, even 2001, the technology was so advanced that there was no way an airline was just going to accidentally slam into a building.
So on the way down, you know, we're kind of chit chat.
And it was about two city blocks back where the bus went silent.
We were now, I believe, on West Broadway heading down through the village and two city blocks back from Vesey Street.
And we look out the right side of the bus and there's a person in the middle of the street being tended to by an FDM Hawaiian ambulance.
And this is two city block back. There's a piece of concrete laying next to this guy and something hit this guy and he looked dead to us.
I mean, there was a lot of blood. And that's when the bus went silent. Everything got serious.
We kind of went one more block up and from Vesey and we started unloading off the bus.
And I remember just stepping down and thinking to myself, we're at war because I mean, it looked like Armageddon.
There were papers, as you people see from the footage flying everywhere, dust everywhere, gray.
We stepped off the bus and I remember some of the sergeants, lieutenants just saying, hey, stand by.
We're going to wait here to see what we're going to be assigned to do.
And I mean, it's just something I hope that nobody ever has to see ever, especially in the United States on US soil.
But, you know, the war started that day. They brought the fight to us.
And I remember just standing there in awe, you know, and, you know, again, you know, regular macho guy, right.
Thinking tough, been in the Navy, felt that was the tough guy.
But, man, I felt so small and just like I was standing in front of the ocean.
You know, here we are with our uniforms on, our gum belts on and these two humongous buildings are on fire.
And as I'm looking up, I could see tower one on fire and I'm looking at the second building in the corner of it was on fire from my angle.
So in my mind, I thought, OK, the plane hit, it deflected some debris and caught the second tower, the corner one on fire.
Little did we know that when we were around from mid-time and had the downtime, the second plane hit.
So I didn't know there was a big gaping hole on the second tower.
And I remember Ronnie Delmar, one of our senior officers who had been at the 93 bombing yelled, look, look, they're jumping.
And I remember looking up into this big black gaping hole and I saw people jumping, you know, I saw people jumping, holding hands, people jumping by themselves.
And they would fall down and then disappear behind building six.
And this just kept happening. And all I could think about every time I saw somebody's jump was that somebody's father, mother, brother, sister, you know, it's just like taking a pebble and throw it to the water.
It's a ripple effect. And I just felt, man, just so many family members are being lost right now.
We got to do something right. And that kind of had us all mesmerized.
And that's when Sergeant McLaughlin came running toward us. He had parked the police vehicle, the Suburban up on the corner of Church and Vesey.
But Vesey Street was like no man's land. It was just destruction.
I mean, there were just pieces of playing pieces of debris. Unfortunately, human remains.
It was just it was bad. And Sergeant McLaughlin runs up and says, hey, I need volunteers. I need new guys that know how to use Scott Airpaks because as portatory police officers, again, we have a little major transportation facilities.
We're the first responders at the airport. So we're cross training firefighting as well as medical. So we have to know what firefighters do. You know, and that's one thing that I didn't like about the job.
I respect firefighters and I don't want to be one. I feel more comfortable around a bunch of bad guys than I do fire.
But, you know, myself, Dominic Pizzullo and another fellow officer, Antonio Rodriguez, who had four years on the NYPD, had come over to the Port Authority and just literally got back from vacation.
Worked in his first day tour, volunteered. All three of us graduated together at the hundredth class. And we said, you know, Sarge, we know how to use Scott Airpaks. We just graduated. And he's like, all right, let's go.
So we became a team of four and we started running toward the buildings. And I got to be honest with you.
Again, always felt myself as being a brave individual, a man. But I was scared. I was scared. And as we're running, there is a sense of, man, there's only four of us running toward these buildings.
And I look behind, there's cops, firefighters are all staging. I knew they would have a job to do. But at that moment, it's just us.
And I remember looking at Dominic and Antonio and I could see concern in their face. I'm sure they were scared, too. But at the same time, I thought, you know what, you took an oath to serve and protect and people are dependent on you.
And that's what I try to share with people today is, you know, where does courage come from? It comes from overcoming your fears. And it's something that is within all men and women.
You know, it's OK to be scared. But when you take an oath, when you decide that this is the job I'm going to do and people depend on you, you have to find that courage, even in the midst of fear.
You know, and I found that that day by just saying, hey, you got to move forward. You got to help these people. And we got to the side of building five.
Sergeant McLaughlin told me to take some of our equipment, our hats, our PR 24s, which are our billy clubs at the time and our memo books and just run up to the police suburban
where he had parked it and drop off the equipment and come back inside the buildings and meet them in an e room, the first e room.
E rooms are emergency rooms that are set up within the World Trade Center for first responders to be able to get equipment.
And at the time, for those that don't know what the World Trade Center looked like or was, it were two huge buildings connected by what's called the concourse level.
The concourse level had shops and restaurants, again, e rooms had escalators that take you down to the subway and the path trains.
And again, it would lead you to each lobby of each major tower, tower one and tower two, where you would access the elevator banks to go up into the to these towers.
I ran up the street, came around the corner and noticed that the Chevy Suburban had taken a big piece of concrete.
And I realized, hey, dummy, there's stuff falling from above, because again, it's it's really weird how your mind works.
And those of us have been in combat or been in the situation, you kind of understand what I'm saying.
Just like your mind's trying to absorb everything that's happening.
You know what's going on, but it doesn't seem real.
And when I came around the corner and saw the concrete, that's when it's like, wow, there's stuff falling from above.
And I threw the equipment in the in the truck and I kind of looked down Church Street and I just saw, I mean, hundreds of people being herded out like cattle.
Again, not knowing that the tower had been hit.
So come back, hook up with the team. We put on our Scott air packs.
Dominic and me were bigger guys. There was no bunker coats to put on.
Antonio looked like what he should look like. He had a bunker coat, a helmet, Scott air pack.
Me and Dominic, we threw our Scott air packs on, our helmets on. We looked like, you know, firefighters with guns on our side.
We checked each other's Scott air packs and we promised each other at that point.
No matter what happens, we do not leave each other.
And Sergeant McLaughlin says, come on, we're going downstairs. We're going out of the police desks.
And again, I always laugh at this, you know, talk about following somebody that you trust.
You know, I knew there was a raging fire above us and we're not supposed to get on elevators, but we got on an elevator, went down one level and we came into the police desk.
And what's unique is if you ever saw the French documentary of the French filmmakers, they're actually in there with us.
You don't see me but or the guys, but you do see Sergeant McLaughlin.
You know, later years we found out, wow, these guys were in there with us because they ended up hooking up with some of our reportatory police detectives.
So at that point, Sergeant McLaughlin said, hey, grab a mail cart, start getting more equipment.
So we grab this canvas mail cart and we start putting in Scott air packs and axes and lights.
And I'm pushing this cart. We leave the police desk, which was again surreal because our detectives had actually brought a piece of the plane in part of the fuselage as evidence.
And again, your mind's like, OK, I know a plane has hit the World Trade Center, but still, why is there a piece of the plane at the police desk?
To see this is just I think it just really goes back to just being human beings that these things we shouldn't be seeing at such tragedy level, but it was happening.
And so we push the cart back onto the elevator, come upstairs and we come out into the concourse area.
And I'm pushing this cart. You know, people ask me, you know, what's the one thing you saw that day?
And I know it sounds crazy, but the one thing I saw was a lot of love. I saw a lot of love.
I saw a lot of people coming out of Tower One in a single fine line, helping each other. Total strangers.
Every nationality, you could probably every political group, every group of who loves who, they were just helping each other.
Human beings helping each other. I saw a black man with a white man carrying a blonde woman with a severe cut on her leg.
And they were in a single fine line going. And you got to understand, there are people who had passed, there are people yelling, there are people injured.
And these people were just helping each other. And I thought to myself, if these civilians can be this brave, us in uniform, we just need to be three notches above them.
So we started coming to an intersection where we could have went straight to Tower One or made a left and went to Tower Two.
We bumped into another crew of Port Authority police officers. Their sergeant started talking to our sergeant.
I can't remember all of them. The only one I kind of fixated on was the officer pushing their cart. They had a cart just like us.
And his name was Warren Stewart. He actually graduated with us. He had four years on the NYPD also.
Great guy. Had his first baby while we were in the Academy with his wife.
And, you know, his baby was kind of a big joy for us in the Academy because, again, we're there six months, Monday to Friday, away from our families.
