Firefighter to 8th-Graders: Don't Live in Fear

The eighth-graders listening to John Tabisz’s stories of Ground Zero Monday were just three years old when Tabisz searched for survivors in the debris.

Some of their parents picked them up from preschool when they heard the news.

Tabisz, a lieutenant for the , told the students of the days he spent at Ground Zero Monday morning.

Alexa Dimovski and Tyler Korous, both 13, said their parents had told them about Sept. 11. They had been told it was a terrorist attack; the largest attacks on American soil. But they had only recently seen footage of what happened that day.

“It’s more shocking,” Korous said. “It’s more realistic.”

The students' questions for Tabisz were telling. They asked what he was most afraid of. Did he cry? Did they find any bodies? Did they find the bodies of the hijackers? Did the government know beforehand this would happen?

Tabisz told them they found no survivors. They found “evidence,” and that he would leave it at that. He didn’t want to scare them with his horror stories, he said later.

He didn’t cry. “Everyone had their own way of dealing with it. It was a lot easier to be there and have a task,” Tabisz said. “Did I see a lot of people cry? You bet I did.”

Dimovski, Korous and 13-year-old Justin Weisner said Tabisz’s choice to leave for Ground Zero was hard to believe.

“It’d be depressing to go there,” Dimovski said.

“It’s a long drive,” Weisner said.

“I’d be more fearful to do it,” Korous said. “I found it hard to believe, though it’s for a good cause. He was sleeping in his truck. He was going against what his boss said.”

Tabisz started his story setting the scene for the eighth-graders. He showed them a photo of people running out of the Sears Tower in fear the building would be hit next. He told them U.S. borders were closed and major baseball games were canceled. There were no planes in the sky. It was his Pearl Harbor.

“Everything stopped,” he said. “We lived in a little bit of fear and uncertainty. Fear, anger, all those emotions went through just about everybody, to watch and not understand what was lying ahead in the future.”

Tabisz showed the students photos of Ground Zero, of the dogs who showed firefighters where to dig and a crushed fire engine found in the debris.

He told them to never forget, but to not live in fear “If we live in fear, then they win,” he said.

Dimovski, Korous and Weisner said learning about Sept. 11, 2001, makes them appreciate emergency responders more.

“I appreciate them more when I see them going down the street,” Korous said. “When you’re trying to go to sleep and you hear them.”