Gold9472
12-25-2007, 01:10 PM
A Tribute To The Jersey Girls Part II
I decided to expand on my original tribute (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10711). As more articles are found, they will be posted.
September 16, 2001
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B04E1DB163BF935A2575AC0A9679C8B 63
Larry King: Lorie Van Auken is in New York. Her husband Kenneth is missing. He was working on the 102nd floor. What does he do, Lorie?
Lorie Van Auken, wife of missing World Trade Center worker: He works for Cantor Fitzgerald. And he's a bond broker. And he was on the 102nd floor. And we just haven't heard anything at all.
King: Did you talk to him at all? Did he call home?
Van Auken: He called home. He left a message. And that's the last I heard from him. . . .
King: Let's listen to the voice of Kenneth Van Auken calling home.
Kenneth Van Auken: I love you. I'm in the World Trade Center. And the building was hit by something.
I don't know if I'm going to get out. But I love you very much. I hope I'll see you later. Bye.
-- ''Larry King Live,'' Sept. 12
October 24, 2001
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E3D6173BF937A15753C1A9679C8B 63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=3
KENNETH VAN AUKEN
An Arbor of Memories
Kenneth Van Auken's job as a bond broker bought him the house with the yard in East Brunswick, N.J. But his passions for carpentry and gardening built the cedar-wood arbor in the yard where his widow, Lorie Van Auken, now goes to grieve.
Mr. Van Auken, 47, who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald and left two children, finished the arbor a week before he died. Last week, the clematis plants that the Van Aukens picked out together for the arbor came in the mail. Mrs. Van Auken planted them with a friend at hand to keep her from crying too hard.
Not far from where the pink flowers will crawl up the arbor, a big old maple stands dying, its leaves brown for months. But it is being allowed to stay for now. ''My husband loved this tree,'' Mrs. Van Auken said. ''We had decided to wait till spring to cut it down. Give it one more chance to go green again.''
While Mrs. Van Auken is gardening to confront her loss, their 12-year-old daughter, Sarah, has written and recorded a song, ''Daddy's Little Girl,'' that has been played on pop radio stations.
''Daddy, are you there?'' the song goes. ''Cause I've, I've looked everywhere.''
''Maybe you'll appear, somehow whisper in my ear.''
December 14, 2001
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A04E4DB103FF937A25751C1A9679C8B 63
''It makes me feel very sad and very ill that somebody could be so happy about those events when we feel so completely the opposite about them, so distraught and sad. It's like an alternate universe.''
LORIE VAN AUKEN, whose husband was killed in the World Trade Center attack, on the bin Laden tape.
December 14, 2001
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07E4D7103FF937A25751C1A9679C8B 63
Another widow, Lorie Van Auken, whose husband, Kenneth, was a bond broker at Cantor Fitzgerald in 1 World Trade Center, turned on the television in her kitchen in East Brunswick, N.J., to catch a glimpse of the videotape. She soon regretted having done so.
''It created waves of nausea coming over my body,'' Mrs. Van Auken said. ''I have this nauseous feeling as I speak. It makes me feel very sad and very ill that somebody could be so happy about those events when we feel so completely the opposite about them, so distraught and sad. It's like an alternate universe.''
Mrs. Van Auken watched the broadcast with her 12-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son at her side. That was not very easy either.
''Did I want them to see the tape?'' she said. ''No. I don't want it to exist. But it does exist, and the kids are going to see it one way or another.''
TRACES OF TERROR: SURVIVORS; Trade Center Widows Lobby for Independent Inquiry
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9803EEDE163CF931A25755C0A9649C8B 63
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: June 12, 2002
The widows marched through the halls of Congress today, brandishing photos of their dead and a potent brew of patriotism, grief and indignation. The four women, New Jersey homemakers whose husbands vanished in the rubble of the World Trade Center, head a group demanding an independent inquiry into the events surrounding Sept. 11.
