September 11 - Two More Remains Finally Identified

September 11, 2023

September 11 – Two More Remains Finally Identified

by Toni Williams in Headlines Post Comment

In the past week, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in New York announced that two sets of September 11 remains have been identified using DNA advanced techniques. The identities of the man and woman have not been made public at the request of the families. These are the first identifications made in over two years. I cannot wrap my head around it. Twenty-two years ago today, our world changed. Two decades later, the world has moved on. An entire generation has been born that has no concept about that day. It’s like reading about when JFK got shot. Words on a screen. About 1,100 remains from September 11 have not been identified. I try never to think about it. The visions of the horrors of that day are too much for my mind to contemplate.

My husband worked for AON Corporation on the 102nd floor of the South Tower. He had worked for Towers Perrin at 45th and Madison for years. AON was offering piles more money. A lot. When you work in Midtown, you live in Westchester, NY or Connecticut. When you work in Lower Manhattan, you live in New Jersey. I didn’t want to live in New Jersey, so I pouted for a few days before I put the house in Fairfield, Connecticut, behind Fairfield University, on the market.

Several months later, my husband came home and said that he just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t work on the 102nd floor of the South Tower. That seemed silly because he worked in Los Angeles in high rise buildings through earthquakes. Swaying buildings didn’t bother him. This one did. He wanted to go home to East Tennessee. The Vice President that he reported to at AON was flabbergasted. Ed Straub scoffed that there was no way he could take me (Toni) to Knoxville. I was spoiled by life close to New York City. My husband’s mind was made up. On July 29, 2001, we arrived in Knoxville. Husband still owed AON some deliverables, so he was back and forth.

We watched the horrors of September 11 with most of America on the television. I shake just thinking about that day. Lower Manhattan, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It’s like trying to comprehend the Nazi death camps, the Rape of Nanking or Pearl Harbor. Some events are too appallingly atrocious for the human mind to absorb.

That walk past the Armory, the faces of the "missing", every human type, every ethnicity … Some memories haunt you forever #September11 #NeverForget

— Ashok Malik (@MalikAshok) September 11, 2023

Remember the photos that people were posting all over of the missing? We saw the buildings fall. We knew that those loved ones were gone. In instant many lives were snuffed out. In order to survive, the families had to hold on to hope. And, when hope was gone. When reality was acknowledged, the families wanted something to bury. Even that is incomprehensible. Workers sifted through the dust and debris hoping to find human DNA. This week two identifications were made:

New York City officials have identified two more victims of the September 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center, just days before the 22nd memorial anniversary of the attacks.
The man and woman identified are the 1,648th and 1,649th victims identified by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, according to a news release from the mayor’s office. The two were identified through advanced DNA testing of their remains, says the release.

The mayor’s office said that they were withholding the names of the two new victims at the request of their families. These are the first identifications since September 2021, according to the release.

The man was identified through DNA testing of remains recovered in 2001 and the woman through DNA testing of remains recovered in 2001, 2006, and 2013, says the release.

Can you wrap your mind around that? I cannot. “the woman through DNA testing of remains recovered in 2001, 2006, and 2013.” Remember those workers sifting through rubble? This is why they were sifting dust.

September 11, 2001, my world was shattered. I got a panicked call from my mom screaming at me to put the TV on and that my brother's building in NYC had been hit by a plane. I dropped to my knees, prayed, and cried like I never had before. He was working in the towers. His… pic.twitter.com/ss69DHmDkr

— Sadie ‍ (@SadieInNC) September 11, 2023

It’s hard to imagine the gravity of the work the scientists in the New York Medical Examiner’s Office do. God Bless them for it.

I don’t have to think about September 11 every day. My husband wanted to go home. There are thousands of families who have no escape.

God Bless the families who finally got closure after 22 years. For the 1100 families still waiting for word after 22 years, may God bring them comfort.