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Obama's Ground Zero Visit Evokes Raw Emotion, 9/11 Memories

By Adam Nichols | May 5, 2011 12:07pm | Updated on May 5, 2011 8:55pm

By Ben Fractenberg, Della Hasselle and Adam Nichols

DNAinfo Staff

GROUND ZERO — He was only 13 when the towers collapsed, but the horrors seared that day into Christopher Zayas' memory will affect his life forever.

Now 23, the National Guardsman remembers clearly the turmoil of his Queens classroom, his teachers standing stunned as the news filtered through the school, TVs being wheeled in — and of a room full of youngsters who watched the world they knew fall apart.

What he saw that day convinced him to join the Army, he said. He's due to go into active duty in two months.

"I remember 9/11 well, teachers running around," he said, wearing his camoflage uniform and National Guard cap, as he waited for President Obama to arrive at Ground Zero Thursday. "They were freaking out, they didn't know what was going on. They wheeled the TVs into the classroom. It was so confusing."

Zayas was not among those chosen to meet with Obama Thursday, but he stood in front of St. Paul's Chapel across the street from Ground Zero alongside throngs of people lined up behind police barricades, hoping to catch a glimpse of the President.

"Why am I here today? It's closure," he said. "You only have to be a little human to feel the emotion down here, to be inspired down here."

For William Bechtold, 60, an electrician who volunteered as a first aid worker at the pile after 9/11, the scars from that day have never healed.

"I patched up 42 people for two months, had to get my eyes washed out every two hours," said Bechtold, of Queens, who was wearing a hard hat and waving a giant American flag.

"I still can't believe the number of people who died and die every day for this tragedy that happened here."

Bechtold is still in therapy at St. Luke's and has three growths in his stomach that he says are related to the toxins from the Trade Center site.

"This is only my second time coming back here after I volunteered - once for a mass, and once when that pig was killed," he said, referring to the death Sunday of Osama Bin Laden.

"I am happy Osama Bin Laden is dead. I feel grateful now, but I still have nightmares."

Another passerby who waited near Ground Zero, Thomas Warren, 44, remembers how the first plane on September 11, 2001, turned his peaceful morning in Washington Square Park into an unimaginable hell.

"I saw the first plane fly over really low," he said as he joined thousands waiting for Obama's Ground Zero visit. "I remember thinking it must be landing in the water. And then I saw the explosion.

Melvin Bright, 67, of Harlem, waves the flag near Ground Zero Thursday.
Melvin Bright, 67, of Harlem, waves the flag near Ground Zero Thursday.
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Della Hasselle/DNAinfo Staff

"I used to come down here (to Ground Zero) and it was just a hole in the ground, it was so depressing. Just to see the progress is amazing," Warren said. "President Obama should come to New York. He should be here to let all the families know, 'We did it.' It's like closure.

"Maybe we can get back to being normal."

Julian Battistixei, a banker from San Marino, Italy, came to Ground Zero with his daughter Sophie, carrying a flag.

"Sophie was born on 9/11, so for us it was a year of big happiness followed by big pain," he said.

"Sophie wanted to be here because it's an amazing day. It's an important moment in history. And there's a lot of happiness."



The flag is on display in a massive crowd near Ground Zero Thursday.
The flag is on display in a massive crowd near Ground Zero Thursday.
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Della Hasselle/DNAinfo Staff