We had some people who had lost loved ones while we were in there. And his little girl being born was a was a shining light.
And I remember him and me just talking. He was assigned the path out of the Academy.
Again, a lot of us went to the bus terminal. So it was good to see a friendly face.
We're chit chatting with them. And then, you know, my sergeant said, let's go. And their sergeant said, let's go.
And I remember Warren just pushing away saying, be safe. And we punched hands.
And that's the last time I would see him and the rest of those officers, because they were actually just they were never found.
You know, their bodies were unfortunately were just pulverized, if you will.
So but they continued on and we continued on and halfway down this hallway leading toward tower two, we bumped into another officer, Christopher Amoroso.
Christopher, there's a famous picture of him by a daily news photographer saving a lady. And he had an injury under his left eye.
He had recently been transferred from the bus terminal to the World Trade Center.
And he was one of my OJT officers. And he was the kind of guy we have a saying, I'll go through a door with you.
That was the kind of guy Chris was. You trusted him with your life.
And he came up to us and said, hey, Sarge, can I join you guys? So I said, yes, join us.
And he threw a Scott air pack on. I remember all the say, hey, are you OK? You know, we see your injuries like, man, we just got to get a lot of people out of here.
And that was the kind of ethic and the people I was surrounded by that day, just people that were willing to put their lives on the line to get people home.
So we continued on and we stopped in front of the entrance of the lobby to two.
And excuse me again, Sergeant McLaughlin said, stay with the cart. Rest of you guys come downstairs. We're going down to get more equipment, another E room.
So I was by Ben and Jerry shop right there and I was looking into the lobby of two while the rest of the team went downstairs.
And there was really not too many people in the lobby where we were in this hallway.
And I remember just looking to the lobby of two and I saw people who had passed. I saw people injured.
I could see our cops shooting out the windows on the other side toward Liberty Street to get more people out.
And I remember it was just a difficult moment because at that point I could see out and I could see stuff falling and hear stuff falling.
And I remember just concrete, the sound of concrete hitting the street.
But then, unfortunately, I could see, you know, and hear human bodies coming down.
And that was tough because I kept hearing that again. And again, somebody's family member was dying.
And I remember at that point just standing there and another officer walked up to me from my left coming from the command center of two was Bruce Reynolds.
He was a port authority police officer, someone I only knew because growing up in Hackensack, New Jersey, we have what's called the Bergen record.
It's a county newspaper. Fort Lee is where the George Washington bridge begins on the Jersey side, of course, goes into New York toward the Bronx.
But unfortunately, people use the George Washington bridge to end their lives.
And some of the port authority police officers from time to time are able to stop people and save them from jumping.
And he had made the paper. So I kind of recognize him. Didn't know him even though we're on the same job because it's a big police department.
But he walked up to me. He was wearing a Scott Airpack. He was sweating.
And he said, hey, you know, Reynolds, George Washington Bridge, GW, I said, MN, BT, bus terminal.
And, you know, we chit chat a little bit. And again, I needed that encouraging words from a senior officer.
He's like, you know, a kid, it's going to be a long day, but we have a lot of people home.
And I remember him starting to walk away as the rest of the team started coming up.
He said, be safe. I said, be safe. And that'd be the last time I saw him because he actually perished right where I saw him last.
He was heading toward over to the command center of two. They end up finding him the next February.
So at least I got to see these two gentlemen before they passed and be able to tell their story.
But at that point, we loaded more equipment up.
Sergeant McLaughlin at that point said, let's go. We're heading to Tower One because that's all we knew was in distress was Tower One.
I started pushing the cart. But then Antonio Rodriguez said to me, Jimeno, let me push the car,
because if you're tired when we get to where we're going, you're not going to be any use to us.
And I said, well, in your mind, you're like, hey, man, just teamwork, right?
No, no, didn't think anything of it. So we switched positions.
He now was behind the mail cart at the six o'clock position.
And Christopher Amoroso was to his nine o'clock position.
And Sergeant McLaughlin was at the eleven o'clock position of the mail cart.
I was directly at noon. And Dominic Pizzullo was at the one o'clock position.
And we're walking now back down this hallway where we came from, because we walk back down this hallway, make a left and go to Tower One.
Halfway down this hallway, we got stopped by some firefighters and EMT. Sergeant McLaughlin was talking to them.
At that point, the radio went off. The inspector was asking where we're at.
Sergeant McLaughlin was talking to him.
And we happened to stop, which is a miracle, next to a doorway that led to a freight elevator to our right.
At that point, we're standing there waiting for the sergeant.
And I go back to the same. I can't stress this enough. Follow somebody into a bad situation that knows what they're doing.
And that's when we heard a humongous boom from above us.
I turn around and look from where we came from, looking into the lobby of two.
And it's all glass. So you can see in there and a fireball the size of my house just comes through.
And I remember just standing there, just everything shaking. I'm holding onto my helmet, not knowing what to do.
And Sergeant McLaughlin saw what I didn't see, which was as the building is coming down, a wall of debris is coming toward us.
And again, with his experience, what he thought it was, was a car bomb.
You know, I only found out about that like two years after the attack when we actually talked,
because we never really talked about what happened until like almost two years later.
And he thought, hey, what are they doing in the Middle East? They blow something up.
They let the first responders come in, blow them up again.
So he right away said, run, run toward the elevator, which I had no idea.
I just knew this man said, run, you run.
And so Dominic started running down this toward this hallway. I started running behind Dominic.
I could look behind me. I could see Sergeant McLaughlin running behind me.
And when I hit that hallway, it's probably the first time that I said to myself, Will, what did you get yourself into?
Because I remember seeing the lights flicker. I know today what the brown stuff is, which is the building coming down.
And I just started running. I started following Dominic for a split second.
As crazy as it sounds, I thought I saw light in front of me.
And I thought to myself, run toward the light to save yourself.
Now, mind you, at this moment, we're literally between both towers underground.
And I remember we don't leave each other. So I saw Dominic starting to turn to the left.
I started following Dominic. That's when something big picked me up and just threw me on my back.
Before I knew it, I was on my back in a 45 degree angle. And there's just debris coming raining down on us.
The way I equated is like to a million freight trains just coming down on me.
And I remember grabbing for my radio, which my lifeline, and I grabbed with my left hand onto my left lapel, to my mic.
And I'm yelling 813, which is our code for officer down. Everybody come. I'm yelling 813, 813, officers down. Please help.
We're at the World Trade Center. Something hits my hand after I talked three or four times and I lost that.
So all I could do was grab onto my helmet for dear life. And mind you, I had a chin strap on.
Something hit my helmet so hard it literally ripped it off. And at that point, I just covered up with both hands.
And it was just constant pain and just constant debris hitting us. And everything went dark and everything went quiet.
I was in the dark for I don't know how long. And then I could start seeing light come in from a hole above me about 30 feet up.
And it was really gray in there. And when I could finally see, all I see is this humongous piece of concrete,
which today I know is an actual wall that fell on me on my left side, came from under my left armpit, down the center of my chest, and covered my whole leg.
My right leg was up in a 90 degree angle, but my foot was stuck. And when I looked to my left, I could see Dominic right next to me in a push-up position, down to my waist.
And I could kind of see we were in a small little cavern and just concrete all around us.
Sergeant McLaughlin was actually buried beyond my feet on the other side of like literally concrete. It was I couldn't see him.
All I heard was him say, hey, sound off. He is now buried in a fetal position beyond my feet. And on the initial collapse, he was actually just stuck.
And he says, sound off. So I said, Jimeno. Dominic said, Pizzullo. And we didn't hear the rest of the guys.
And I don't remember even the shock, being in shock, but I know I was, but I was still functioning.
And right away, I for the next couple minutes, I just kept yelling Antonio Rodriguez's nickname, which was A-Rod and Chris Amoroso's name, just call him Chris.
And I kept saying, A-Rod, Chris, A-Rod, Chris. And after a little bit, you know, Dominic said, Willie, they're in a better place.
And at that point, we realized we just lost two fellow officers, two Americans, two fathers, two dads. And that was really tough.
Sergeant McLaughlin said, you know, what's everybody's condition? I said, I'm stuck.
And I'm starting to feel a lot of pain because at this point, I think the shock is wearing off.
And I'm starting to feel like, felt like a hundred Chevy Suburbans on my left side, just the pressure on my leg.
