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Bill Butler, a retired fire captain, puts in 10-hour days searching for his son Thomas, a firefighter who is still missing at ground zero


Still Digging for Lost Sons After a Million Tons of Pain

January 8, 2002

THE SEARCH
Still Digging for Lost Sons After a Million Tons of Pain
By CHARLIE LeDUFF

The father comes to be near his son. He digs through the smoking steel with
a small Army pick and shovel. "Where are you, boy?" he asks. It has been
the same routine for months.
The search by Bill Butler, a retired fire captain, has been futile so far.
After a 10-hour day at the site of the former World Trade Center, he
drives home in the dark to Long Island.
His wife, Peggy, will have a pot roast and potatoes on. She will ask how
his day was. Was it a good day? And if they found one person, he will tell
her it was a good day. If they find one finger, he tells her something was
accomplished. But mostly, they are bad days.
Mr. Butler, 62, is a member of a sad fraternity of men at ground zero, a
dozen or so who lost their sons or brothers in the cataclysm of Sept. 11.
For almost all of the 118 days since, most of these men have spent the
daylight hours in search of their kin.
They are retired firefighters and police officers and, in a contorted way,
they are the lucky ones. Because of their careers in uniform, they are
able to be near their lost children rather than having to sit home and
crumble.
But there are perils that come with their privileges. They have come for
so many days on end, one melting into the next, that their sense of the
calendar has been lost entirely. Fishing and golf have been put off. The
house goes wanting. Their lives have been taken over. Even when a son is
found, a man from this group does not leave the pit. He just expands his
sense of mission.
"This is a hell of a way to spend your retirement," said Lee Ielpi, a
retired firefighter who found his son on Dec. 11 after 91 days of
searching. "But I'm not leaving until the last dustpan of dirt has been
swept away from here."
The debris is being taken out of the hole rapidly. Close to one million
tons have been removed so far. It is not the search that makes headlines
anymore, these fathers say. That news, to their minds, has given way to
the bickering talk of politics and money and memorials.
But the search is not over; fires still smolder and more than 2,000 people
are still missing. The men of this fraternity are reluctant to talk about
their feelings. It goes against their code. But they do with the hope that
the public does not forget the search.
Their names are Ielpi, Vigiano, O'Berg, Butler, and they pick through the
muck of destruction, their eyes distant and sad, speaking of nothing but
death.
"They're such horrible words — was, had been, used to be," said John
Vigiano, 63, a retired captain in the Fire Department who lost two sons
—John, 36, a firefighter, and Joseph, 34, a police detective. Joseph was
found in October. John is still missing. "When I sit down there alone, I
talk to him and tell him I love him."

-- continued --

The fathers greet each other jokingly as doddering old men. They talk
about the war years in the Fire Department three decades ago, when it was
not uncommon to answer dozens of calls in an evening.
The younger men see the older men hurting and, out of respect, they call
them sir. The construction workers wear the pins memorializing the men's
children; they bring them coffee and keep them updated on the search.
For lack of better words, Mr. Ielpi, 57, is a fortunate man. They found
his son Jonathan, 29, a firefighter with Squad 288 and a father of two, in
the remains of the south tower. Mr. Ielpi was able to carry him out. He
spoke about that day in the warmth of a construction trailer; the workers
there silent in attention.
"We found him and now I don't have to go on wondering `Maybe?' whenever I
see someone who looks like him," he said with tears welling in his eyes.
"But to tell you the truth, I had hoped he turned coward and ran to an
island or drilled a hole behind the fridge and was living there. I held a
glimmer and then I found him and all the air drained out of me."
Still, Mr. Ielpi cannot leave. There are other sons and it would be unfair
to leave them in the cold, underground. There are the sons of his friends
like Bill Butler, whose son Thomas, 37, from Squad 1 in Park Slope,
Brooklyn, is still missing.
Mr. Butler was supposed to be off to Sarasota, Fla., this week. Instead,
he is going to sell the retirement home because there is going to be no
retirement, he said. He has his son's three children to help raise.
They say the worst thing in life is having to bury a child. Worse, the
fathers of ground zero say, is not being able to find that child. There
remain layers and layers of packed floors, with sons somewhere in between.
Perhaps the most heartbreaking man at the 16-acre hole is Dennis O'Berg.
Mr. O'Berg, 53, had 31 years in the department. His last tour of duty was
Sept. 11. His son, Dennis Jr., also a firefighter, died at the trade
center. A few days later, Mr. O'Berg put in his retirement papers.
"I had enough," he said.
Mr. O'Berg did not come back to the site for a very long time. He needed
to steady his legs. Then the calendar turned and he returned. He speaks
very little. "I feel he's deep down," Mr. O'Berg said as he surveyed the
steaming heap.
But with every piece that gets sifted, turning up nothing, a little hope
flutters away. Parts of the pit are 60 feet deep, and with workers having
hit bedrock, pools of water have collected. The grackles and sparrows and
seagulls have returned.
The odds are better for finding a firefighter than anyone else, since
their fire-retardant gear preserves the bodies. That reality has given
rise to some tension, as a bit of graffiti in one urinal at the site
suggests: "Hey FDNY, look for everyone, not just your own!"
"We are!" was the reply.
On Saturday, a construction worker, judging by the boots and the clothes,
was found. Just as they do for fallen uniformed personnel, firefighters
and police officers, along with construction workers, formed an honor
guard as the body, covered with a flag, was taken out.
"It was a sign of respect," said Bob Gray, the foreman of the heavy
machine operators. "And it was appreciated."


-- continued --

Given the chance, family members of the thousands of missing civilians
would almost certainly be down at ground zero with claw hammers and boots.
But that is the mixed benefit of wearing a uniform.
There is one civilian, however, who lost a brother and has been at ground
zero for all but a handful of days.
Brian Lyons, 41, spent the first 20 days on the pile. Before the calamity,
he had a desk job as a construction project manager with a big Manhattan
firm. He earned six figures, he said, and wore a suit.
When his boss would not grant him a leave of absence, he quit, and took a
$30-an-hour job as a supervisor at ground zero. This allowed him to look
for his brother, Michael, a firefighter with Squad 41.
"I know he's talking to me," Mr. Lyons said. "He's saying, `Brian don't
quit. I'm in here.' "
As if proof had to be given, Mr. Lyons spoke of an event that cemented his
resolve.
A pile of ID cards was found in the rubble of the north tower. He picked a
random one. It read: Michael Lyons. He keeps that in his wallet now.
"He's my brother," he said during a break one day, "and I'm going to look
for him until this place is immaculate."

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company