''It's not about politics,'' said one of the women, Kristen Breitweiser, 31, of Middletown, as she sat in the office of Representative Tim Roemer, an Indiana Democrat who is a member of the House Intelligence Committee. ''It's about doing the right thing. It's about the safety of the nation.''
Until now, it has been a largely Democratic chorus calling for the establishment of a blue-ribbon panel, much like the commissions that dissected the attack on Pearl Harbor, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the explosion of TWA Flight 800. President Bush has resisted the creation of an outside body, saying Congress can handle the job and suggesting that an additional investigation might interfere with national security.
''I don't want to tie up our team when we're trying to fight this war on terror,'' he said last week.
But recalcitrant Republicans may soon find themselves face to face with the likes of Ellen Mariani of Derry, N.H., whose husband was on the United Airlines flight that smashed into the south tower of the trade center. Mrs. Mariani, her shirt emblazoned with American flag pendants and an oversized picture of her husband, joined four busloads of relatives, friends and others who came to Washington today to rally for the establishment of a commission.
''I want a real investigation. I don't want lip service,'' she said. ''I'm angry, and I'm not going away.''
At a gathering across from the Capitol under a broiling sun, speaker after speaker described their cause as nonpolitical and a matter of grave national concern. Mindy Kleinberg, of East Brunswick, a mother of three who lost her husband, Alan, on Sept. 11, said she still had many questions: Why were fighter jets not dispatched to intercept the hijacked planes? How were the terrorists able to train at American flight schools? How can future attacks be prevented?
''I want to be able to look into the eyes of my children, and tell them the evil is over there, that they are safe and that their country is secure,'' she said. ''Nine months have passed and I still cannot do that. I do not have answers.''
The organizers said they began their planning two months ago, long before the recent disclosures about intelligence lapses. Ms. Kleinberg, Ms. Breitweiser and two other women, Patty Casazza and Lorie Van Auken, met in a local bereavement group and said they were inspired by Bob Monetti, whose son died in the crash of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. ''He said: 'You're not getting any answers. It's time for a rally,' '' Ms. Van Auken, 47, of East Brunswick, said. ''We had no idea what we were doing, but we didn't think we couldn't do it.''
The women have eagerly waded into Washington politics. ''I hate to admit it, but before Sept. 11, I understood politics vicariously through my husband,'' Ms. Casazza, 41, of Colts Neck, said. ''I have a new appreciation for the way Washington works.''
On Monday morning, they reluctantly left their children in the care of baby sitters and drove south for two days of arm-twisting and speech making. They visited nearly a dozen members of Congress, and by Tuesday afternoon they and their allies had won over a handful of Republicans, among them Representative Christopher H. Smith of New Jersey, who agreed to sponsor a House bill calling for the formation of an independent commission.
''Just give me a list of the people who are giving you problems and we'll knock on doors,'' Ms. Breitweiser said during a meeting with Senator John McCain of Arizona, a Republican who is sponsoring a similar bill in the Senate.
Although the women were pleased with their progress -- and the extensive media attention to their visit -- Ms. Casazza could not stop worrying about her 11-year-old son, John, who was headed to a Yankee game this evening. ''I know I can't stop him, but it makes me so anxious,'' she said. ''All I want is to feel safe again.''
Correction: June 15, 2002, Saturday A picture caption on Wednesday about a Washington rally advocating an independent inquiry into the terrorism of Sept. 11 referred incorrectly to a victim, Paul Ambrose, whose fiancée, Bianca Angelino, demonstrated. He was killed while a passenger in the plane that hit the Pentagon; he did not die in the World Trade Center.
October 26, 2002
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B07E5DC1E3CF935A15753C1A9649C8B 63
One video narrative that is not yet finished is the one that Chris Placitella, a partner at Wilentz Goldman & Spitzer, in Woodbridge, N.J., has put together for Lorie Van Auken, whose husband, Kenneth, was a bond broker at Cantor Fitzgerald. So last week, Mr. Placitella, who also belongs to Trial Lawyers Care, invited Mrs. Van Auken and another widow, Patty Casazza, for a preview.