And Dominic says, hey, I'm OK, but I'm stuck. So literally, this wall hits me.
All the rest of the stuff compacts Dominic to my left. It took a little bit, but he was able to shimmy out of his Scott Airpack and literally had to crawl over my face because it was only about from my face above me, maybe 18 inches.
And he had to literally slide across my face and into the right here. There was maybe a couple feet where there was a little bit of an opening. He couldn't even stand up.
And at that point, you know, he looks up and he sees this hole like I see and there's light coming in.
So he says to Sergeant McLaughlin, Sergeant, I think I could go up and out of this hole and get help.
Sergeant McLaughlin says, no, you need to get Jimeno out and you and Jimeno get me out because it's probably a debris field above us.
You know, again, we have no idea that the first building has collapsed on us.
So and I got to be honest with you, I share this because again, everybody always thinks that, you know, watch the movies and cops and military people and everybody just does everything the way you think it's going to happen.
And I think anybody who's been in combat or in a type of tragic situation understands that just things don't work out like you think.
Things go haywire. Things go left, right, upside down.
And Dominic says, hey, you know, I can go get help. And we're still human beings, you know, and he says, Willie, I got a wife at home.
I said, bro, I got a wife at home. And Sergeant McLaughlin says, you got to get him in a while.
And, you know, that human aspect of Dominic came over like, I can go out and get help and save myself and save the team.
But the sergeant was very tactically thinking. And he goes, you know, if you leave us, you'll never find us again.
And that was a tough situation. I got to tell you, honestly, it was tough. We kind of discussed things down there.
But in the end, Dominic did what I felt was the right thing. And he said, you know, I'm not going to leave you.
I'm going to get you out. And he said, Sergeant, I'm going to get him in a while. He said, all right, start working on him.
There was a piece of rebar that was wrapped around toward my left side with a piece of concrete at the end that was sitting on my kind of like my my thigh.
He would pull this and it would whip back and hit me. And for the next several minutes, I mean, he pretty much kicked my ass.
And believe it or not, we laughed down there. We actually laughed because I said, bro, you're kicking my ass.
I guess with a little bit more language in there. But he said, I'm trying, bro, I'm trying.
And after a little bit, he sits back down and that fear came over me again because he said, Willie, I can't get you out.
And that was that was really bad because I'm like, we're really in trouble here.
And that's when we heard another humongous boom.
And again, don't know what's going on. But at this point, it sounds like the first thing.
And I'm like, that's it. We're going to die. So all I could do was brace for death.
So I in sign language, the I love you sign is something I always did with my wife and my daughter, Bianca.
So all I could think was I'm going to die. I took both my hands. I made the I love you signs with both hands and I literally crossed them over my chest.
I figured if I'm going to die, if they find me, I hope someone tells my wife this is the way we found them.
So she would know that at that moment when I thought about my family, you know, and because that's literally when I started thinking about the family wasn't in the beginning because, you know, I had a job to do.
And after that was the teammates. And after that, it was like, I'm going to die.
Now I think about my family and I remember just doing that and I'm yelling Sergeant McLaughlin now is yelling because he's actually being crushed in the fetal position to the point literally his weapon is being embedded into his body.
That's how much pressure he was under. And that's when I looked over to my left, excuse me, to my right.
And something came into this little cavern and hit Dominic really hard, sat him down like a rag doll.
And again, it was happening for it seemed like forever and then everything stopped again. We're in the dark after a little bit.
Some light starts coming again through this hole. And that's when I could see, you know, that Dominic was severely injured.
He was bleeding profusely from his mouth. And I'm in a lot more pain.
Sergeant Glockens really yelling. And I remember just saying, Dom, hold on. He goes, William, I'm dying.
And he says, Sarge, can I get a three eight, which is a break. And in the middle of yelling, Sergeant McLaughlin says, yeah, you can get a three.
Because at this point, I think he realizes something bad has happened.
And and and, you know, it was very difficult at that moment because Dominic at that point was coughing up blood.
And he said, Willie, you know, don't forget to let people know I died trying to save you guys.
And I said, Dominic, I will never let anybody forget that.
In his last moments, he mustered enough strength to actually rock his sidearm out.
And he pointed it up into that hole and he fired around as a last ditch effort for somebody nowhere down there.
And he passed right next to me. And that that was very difficult to see a friend, a fellow officer, an American die right next to me.
That was really difficult. I mean, I'll be honest with you.
I probably was hysterical. I started yelling, Sarge, Dom's gone, Sarge, you know, Dom's gone.
And Sergeant McLaughlin, always the professional, even through pain, said you need to compose yourself.
You know, kind of focus on what you can do.
But at that point, it was really, really difficult because I was in so much pain.
He was in a lot of pain. Dominic was gone.
Now that makes three of our teammates that we lost.
And at that point, it really started our struggle to survive, you know, because at that point I had to say to Sarge, you know,
what do we do now? You know, what training do we have?
And he said there is no training for this. There's no book.
There's no SOPs, nothing prepared us for this.
He said it's basically going to have to be the will to survive, which started many, many hours of some very horrific things that happened to us down there.
You know, in those hours before they found us, you know, fireballs came in, started burning me.
Dominic's weapon went off. The remaining rounds shot above my face, you know, and it was very difficult, you know.
So it was an evening that I hope nobody ever has to endure like I endured.
Well, firstly, thank you. I mean, I say this usually at the end of every interview where someone has relived an experience
that I know takes a piece of them every time they revisit it.
But I know that there's so much value in not only telling the story of people that aren't here now to tell their own story,
but the takeaways, the mental health side, you know, the resilience side, all these other things.
So firstly, thank you for, you know, for sharing that.
I know that there was kind of a sequence of events that ultimately led to the rescue.
You had Jason Thomas and Dave Karnes up on the rubble.
So talk to me about the sequence of events over those those kind of remaining hours of those 18 hours
that ultimately led to you being found and extracted.
Well, my total being buried alive, everything was 13 hours, not 18.
And, you know, something I have to mention before we were found was, you know, later that evening after fighting for our lives,
we kept each other going. We kept talking about our families. We prayed.
Sergeant Mlaka had a radio that didn't work, but he kept trying. You know, we kept each other going.
It was very difficult. Our bodies had swollen up because of compartment syndrome being crushed.
I think and I hate saying my story because I just think it's a human story.
And, you know, why do these podcasts? Why I wrote the book was to share with people so they can do what I did was
think of positive things, if God forbid, there in a situation.
And hopefully that'll help them survive, because for me, I survived.
I kept thinking about my family, kept thinking about my sergeant, kept thinking about just things that news early that year in 2001.
There was an earthquake in Turkey. And I remember them finding a little girl three or four days in a rubble.
And I thought, well, shit, here we are in a rubble and we're supposed to be these tough cops.
We got to keep fighting. But there was a point that physically, mentally, I was just done.
I was in so much pain, lost so much. You know, we've been crushed, been burnt, been shot at.
I just wanted to die. I wanted to give up. And I always tell people for me, this is the most important part of this story,
is that at that point that evening, I wanted to die. I made my peace with God.
I said, God, thank you for 33 great years. Thank you for six years with my wife, four years with my little girl, Bianca,
for my parents bringing me to this great country. And if I die, I'm going to die as a proud American as a cop,
trying to do the right thing that day. And I felt everybody was going to go to heaven because I felt these cowards,
these terrorists, as I call them cowards, attack innocent human beings that were just trying to live a better life for them and their families.
But I said, God, you know, I'm going to ask you for two things if I get to heaven.
And the first thing is to let me see my little girl be born, you know, because my daughter,
my second daughter was scheduled to be born in December and I knew I wasn't going to make it.
And the second thing I said, God, and as silly as it sounds, I said, God, when I get to heaven, I would love a glass of water.
We were so caked in concrete. I was so thirsty that, you know, I tell people you can laugh at that because I was just so thirsty.
And I closed my eyes and I was going to give up. I really was. I was just done. And I had a vision.
You know, I tell people I don't preach religion. I'm Catholic. You call a vision a dream, whatever you want.
But I closed my eyes and I was going to give up. And I see this person walking toward me had a glowing white robe, no face, brown hair over his left shoulder was a pond in the distance,
real tranquil with trees around him. Over his right shoulder was tall endless sea of grass.
And I knew it was. To me, it was Jesus. He's walking toward me. Once he got in his hand. And again, you can laugh at this.
