These Fort Worth area residents endured the horrors of 9/11. Here’s their message to you

As the 20th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, Fort Worth area first responders are remembering Sept. 12.

One helped frightened passengers stranded at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. Two others responded to the attacks on the World Trade Center, but later relocated to Texas. All three said America needs to recapture the spirit of unity it felt in the days after the attack.

John Salerno helped sort through the rubble at ground zero as chief of the Farmingdale, New York, fire department. He remembered how the attacks seemed to dissolve all forms of partisanship that had kept people apart.

“The flags were out, the people were hugging. It didn’t matter what color you were, what sexual orientation you were,” said Salerno, who had been a New York police detective before going to Farmingdale. “We hugged, we embraced, we came together as a nation.”

Ken Capps’ first day as vice president of public affairs at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport was on 9/11. He said he’ll never forget how the airport staff came together to help stranded and confused passengers.

“This is several hundreds of people who without being told, without being ordered just got up and started helping,” Capps said. He recalled how some airport employees let stranded passengers stay in their homes after flights had been rerouted to DFW by a Federal Aviation Administration order grounding all air travel.

Capps accredited the spontaneous outpouring of volunteerism from staff at DFW to the formation of its Holiday Helpers program in which volunteers handed out toys to children and helped passengers during DFW’s busy season. The program ended in 2009.

Samantha Horowitz helped evacuate people from the World Trade Center after American Airlines Flight 11 hit the north tower. She said Americans showed the best of humanity in the aftermath of the attack.

Horowitz, a former Secret Service agent who struggled with PTSD for several years after the attacks, has tried to recapture some of that spirit with her work helping veterans and first responders coping with post traumatic stress. In 2019, she and Salerno opened their nonprofit A Badge of Honor, which helps connect members of the first responder community to competent mental health care.

She worried, though, that the anniversary would be a trigger for some veterans. She said the pullout of U.S. troops from Afghanistan has caused some to question the purpose of their service. She pointed to the survivor’s guilt that plagued her for years after 9/11, and said she has seen similar patterns in some of the veterans she encountered through her nonprofit.

Salerno, whose own mental health journey brought him to Texas, encouraged other first responders not to fear seeking help. He recounted how a chance encounter with equine therapy while producing a segment for his and Horowitz’s weekly radio program helped break him through his emotional trauma.

“Who thought a freaking guy from New York would relate with horses?” Salerno said. “In 15 minutes I have never cried like a baby so much.”

Now retired, Capps said he always becomes circumspect around the anniversary of 9/11. He keeps a flag he flew outside his house just before leaving for work. During a trip to New York in 2004, he was allowed to fly that same flag over ground zero.

He said the experience was overwhelming, thinking of the families of those who lost their lives. He’ll be thinking of those families while attending a ceremony at the 9/11 Flight Crew Memorial in Grapevine on Saturday, he said.

“9/11 is never going to be over for them,” Capps said.

Salerno stressed the importance of never forgetting the events of 9/11. Though he feared the anniversary has already lost its resonance with the passage of time. It’s the duty of veterans and first responders to keep the memory alive, he said.

Horowitz hoped the anniversary would be a catalyst for Americans to reexamine how they came together in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. She said that spirit is needed to heal a bitterly divided country.

“Everybody remembers where they were on 9/11. Let’s remember where we were on 9/12,” she said.

This story was originally published September 10, 2021 at 5:15 AM.