There were wedding pictures, bar mitzvah pictures, vacation pictures, sentimental pictures of the arbor and deck that he built.
But there was also no escape from the horror of Sept. 11. -- not when the narrative included Mr. Van Auken's harrowing, halting voice mail message. ''I'm in the World Trade Center. The building was hit by something. I don't know if I'm going to get out. I love you.''
And not when the narrative included the song ''Daddy's Little Girl,'' which was written by Sarah Van Auken, now 13. ''Daddy, are you there? 'Cause I've, I've looked everywhere. Maybe you'll appear, somehow whisper in my ear.''
As she watched her husband's life unfold on screen, Mrs. Van Auken crumpled tissue after tissue to dab away the tears. ''It's ripping your heart out,'' she said. ''But I'm glad I'm doing this, because it's something you'll have forever.''
Then, almost as abruptly as it began, the video was over. And for the next minute or so, no one said anything.
August 25, 2003
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02EFDD1239F936A1575BC0A9659C8B 63
''Right now I can look up at the sky and talk to him, but I can't go anywhere and reflect on his life,' said Lorie Van Auken, 48, whose husband, Kenneth, was on the 105th floor of the north tower on Sept. 11. His birthday is in a few days, and she said she yearns to have a place to visit on that day. ''I go outside and I don't know where to look for him. You feel lost. This would give me somewhere to go.''
Bloomberg and 9/11
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980CE3DA173AF93BA15752C1A9659C8B 63
Published: November 28, 2003
To the Editor:
Re ''Stonewalling the 9/11 Commission'' (editorial, Nov. 23):
As members of the family steering committee of the 9/11 commission, we find it inconceivable that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg would stand in the way of turning over tapes of the first responders' experiences, which could yield invaluable information about preparedness, to the commission. No training sessions or military exercises could amount to lessons learned from actual experience.
A theoretical plan could never anticipate every possible contingency, and even the most carefully designed exercise cannot possibly mimic reality.
Instead of spending millions of tax dollars on theoretical exercises, why not use what was learned from the horrors of Sept. 11 by the first responders? Mayor Bloomberg is blocking our ability to gain access to that knowledge.
LORIE VAN AUKEN
MINDY KLEINBERG
East Brunswick, N.J., Nov. 23, 2003
February 29, 2004
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9904E3D71E3CF93AA15751C0A9629C8B 63
After trying to kill the commission and then trying to put Dr. Strangelove-Kissinger in charge, President Bush and Dick Cheney have done their best to hamper the panel that's the best hope of the 9/11 widows, widowers and orphans to get justice.
''This is not no-fault government,'' said Lorie Van Auken, a 9/11 widow. ''You don't just let people go on doing what they're doing wrong.''
9/11 Widows Skillfully Applied The Power of a Question: Why?
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E2DC1539F932A35757C0A9629C8B 63
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: April 1, 2004
Kristen Breitweiser was at home in Middletown, N.J., cleaning out closets. Patty Casazza of Colts Neck was dashing to the dry cleaners. Lorie Van Auken of East Brunswick was headed out to do grocery shopping. Her neighbor Mindy Kleinberg had just packed her children off to school.
Then came word, Tuesday morning, that President Bush had agreed to allow his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to testify publicly about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. All at once, the cellphones started ringing and the e-mail started flying and ''the Jersey girls,'' as the four women are known in Washington, were getting credit for chalking up another victory in the nation's capital.
Americans just tuning in to the work of the commission investigating the attacks may not have heard of Ms. Breitweiser and the rest. But on Capitol Hill, these suburban women are gaining prominence as savvy World Trade Center widows who came to Washington, as part of a core group of politically active relatives of Sept. 11 victims, and prodded Congress and a recalcitrant White House to create the panel that this week brought official Washington to its knees.
''They call me all the time,'' said Thomas H. Kean, the commission's chairman and a former Republican governor of New Jersey. ''They monitor us, they follow our progress, they've supplied us with some of the best questions we've asked. I doubt very much if we would be in existence without them.''