He's got a bottle of water. I don't know if it was Poland spring, Avion, whatever it was, but I snapped out of that vision.
I snapped out of that vision, that dream, whatever you want to call it, with a desire to fight.
At that moment, a piece came over me. But that set me off that I realized that if I would have died at that moment and given up,
I would have given up on my sergeant because nobody could hear him. I was closer to the hole.
I would have given up on my family because I didn't fight hard enough to get home. I would have given up on my country.
But most of all, I would have given up on myself. And I said no. And I said with some colorful words, Sarge, we're going to get out of this hell hole.
And I said, if not, we're going to die trying because there's something powerful about knowing that if I'm going to die, I'm going to give it everything I got.
So when I die, I can say I tried. There's just a piece about that to me. And that's really what propelled me to keep fighting for the rest of the evening.
And around eight o'clock that night, I hear in the distance, United States Marine Corps, can anybody hear us?
Now, you have to understand, again, we are between both towers underneath in the concourse level. Both towers have fallen on us.
We're in the epicenter. They're not allowing people to come in for safety. Initially, during the day, they were letting people in.
But, you know, it got so bad that things were shifting, things were moving. You know, during those times that we were buried, buildings were coming down in the distance.
That made me think, oh, my God, there's that sound again, you know. But they heard me. I said, PAPD, officers down. They kept making their way to me.
I could hear it was several people. It was two Marine reservists, Jason Thomas and David Karnes, along with a civilian that joined them.
And as they got closer, they finally found me. And I didn't realize there was a small hole to my left side.
And they were shining a flashlight. And I right away said, hey, Port Authority police, we got men down. I'm hurt.
And they said, the Marines. And I'm thinking, my God, we're at war. The Corps here.
And again, going back to my military, we carried Marines. So I knew what Marines did. I knew I worked with them.
I said, hey, U.S. Navy. I was in Tripoli. We carry you guys. Don't leave us. You know, that was my main fear. And they said, no, we're not leaving you, bro.
At that point, they sent one of the civilian down the pile to get more help. But they couldn't see me still because, again, I was caked in concrete.
I became part of the building. So they're shining this light. It was very frustrating because here for a couple of minutes, I'm waving this hand, my left hand, and they can't see me.
Somehow, someway, I muster enough spit to put on the top of my left palm. And that changed my skin color. And they were like, we got you.
And I remember at that moment, it was a feeling of I was elated, but at the same time, just scared to death because I'm like, OK, they found us.
I don't know how much more I can survive. I don't know how much more this body can take.
So before you knew it, the cavalry came. They had sent up ESU, truck one from the NYPD, truck one, which is their SWAT team.
And they also sent us Patty McGee, along with a civilian Chuck Sharika. Talk about bravery. Came off the street.
He's a former paramedic who said, hey, I can render aid, medical aid. And these guys had to find a hole, I think, to the right and dig their burrow their way in while we have an encroaching fire coming above us.
And I remember it was so tight, these guys, it was two bald heads that I saw that chest to chest that started working on me. And it was Chuck Sharika, Scott Strauss, and Patty McGee was behind them where the elevator shaft had broken.
And they would start by hand passing debris back to Patty to throw that down. Meanwhile, Jason Thomas and David Carnes was above me the whole time, you know, helping out above what they could do.
Absolutely incredible. Now, I know, and correct me if I'm wrong, because I think this particular thing was from Wikipedia, but you had the little girl on a way seven months in and you and your wife were hoping for a certain name and you wanted at least to get that out on the radio prior to this rescue attempt.
Yeah, you know, during the course of the night, like I said, Sergeant McLaughlin had his radio, it was staticky communications sucked. There was no comms. But you know, one point that evening where it was getting really bad we, you know, I just said, Sarge, can you put over the radio
for let my wife know that to name the baby Olivia. So at the time, we still hadn't come to grips with a name yet we haven't selected a name. She had some names she liked I had some names that I like.
But one of the names that my wife really liked was Olivia. And, you know, at that moment I just, I said, you know what, I just want her to name the baby Olivia I want her to at least be happy name the baby Olivia, you know, and the joke goes I would say that it doesn't
matter what women win. So she got the name that she wanted. But it's a beautiful name. You know later I was, you know, able to see my daughter be born, which was just epic.
You know I shared the same birthday as her because my wife had a plan C section. My birthday is November 26, and my daughter was born November 26 2001 so that was, like I said I don't have a birthday, I just, I cherish her birthday.
And, you know, I'm blessed to have her here, both my daughters, and to share a birthday with a little girl that I thought I'd never see is a blessing. So it's another reason to keep fighting, you know and I like I said anybody listen to this podcast, God forbid you find yourself
in a position like that you can say, hey, this guy had the World Trade Center for 220 stories, and him and his sergeant, but he was able to fight to be able to see his daughter be born.
And that's something I think as first responders military we need to share all our stories of what we encounter so people can use that as fuel as as as motivation to survive when they find themselves in bad situations.
Beautiful. Well, I want to get to the you know the physical mental journey after this because this is hugely important but just before we do because right now storyline you're still stuck under the rubble. Yeah, walk me through about you know because you have this shifting you have this incredible heroism going on with the rescue attempt
I mean obviously something could have shifted and they could have been killed as well.
What was the steps from them make an entry and starting to move debris from the hole to where you are finally actually backboarded out.
Talk about again, incredible heroism, you know we we weren't into those buildings to do our job, we find ourselves in need and these guys came in to do their job and help us and from the moment they got there was very very bad.
It was a smoke filled environment that was very very hot. They were choking they were using my Scott air pack to breathe because they couldn't get down there with Scott air packs.
These guys, it took three hours to extract me in those three hours. There was a lot of pain. There was a lot of orders being given from above to them to leave us because there was an approaching fire.
Every time they moved concrete things shifted. They were told to leave us and they basically told them no we're not leaving these guys will die with them.
I cannot express how that much means to me. And not only that but to see, you know,
I guess as a little boy seeing what bad asses those guys are badass, you know, and saying that no we're not gonna die with these men that that just to me is one of the things that keeps me as an optimist you know that there are men and women out there that will
step up to the plate and put their lives on the line. And those three hours were really horrific. They couldn't get my leg out at one point. And I just said, you know, cut my leg off. I said to Scott, cut my left leg off because I could see this hole.
And I wanted them to get to my sergeant first actually when they got to the hole I said can you get to my partner. And they assume when I said partner because again you're not in the right state of mind.
They thought I was talking about Dominic because they saw Dominic, you know, unfortunately who had passed right next to me. And they're like no we got to get you out first.
And, you know, at the moment they touched me originally I wasn't so much pain I yelled, and I realized that that was slowing them down so I had to eat the pain.
But talk about eating the pain. My sergeant from the moment they got down there didn't make a sound. I almost forgot he was there but I kept saying you get, you know, get, get to my partner first who I met was my sergeant.
And halfway through that, you know, I kept saying cut my leg off cut my leg off and Scott said no I'm going to get you on one piece.
Shortly after that that's when Sergeant McLaughlin out of the depths of hell says how's it going.
And they're like freaking out they're like what do you mean who is that I said that's my partner Sergeant McLaughlin.
I cannot tell you the feeling when they said Sergeant McLaughlin NYPD Port Authority cross train together, Sergeant McLaughlin had train with Scott Strauss and Patty McGee, they knew him.
So not only are these fellow officers but they actually knew my sergeant, there came a feeling of like wow okay we're we're family here.
And Sergeant McLaughlin just just true hero just in so much pain. I mean his, he took double the injuries I took just said I get get him out and you know, get to me.
And those three hours were excruciating pain. And they finally were able to get me out, and they started pulling me out of the hole I said Sarge hold on.
When they pulled me out of the hole. It's the first time I cried because I looked up I could see the moon, I could see smoke.
I couldn't see the buildings and I said where is everything in a firefighter said it's all gone kid. And at that point I cried I didn't cry.
I didn't cry because I didn't know if I was hurt when the guys died, or through anything down there, but I cried because I felt like we failed.
There was so many people still in that lobby of two, and I knew we lost a lot of people. And all I could do was start grabbing patches saying thank you with my right hand as they started passing me down this long line of men and women that they're
still melting as they were passing me down to the ambulance. They put me in the ambulance, took me to Bellevue Hospital. That's the second time I cried as they pulled me off the ambulance all these doctors nurses standing by there.
