BROKEN ARROW, Okla. — In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office put teams of local first responder’s together to go help with the rescue and recovery missions in New York.
Broken Arrow Police and Fire Department’s Chaplain Scott Keele was among them.
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“My first day on the pile was October 7th,” said Keele.
Keele was sent to help sort through the rubble at ground zero. He said it wasn’t like you recognized objects that would have been inside the World Trade Center — everything was decimated.
He went twice to New York in the months that followed the terrorist attacks, once in Oct. 2001 and again in Dec. 2001. Both times, Keele kept a journal.
“That’s part of the training that I have because I’m not a writer, and if you read my journal you can tell I’m not a writer,” he said. “But that’s one of the things in counseling that they tell you to do, write stuff out. When you put it out it helps you get it out of yourself, and so every night, before I would go to bed I would just write and write, usually about an hour and a half.”
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Excerpts of that journal are now hanging of a display at the Museum of Broken Arrow, part of an exhibit to ensure Oklahoman’s never forget the lives lost and those forever changed that day.
“When you’re on the pile, how do you describe that,” the chaplain said. “You don’t know the smell, you don’t know what was there, you didn’t see it.”
One thing that stood out in both trips to Keele, was that deep and devastating connection New Yorkers felt to Oklahomans, as 9/11 came just six weeks after the Oklahoma City bombing.
Keele told 2 News Oklahoma’s Stef Manchen about a moment he shared with a New York EMS worker.
“He’s like you don’t know what it means to have you guys from Oklahoma here because it’s like being told you have cancer and you have an older brother who already had it and you just go hug him,” said Keele. “I didn’t have to say nothing to that guy. I just had to hug him.”
When their 11 day trip came to an end, Keele said he felt so much guilt to be abandoning the people who didn’t have an option to escape the reality.
But going back to life in Oklahoma felt anything but normal. Keele said he’s forever changed by his time at Ground Zero, which he referred to as ‘Ground Hero.’
“I do think it’s important to know just what people had gone through,” Keele said, staring at his now public journal. “There’s never forget the people that died, okay. there’s also never forget the responders who went into it who also lost their life, but even the ones who didn’t lose their life but had to help as best they could and just to honor them.”
BROKEN ARROW FAMILY USES CHILDREN’S BOOK TO HELP SURVIVORS GRIEVE
What began as one family’s way to heal from personal tragedy became a national source of comfort for thousands of children who lost parents on September 11, 2001.
Jim and Sheila Schmidt wrote “I Cried Too” in April 2000 to help their own children cope with the tragic death of Sheila’s first husband. Little did they know their book would soon serve a much larger purpose.
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“From one family’s tragedy, my wife, her late husband, the children, became triumph for other children to have hope,” said Jim Schmidt.
It took the sudden loss of 2,977 Americans for the Schmidt’s to share their story with the world.
“It was shortly after 9/11 and we saw the story about the children who had lost parents and our own kids who had lost their first daddy, they looked at me and they said is our book printed? Are we gonna do this? Are we gonna help them? I believe that’s why God gave us this idea dad,” said Schmidt.
The family quickly published their book and made the journey to New York just six weeks after the attacks.
“We were there with the smells, we were there with the tears, we were there with the fire departments,” Schmidt said. “We made three trips and we found all the children who lost parents on 9/11 which was over three thousand of them.”
Their grief package — consisting of a book, a bunny, and a CD — was officially selected by the City of New York, the Pentagon, and fire and police departments as part of the 9/11 response effort.
More than two decades after 9/11, Schmidt says people still approach him to share how “I Cried Too” helped them navigate one of the darkest chapters in American history.
“He said I recognized your voice as soon as you started talking, I said, ‘you did?’ He said ‘yes,’ he said, ‘My grandchildren lost their daddy that day, my son, and whenever they come to grandpa’s house, they bring the little bunny, the book and the CD and they say grandpa, play ‘I Cried, Too.””
For the Schmidts, their work represents something deeper than just helping others heal. This work exists because of their faith.
“The meaning for us is we’re God’s ambassadors. That’s totally why we’re on this planet is to be hope help and healing for others,” said Schmidt.