And I'm like where is everybody you know because this is now closer to midnight, because I came out about the final surround all eight got out about 11 got me to the hospital.
And they said you're it. And again, I just started crying because I'm like, I can't believe how many people we lost. They started working on me I was told I flatlined twice they brought me back.
And I suffered very very severe injuries to my left leg and again flatlined twice but through the help of some great doctors and nurses, a lot of surgeries, I was able to survive my sergeant came out the next morning at 7am, almost buried on almost an additional
number of people. I think a total of 18 rescue workers have to rotate to get him out by hand.
You know, we didn't know till the following year that we're the only to survive from underneath the rubble. There's about 18 to 20 people that survived most of them in the stairwell that included a fellow officer, David limb was one of our canine officers
and firefighters and another civilian, Mrs Guzman who's the last person pulled out she was pulled out topside like around noon the next day, and a couple other people from I think the Marriott Hotel that thankfully were physically got out after both buildings fell down.
There's very few of us that survived, and me and my sergeant only two to survive from under it. But what we all encompasses that we show that no matter how bad a tragedy is, there's always going to be survivors is always going to be that human spirit that
overcomes, and I'm proud to be part of that small group that are able to show future generations that no matter how bad you think the situation is, there will be survivors that will be people that overcome.
So you yourself have suffered incredible physical injuries, but you have the trauma now and as you said up to that point, seemingly very little in the proverbial bucket.
But now you just got a deluge into that receptacle. You have the kind of survivor's guilt of the people that you spoke to just before of the people that were with you as you made a break for the elevator shaft you had Dominic.
So walk me through firstly the kind of the physical element the rehab but also what was your mental journey for the few years after that.
No, the physical part you know I tell people, in my opinion, physical is tough, but you're going to find that, wow, okay, I can, with, with the right state of mind and the right work ethic, work ethic, you're going to be able to do wonders.
And it might take a while but you look back and you're like wow okay I can't believe I was so banged up but I'm at this point now.
The physical part was tough you know weeks and weeks of surgeries, a lot of rehab for the next several years, but it was the mental part that I talk about in my book sunrise to the darkness which is why I wrote the book is, I didn't know I had PTSD.
I didn't know that I was suffering, and my family was suffering because of it. It wasn't till a year later, where a bad incident happened at my home when I'm I knew here I am I survived the World Trade Center.
I'm home, my wife has given birth to my second little daughter.
I'm back home, and I'm angry. I'm angry about everything. I mean, you know, I'm angry because of what happened to me I'm angry because of the loss of my teammates I'm angry because of the attack on America.
You know, and there's no way for me to do anything about that you know, and I don't know I'm angry, you know, but the night that I realized I had an issue was my wife I think I was looking for the remote couldn't find it again not moving around very well.
So she's trying to help me but wasn't moving fast enough. And I was getting aggravated and I picked up a shoe. And I was going to fling it at her head and I've never raised my hand to a woman.
I was close to the death. And I caught myself like, site will quote will, and I caught myself and I said to myself, who are you, this is not who you are this is not who you brought up to be.
I remember just being really embarrassed. And I went out got in my truck and drove up to the country I was able, thank goodness I was able to have my right leg, because my left leg doesn't work correctly because of the nerve damage.
But I could still drive, and I drove up to the country and I sat there, and I just thought about things and I remember thinking to myself.
There's something wrong with you. I just don't know what it is.
You know, I don't know what it is and even up to that point, I had talked to my doctors at the police department at our union.
But I can't recall anybody really saying hey you know you have post traumatic stress disorder.
They just, I would ask me how things are and of course you know being a man, being a cop, you know, everything's good I can handle it you know and that's what I want to tell people, you're not going to be able to handle it by yourself I don't care what anybody says.
Maybe you live a life that you think you're handling but you're actually not living a fulfilling life and that's sad, you know.
But most of the time it brings a lot of other ugly things with it, you know, including thoughts of suicide, actual suicide, divorces, bad parenting.
And I thought about that and I said you know what if I'm not a good father, if I'm not a good husband. Basically these cowards these terrorists through me will reach another generation of Americans.
And I said that's not going to happen.
So I went back home. I went upstairs, I went into my daughter's my oldest daughter's room, Bianca and I said, Does daddy yell a lot? And she said like yeah daddy, you scare me.
And I said you know what, this is going to change and at that point I started seeking the help that I needed.
And it took years, took years of talking to different people, till I finally landed on someone that actually made me understand that you know what you have is something you're going to live with for the rest of your life.
I don't care what anybody says you can look at PTSD, drug addiction, alcoholism, people have been raped, people have been affected by murder.
That is something that is going to be part of who you are.
So what you have to learn to do is to learn to live with these things. You know you're not going to cure it. You're just not, you're not going to get over it.
You know for me the day that I get rid of PTSD is the day they bury me. But I have learned because of this great person who actually have passed because of illness that she could attain from 9-11 because she went down there to talk to the rescue workers over many, many years.
She ended up losing her life in 2013.
She taught me that you're going to have to learn with this. Now we go back to what we're talking about letting out that negative energy, punching bags, stuff like that.
I started learning that mine is anger. Some people have depression, some people have anxiety. So I had to take that anger that would build up in me.
And when I felt it coming on, do something. Whether go for a walk, whether get on the elliptic machine that is the one machine I can use because of my injuries, whether it's be punching bag, whether it's just going out into an open field and yelling, letting that negative energy out, not passing it on to my wife, to my children, to myself.
And it took a long time for me to learn that, you know.
It really did.
And it was something that is a process. You know, the road to recovery is a long and dark one and a winding one.
And not anyone has the set blueprint or directions for that. We all have to find our own road to recovery.
And I stress this because I want people to understand that they can look at what I went through and say, well, I'm going to try to do exactly what he did. No, you can try, but that doesn't mean it's going to work.
We all have to just kind of roll with the punches and keep trying. That's why I say when I talk about therapists, you know what, they're a dime a dozen. They're like car salesmen.
You're going to meet someone and it might turn you off. That doesn't mean you give up on that. You keep trying to talk to somebody else. You keep going. Eventually, you're going to find something that works for you.
You know, it might not be therapy. Maybe it's community service. For me, unbeknownst to me was doing speaking engagements that started in 2003 to help children.
It's grown and that's what grew that grew into me sharing my experiences. And along that journey, I was able to learn about PTSD and share that with other combat vets that came back from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Even though I wasn't in combat overseas, it was combat here in the United States. You know, what I went through was no different than getting blown up an IED.
But what happens is it doesn't matter the tragedy. It's what we go through together is kind of the common denominator. It could be you got hit by a car. You got shot. You got stabbed.
You know, we all have our own World Trade Centers. You know, people always say to me, well, I can't think of anything worse than 220 stories falling on you. Well, yeah, you stepped on IED.
You got stabbed. You got shot. You lost a loved one. You found out you got cancer. We all have our own World Trade Centers. It's what we do with ourselves to overcome it.
And for me was not only fighting for my family, but looking at other people when I was in rehab, when I see kids who got wrapped around a tree because of a drunk driver, you know, and are still fighting to every single day to walk.
You know, maybe they didn't wear a uniform, but they still have that courage within them to try to get better.
So for me, it was not only the physical part, but more importantly, the mental part on how do I live a good life after tragedy? How do I live a fulfilling life with survivors go?
You know, why did I live in Dominic Antonio, Chris and, you know, a total of 37 portatory police officers died that day, the most of law enforcement history, followed by 23 of our counterparts.
You know, I don't have that answer, but what I did realize is that through speaking engagements, it allowed me to help other people.
I was starting to get so much good feedback from people, law enforcement, firefighters, especially combat vets who, you know, my book, Sunrise to the Darkness is forwarded by US Marine, who heard me speak once and came back to the university the following year to hear me speak it again and shared with the class and me that
because of what I had to say regarding the PTSD regarding my recovery, it helped him live a fulfilling life.
And he still struggles today, just like all of us do, who have been in combat or been in a certain situation.
It's something that we live with, but we have to overcome whatever we're experiencing at that moment that might destroy our lives to know that, you know what, you keep pushing because tomorrow's going to be a good day.
Tomorrow's the day I get to spend with my wife, with my parents, with a child to make a difference in another veteran or another first responders life by sharing our story.
So for me, it was a long, long process, a lot of learning. And, you know, I would say macho is doing what you have to do when you have to do it. You want to be a strong man, be able to say, Hey, you know what, I need help.
I can't figure it out by myself, and I'm going to fight hard to live a fulfilling life and be someone that could be loving to my family and hopefully be an inspiration to another human being, especially one that is in the line of work that I did or, you know, used to do.
So I think that's important. And, you know, that's what I want people to learn from my story or the story as I call it is that I am no different than you.
I'm a kid that grew up wanting to be a cop, ended up attaining that dream and then having that dream ripped for me and then having to learn how to start living again. And that's important.
Well, there's so much I want to kind of pull from that.
Firstly, the anger I can relate to. I am a giant pussy, basically, for lack of a better word. I'm not a tough guy. I'm not a posturing guy. I don't get angry normally. And I watched myself get worse through my firefighting career.
And you hit on a really important point. You asked your daughter, how is daddy doing? And I think that's something again that I pulled from this. And I look back now at my own family and I did the same thing later on.
We are horrible barometers for how we are doing, especially, I mean, you obviously snatched from your profession, as you said, but say you're on the job still and you ask a fellow cop, a fellow firefighter, you know, we look at each other.
Well, you're all fine because you're all going through the same hell at the same time. So you're the worst person to ask, you know, really.
But the people at home, your loved ones that either see you when you come home or maybe even further from that, your mother, your father, your brother, that you don't see that often, their perspective, their view is so, so important.
So, I mean, that was huge. But the other thing is, as you touched on, you may feel like you're doing OK. That doesn't mean that you're performing optimally.
But I would say optimally at that point with the trauma, with the injuries, with the history that you have, there is still a higher level that you can get to if you've taken the time to address the trauma and not that it's going to magically disappear, but you put it back into the process side of your mind where it can reside and becomes more of a distant memory.
So, you know, talk to me more about that. I mean, you this perspective of. Realizing that you're not where you could be, how do people start looking in the mirror and identifying that in themselves and then what are some of the tools that you've watched yourself and other people use to actually shift from coping to thriving?
Well, I think the main thing is being open to criticism.
You know, I didn't want to hear that I had a problem. You know, keep that shit to yourself.
I'm OK. I'm tough. I can do it again. It's being macho is being courageous is overcoming the fear.
And that's what it was. I was fearful.
You felt alone. Anybody who's going through any dark times. A lot of times you feel alone. You feel like nobody's going to understand me when in reality there's tons of people that understand you.
You know, that's why I tell people to try to be open with other people and listen, listen yourself, listen to yourself like, hey, I have a problem.
And also, if you're on the flip side where you have a counterpart that you work with was been an incident, be a listener. Being a listener is so huge, both for yourself and others.
I'll give you an example. I know a police officer got shot and he came to their department, had invited me to do speaking engagement afterwards.
He said, can I talk to you in private? And I happen to know what happened to this young man.
And he said, you know what? I'm in a tough department. You know, when I talk to other guys, I can't talk to them because right away when when he starts sharing, hey, you know, I feel like this.
I'm like, well, you know, if it was me, you know, and that's a big thing.
If I try to tell, especially first responders, military people, you know, I know you're tough.
But if you haven't been shot, if you haven't been in a tragedy, if you if you're not the person who had to suffer through that.
Shut up and listen, you know, because you don't know what it's like to have that happen.
You thank goodness, because most people that did have something like that happen to them.
Listen, they listen and then they can share their story.
But if you're a fellow officer or a fellow military person, but you haven't gone through that, listen, don't be the person who needs to be macho and say, well, if it was me, I do this.
And this young man told me I can't share with other men in my in my work with because right away they start saying, well, you know, you're tough.
You're this and that. That doesn't help.
You know, what the example I use is as a man and I don't care today what they say.
I will never know what it's like to give birth.
So I can't tell my wife, oh, well, this is how it feels like.
I will never know that. But I can listen to her, you know.
And when you start listening to that alone starts the healing process for someone like, OK, someone's listening to me, you know, and they start feeling a little confident like I can talk about it.
Sometimes just being able to talk about it. It's the big thing.
So listening. And if you're the person suffering, you know, listen to yourself that you need help.
Be courageous enough and then start talking to somebody about it and being open about it.
Like what is wrong with me? And as as crazy as things sound, no matter how it is, let that out because you believe it or not, you're going to find someone else that says, I understand you.
I know what you've been through in the sense that, A, I've gone through it myself or B, I'm someone who has dealt with other military or first responders who have gone through the same thing.
And I've educated myself. And now I know how to be able to help you.
And that's what I did. You know, so and it's an ongoing process.
You know, even after I stop talking to someone, I have to remind myself.
My wife got educated. She started coming to the sessions with me where she learned about PTSD.
So it becomes again, it takes a village. You know what I mean?
And if you don't have that village because you don't have a direct supportive family, keep searching. You're going to find groups out there that you can join.
You know, the churches, groups, there's there's there's again, going back to sporting events, you'd be surprised where you find groups of people.
You're going to find individuals within those groups that are going to be there to help you and uplift you.
So always be someone that's willing to step out of their their comfort zone and look for help.
You know, I recently spoke at a military base and a gentleman walked up to me and I could see this person has been through a lot.
And he said, you know, I haven't heard anybody tell a story like you. And I have issues.
I've had him for a long time and it's affected my family. And I think because of listening to you, I'm going to go and try to at least not rectify things, but get things on the right track.
And he says, there's been in many years and it's affected my family to hear that is to say, well, what you're sharing with someone isn't so important.
I encourage people out there who have been through incidents, you don't have to go save the world.
You know, September 11th, I thought we're going to save the world.
You're not. But what you can do is you can touch one person. If you can touch one person, that person touches somebody else.
And through speaking and sharing the story, my story, that's what I've been able to do.
And I just want people out there to understand that no matter what you're going through, there's somebody out there that's going through or has gone through what you're going through.
So you're not alone. That's one of the main messages I want people to understand. You are not alone. No matter how you feel that you're alone, you're not. And that's how I felt.
So, again, it's about listening to yourself and then being able to talk about it and open up to the right once you find the right group of people or the right person to talk to.
And again, you're not alone. And another thing I stress is you deserve happiness. You really, really deserve happiness, because when you're happy, the people around you are happy.
And those are the people you love. And again, we do jobs in the military as first responders.
It shouldn't be that you do a job, you do your career and then go and are miserable or something happens to you along the way and you're left disabled and with mental struggles and are just left to the wayside.
You know, your story shouldn't end with your career or whatever incident. Your story should end with a good life.
And you deserve happiness. So I stress that to people that, you know, I've come to terms with that. Yes. Do I still have survivor's guilt? Absolutely.
But I also understand that I deserve happiness. And that's what I want for everybody else.
Beautiful. Well, I mean, you hit again on a couple of themes that come up over and over again. I think the feeling of being alone, the feeling of being weak is such a facade.
But we were in professions that, you know, if you're on some sort of active shooter event, if I go into a fire, I can't have a look of panic and fear on my face because it's going to freak everyone out.
So we've become very good at that stoic facade. But the problem is that carries over into everyday life.
So over and over again, I've heard of people that have been through a crucible mentally.
Thank goodness came out the other side, started telling their story and people come out of the woodwork. I thought I was alone. I thought I was being weak.
So that in itself is something I hear a lot. The other thing I think is important to underline whenever there's an opportunity.
Our generation, I mean, we're not too far apart. You know, there was that suicide is cowardly, you know, selfish. How could you do that?
And so, you know, the advice would be, well, think of your family, think of your loved ones. And what I've heard from people that have actually been there or even pulled the trigger, jumped off the bridge and were lucky.
Thank God they survived and they got to tell the story was their mind through this trauma, the sleep deprivation, all these compounding elements that totally miswire the brain is that feeling of being a burden to the world.
And I think that is another thing that we need to get out there. If you feel like you're a burden, if you if your mind is convincing you that your family will be better off without you, which a healthy, well slept, you know, trauma addressed mime would realize was the absolute polar opposite of the truth.
That is another red flag to reach out and ask for help. Absolutely. And, you know, I go back to something that, you know, you educate yourself sometimes with things you think of.
So I go back to when I saw the people jumping from the World Trade Center. And I say it's like taking a pebble and throwing the water, you get that ripple effect that somebody's mother, brother, sister, those people passing touch affected so many lives.
So if you're someone who feels that your life is not worthy, you're absolutely wrong. You have no idea the moment you take your life.
How many people are affected that pebbles thrown again into the water and that ripple effect happens. You are such an important part and pivotal part of this world that I cannot express that to you.
So, but I also understand because I've been there where you're thinking about you know what I am a burden I the world be better off without me.
It's a dark place because you're not thinking correctly. And again, you're not at fault, you know, I tell people, it's mental struggles and that that that's a heavy mental struggle when you're thinking of taking your life.
Does it have to be to that extreme know it could be that you can't pay the mortgage at the end of the month, they could be a kid, try and get over a midterm you think it's the end of the world.
But when you're literally thinking of ending your life understand that you are so important and people that question well how can they take their life well you don't understand that at that moment, you're in a dark place that individual.
And that's why you have to be the person that listens and not just say hey, you got to get over this so you got to toughen up.
You got to give yourself a process to it. Again, you don't want to use it as a crutch that oh well is me. You have to fight as well. So it's a 5050 people are going to help you but you also have to give effort to you can't just say oh I need somebody dragged me out of this,
just like in the whole, you know, at one point there I start when they first got to me I started hyperventilating I want to give myself to the Scott and the crew.
I got to fight bro. I can't do this by myself, I need you in it. Same thing if you're having mental struggles, you have to put effort in as well as the people that are going to help you.
And I just think it's important that people understand that you know it's okay to feel alone it's okay to feel like giving up, but you just can't. And I promise you, if you don't, you're going to be able to be that person who, like me, was, I've been so blessed to watch my
mom, one graduate from college, the other one in college, you know, and be with my wife, and be able to just get up every morning and take a deep breath no matter if it's raining, snowing, wind, you know I'm grateful for every day I have and I use this example to
tell everybody, there's 365 days in a year, if you're lucky to live till 90 right, part of that time, we're in diapers, and if you reach 90 you might be in diapers you do the math 365 times 90.
That's not a lot of days on this earth. And if you're someone like me that's 55 and do the multiplication there. I've already used up a lot of those days. So what are you going to do during that time period.
Next year you're going to live behind. And the legacy be should be someone that raised a good family. And if you didn't have a family made a positive impact to other people in this world. That's what's important, not the money you make not the awards, not the medals, you know, I have the Medal
of Honor sitting in the box that was given to me. I don't feel like I deserve the Medal of Honor for my department. You know those that died they deserve it.
The medal is not going to do anything for me, knowing that I try to do the best that I did that day, but more importantly, have fought back from physical and mental struggles to live a fulfilling life.
That's what I'm going to leave behind two beautiful daughters that hopefully will be a positive impact in this world by being good mothers and raising my grandchildren one day.
That's what I hope for. So I just stressed everybody that you are important. You're not alone and you deserve happiness.
Beautiful. Well, one more area I want to hit before we kind of start closing out.
In 2006, I was working for Anaheim Fire in California and I had been in the kind of stunt acting world and my now ex kind of showed me that there was a extras company looking for real firefighters to be in the background for this film.
So ironically, I got a bunch of my friends in and then this agency actually said, oh, I don't know if we can use you. You look to what they say, Californian.
I'm like, well, I'm from England. What are you talking about? But anyway, I think they were going from the stereotypical, if you're New York, you've either got to be Irish or Italian kind of blinkered thing.
But anyway, regardless, I got on and it was bizarre. And I'm talking from someone who was completely detached from the incident.
But we shot scenes when Michael Pena and Nicolas Cage were pushing the cart with the SCBA and then the acts.
We were in the lobby when the fake claps happen. We were outside when he gets out of the John gets out of the suburban and goes in.
And then there was the you know, the pile kind of set as well.
The golf cart went by and a bold Hispanic gentleman was in one side, which I'm assuming was you.
So so talk to me about the World Trade Center movie. I got to see it from a very unusual lens, having never actually been close to New York when all this happened.
But you're reliving in a way some of these scenes that were so seemingly so accurately reproduced.
What was that whole experience for you? You know, good and bad.
Well, I. It was never bad, I got to say.
I mean, we were hesitant in making the film because we didn't want Hollywood to mess it up.
But we met Deborah Hill, who has since passed and just a beautiful woman who felt that story need to be told.
We're just a sliver of from September 11th. There's thousands of stories, you know, where we're no more important than anybody else.
But what our stories were able to bring is to show people that, you know.
You know, I always say we're vehicles. Me and John, the movie is about us, but I say it's not about us.
It's about what everybody was going through that day and how brave people were, whether they were in uniform or not.
And that there's good even when evil attacks, you know, and that's what the film really was about.
They did a great job all over stone.
Like you said, the set was incredible down there where we actually brought in our real rescue workers,
both John and I and men who have seen so much tragedy and bad things in their careers who are so tough.
I mean, fell apart crying when they were there the first night that they got there.
They saw that set because it was so real. So we knew we were trying to do something for future generations to teach them about that day.
Not so much the bad of that day, but the good of that day.
So in retrospect, you know, I'm very proud of the film.
The feedback we get even today from people from around the world and what the film means to them is something that I always say to Oliver Stone that you might not want the Oscar,
but you actually really did because I have children that have watched the film, young teenagers and and even kids in grammar school.
And they said, you know, I learned a lot from there.
And the main thing is to treat each other better and understand that there's always going to be good people.
So the making of it was an honor.
What they did with it is something that I'm grateful for and grateful that we were able to be part of it, you know, and that our stories were told.
But really, the story of humanity was told.
You know, I always use the quote by Edmund Burke, the British philosopher.
All that is needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to stand by and do nothing.
Well, September 11th, there were good men and women and they're good men and women today, you know.
And going back to one thing that I'm grateful that I did the book, Sunrise to the Darkroom with Michael Maltz, is that Michael was someone that taught me this.
And it's something that I hope people will listen to.
Remember that tragedies are not competitive.
So if you feel that you're alone and you feel that, well, I can't talk about what happened to me because it's not as tragic as what happened to the next person.
You're absolutely wrong.
Tragedies are not competitive.
No matter what happens in your life, the event in your life is as important as what happened in my life.
You know, maybe it wasn't as big as the World Trade Center, but at that moment in your life, it is as big as the World Trade Center.
So, you know, through the film World Trade Center, we've been able to reach people and touch people's lives.
Through the book Sunrise to the Darkness with Michael Maltz that really I could have done the book without him.
We've gotten such great feedback from first responders and even other people.
I mean, I got responses from physicians who deal with women who have postpartum syndrome who found our book to be useful.
So, again, being able to have been part of that film and share the outcome of us at the end, although we don't really go into the PTSD in the film, is inspiring to other people to understand that, man, if these people could survive the World Trade Center and the injuries and everything they went through and smile.
Why can't I?
And that's the main part of the film that I hope will always resonate is to show people that out of darkness there's light and that we don't allow tragedy just be tragedy, you know, find a light out of a tragedy, as we did as the world did that day because really when the cowards attacked America, they didn't realize what they were attacking was humanity.
Because at the end of the day, when I was buried down there, I didn't care who found me what color they were, who they love, who they voted for.
I just want to get home.
And that's something that's proven today.
No matter what happens, people are going to step up from everywhere around the world.
There's good people.
100%. And I think that's, you know, again, a perspective that is a little lost at the moment and people are pigeonholing themselves and being allowed to be divided. And I think, you know, stepping back to as people refer to so often the 912, you know, the community, everyone coming together and the same with the Grenfell fire in London.
I mean, churches and synagogues were all coming together to take care of those people. And I truly believe and I'm an optimistic, like I said, same as you. I truly believe a majority of people are just really, really good. Just sometimes they need to be led.
Absolutely. And I think that I just want people to understand don't let the wear and tear of the media wear you down.
You know, like I always say, if they were to show all the good stuff happening in this world, they'd be out of business. They really would be out of business. But, you know, bad things attract attention. They really do.
So be smart. And yes, keep up with the news. Understand what's going on in the world. But don't let that negativity control your life. And especially if you're someone who's dealing with any type of darkness, PTSD, alcoholism, the list goes on.
Don't allow those negative things to impact your life because it's just going to compound what already you're dealing with. And make sure you find yourself out of your darkness. Find yourself out of PTSD in the sense that you can learn to live with it.
Drug addiction, alcoholism, you know, a bad relationship or just anything in your life. Make sure you fight for yourself. You deserve it. And again, I use the math example. You know, if you're only able to live till 90, see how many days you have on this earth, you know, and make sure you make the most of it.
And again, I stressed everybody. You deserve happiness. I don't care what anybody says. You deserve happiness.
Beautiful. Well, for people listening, where can they find the two books?
The books are on Amazon.com as well as Barnes and Noble.com. We have them on. Well, the book Sunrise to the Darkness that I wrote with Dr. Michael Moats is also on Audible. So if you're someone who just wants to listen to books, check out Audible.
Sunrise to the Darkness. I also have a children's book, Immigrant American Survivor, The Little Boy Who Grew Up to Be All Three, which is something that inspires not only American children, but children around the world to understand that you're going to go through trials and tribulations growing up and you're going to have dreams and you're going to have tough times.
And I share what happened to me, but how I came out of it. And I am no different than any young man or woman out there. So both books are again on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, or just Google Wilhelmino, you know, J-I-M, you know, and I hope they're books that will give you something positive in your life, because that's what I'm trying to do.
Even though I don't wear physically the uniform anymore, in my heart, I'll always be a person of service. And that's what I'm giving back to the community, not only here in the United States, but around the world is a story or stories in both books that will inspire, motivate, and especially with book The Sunrise to the Darkness will help people find their way out of their darkness and hopefully be able to be live a fulfilling life like life like I have been able to do.
Well, Will, I just want to throw a few closing questions at you before I let you go. That's okay.
Yeah, that's fine.
Brilliant. So we talked about your books. Are there any other books that you love to recommend that they can be related to our discussion today or completely unrelated?
You know, I think that looking at books from people that have been through tragedies, whatever it is, pick it up, read it. And if you're someone that is looking for any inspiration, just look at stories of people that have overcome bad, bad things in their lives.
I mean, you know, if you're into sports, you can look at like Mariano Rivera's book, how he came from a poor place to anything. You know, again, when I wrote our book Sunrise to the Darkness, I never thought that there were women who were postpartum that were going to find my book to be helpful to them.
So don't be afraid, especially today, if you're not a big reader, there's really no excuse. You can pick up Audible. You can look online and look for free books. Be someone who gets inspired by all different types of books and just push yourself to educate yourself.
That's the most important thing. You know, again, I get inspired by military books. You know, one of the books that I listened to on audio was about John Chapman,
the Air Force Special Forces combat controller that passed and received the Medal of Honor. You read his book and read his upbringing, you realize that's a human being that had dreams and aspirations and tough times and reached his goal and then gave his life serving his country.
You know, that inspires me. I still inspired by different books and different entities that I look at online, you know, but the one thing I do is find positive messages. That's the main thing. Find positive things.
Beautiful. Well, you touched on the French brothers. I had them on the show, Jules and Gérion Nordei that did the 9-11 documentary.
How about that? Yeah, I never got, I've never met them, but it was so interesting to see their footage following with our portatory police detectives and that they were in this. I was in the same room with them was an incredible thing.
And again, we didn't even realize this till years later because, you know, the first several years after September 11th, we're still fighting to put our lives back together.
And then you start slowly learning about these things. So an incredible event that they unfortunately, but to have people like them documented is something that we can share with future generations.
Absolutely. Well, so there was that documentary. We talked about the World Trade Center movie. Are there any other documentaries and or movies that you love that you love to recommend?
You know, I'm again, I'm still a kid that loves the military movies, movies that inspire me from Lone Survivor to just all the military movies growing up.
Are things that people should watch and see the sacrifice that people are willing to give for freedom and to protect what they love so much.
You know, there's just so many things, you know, a flight nine, you know, the movie flight.
Excuse me here. I'm losing my mind here. But it's like 93. Thank you. No problem.
I went to go see that was very difficult for me to see that movie because but you know what it also even though it's kind of put together from what they think happened.
I believe that's what those people did on that plane, you know, just true Americans, true human beings that wanted to help each other and are inspirational.
So I always encourage kids to watch movies that are very positive things that are fact based to that are based on true stories.
Understand how it takes a little bit of liberalism and making a movie. But if you can find movies that are truly inspirational, you're going to learn something from them.
You know, just as people tell me they learn from our film. All right. Well, the next question, is there a person that you recommend to come on this podcast as a guest to speak to the first responders, military and associated professions of the world?
Oh, there's so many people. I mean, right off the bat, I would recommend my co author, Dr. Michael Mozart.
He deals with military people in Colorado Springs and can really give you an insight as to actually have dealt with people who lost loved ones to suicide and what those family members are going through and why I think that's so important is for because if anybody listens to your podcast and they're contemplating taking their lives, they can hear the side of a family who lost someone.
And I think that is just so important because that might stop someone from thinking about their life because then at that point, they're starting to hear from what was left of the destruction of what they did.
You know, I think that's that's important, you know, and, and in the future, just again, any first responder who has been through an incident that can teach and educate people as to how they made it back from their injuries and their trauma and are able to live a good life.
I think that's always important.
Now, what was it like working with Michael Peña? The reason I ask, I would say if one character in the film crash truly moved me, it was him.
So, I mean, it's hard to tell because they're good acting, good actors, they're acting, but I almost got a sense that he was a good person on and off.
Michael is so down to earth.
Just a great cat.
We became friends. He lived in my house here. He came and stayed with me.
Just a regular person, you know, again, here's a person that if you look at his life inspires people, you know, he's, he came from a hardworking family. He's an immigrant.
His families are immigrants. His brother is a Chicago police officer, you know, down to earth was worked really hard at his profession has hit a plateau of success.
And as someone that I honored to call a friend and someone who portrayed my part in that film in a way that people really were attracted to people really related to him.
And he's just a great individual truly truly is I love his movies. He picks great parts is a funny funny funny guy, but is a guy that if you meet him he takes the time to say hello and understands that he remembers where he came from.
And I think that's something important no matter what success you have in this world. Remember that you're no different than anybody else like people says we put our, our pants on one leg at a time.
And remember where you came from, you know, and be an inspiring person.
That's what Michael is to me.
Brilliant. So I'm picking up the right vibes and
Yeah, absolutely. He's a great individual.
Brilliant. All right. Within the last question before we make sure everyone knows where to find you specifically. What do you do to decompress these days.
You know, I'm a big outdoorsman, I bow hunt, I bow fish.
You know, I spent a lot of time with my family, trying to learn the guitar, you know, and just try to take time to absorb every single day, you know, I know I, I've been blessed so far I have not suffered 911 illness.
But many people have and are still suffering today. So I just try to enjoy every single day and there's days that I falter. There's days that I fail. I want people to understand that but, you know, that's what I try to do.
You know, I do speak engagements, I don't do it for a living.
I pick and choose where I go and whom I speak to. I do a lot of military a lot of universities, a lot of schools, places that I feel people can learn from my story or the story as I call it.
So if anybody's ever interested in reaching out to me regarding that you can hit me up on Instagram at Wasp Archer, W A S P, A R C H E R, or you can shoot me an email at WaspArcher at AWELL.com.
You know, and again, I pick and choose where I go speak because it does take a lot out of me. But I feel that, you know, if I can touch one person, I've done something and I try to do that every single day is be able to touch somebody's life in a positive way.
And it might not be physically being out there and doing something but just being positive on my social media, being positive around people when I'm out, you know, and just trying to uplift people.
Beautiful. Well, Will, I just want to say thank you. We've chatted for well over two hours now. As I touched on before, you know, I understand that it takes a piece of you, but I hope it's touched many more than one.
And if it has one just one, then as you said, it was absolutely worth it. But I'm sure that everyone listening will be moved by your story.
So I just want to thank you so, so much for being so generous and so vulnerable this evening.
Well, thank you and thank you for having me on this podcast and I want to thank everybody out there who puts their life on the line, whether it's in the military, whether it's in law enforcement firefighting, and especially those that overlook our EMTs, our paramedics and our medical people out there.
You know, I'm not here today just because of the brave men that came into that hole. They're a major factor of it, but also all the caregivers, the EMTs that got me the hospital, the doctors and nurses, the physical therapists, the therapists that I've been able to talk to.
And I remember it takes a village, but I think each and every one of you and most of all, I want to thank all the great parents out there that really take the time to teach their children, spend time with their children, and let them know that you know what, they can grow up to be whatever they want to be.