The families have spent months pressing for Ms. Rice's public testimony; when the White House failed to send her to last week's hearings, they walked out in silent protest. On Tuesday, two Democratic senators, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Charles E. Schumer of New York, suggested that the families think about asking Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to testify publicly as well.
Ms. Van Auken said that had always been their preference. ''Of course we would like them to testify publicly,'' she said Wednesday.
Before Sept. 11, the Jersey girls (the nickname, which distinguishes the women from their New York and Connecticut counterparts, was popularized in song by Bruce Springsteen) knew little about government and less about politics. The closest Ms. Casazza came to foreign affairs was processing visa applications for French trainees while working for the cosmetics company Lancôme. Ms. Van Auken could not keep the two chambers of Congress straight.
''I remember saying to Patty: 'Which one is the one with more people, the Senate or the House?' '' she recalled.
The story of how they helped move a seemingly immoveable bureaucracy is at once the tale of a political education, and a sisterhood born of grief. They gathered Monday in the sun-drenched living room of Ms. Casazza's spacious home to tell it. The place, with its well-tended lawn and tennis court out back, spoke of another life. Ms. Casazza, who has a 13-year-old son, is planning to sell it. ''Downsizing,'' she said simply.
Three of them were married to men who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, but the women were strangers until after the attacks. Ms. Breitweiser, 33, and Ms. Casazza, 43, voted for Mr. Bush in 2000. Ms. Van Auken, 49, and Ms. Kleinberg, 42, voted for Al Gore. All insist they had no political agenda, then or now.
But they had a burning question. ''We simply wanted to know why our husbands were killed,'' Ms. Breitweiser said, ''why they went to work one day and didn't come back.''
On Capitol Hill, lawmakers were pressing for a commission; in December 2001, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, had proposed a bill. By the spring of 2002, Ms. Kleinberg had befriended the father of a victim of Pan Am Flight 103, the plane that was bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. ''He said, 'The bill is languishing. If you want it to go anywhere, you have to make it happen.' ''
The women went to Home Depot, sawed wood for signs and staged a Washington rally; 300 people came out in the blistering heat. They staked out lawmakers and boarded the elevators marked ''Senators Only.'' They wheedled their way into the White House. Jay Lefkowitz, a former Bush domestic policy adviser, recalls giving them chocolate chip cookies, even as he successfully opposed some demands.
They stayed up nights surfing the Web, taking notes on things like Islamic radicalism and the Federal Aviation Administration's hijacking protocols.
''The Internet,'' Ms. Breitweiser said, ''has been our fifth widow.''
In the Capitol, they cried, they pleaded, they cajoled. Ms. Breitweiser showed her husband's wedding ring, found at ground zero still attached to his finger. Ms. Casazza brought photos of a Cantor Fitzgerald pool party, telling lawmakers, ''All the men are dead.''
They befriended reporters: Gail Sheehy, in The New York Observer, dubbed them ''the four moms.'' With her articulate manner and Ivory girl complexion, Ms. Breitweiser became a fixture on the television networks.
''No one wanted to say no to these women,'' said a Republican who participated in negotiations over the commission. He said the women ''were used'' by Democrats, an accusation Republicans repeated recently when Ms. Breitweiser criticized the Sept. 11 images in a Bush campaign advertisement. It is an acccusation she hotly denies.
Since the commission began its work, the Sept. 11 relatives, who call themselves the Family Steering Committee, have dogged its every move. When the panel complained of a lack of money, they lobbied for a bigger budget -- and won. When the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, refused to grant the panel an extension, they headed to Washington again, and the speaker retreated. ''Public pressure by the 9/11 families,'' Mr. Hastert's spokesman, John Feehery, said about the reversal. ''There is no doubt about that.''
For every battle they have won, though, the families have lost others. The commission rejected their calls to subpoena classified intelligence briefings and to fire its executive director, Philip D. Zelikow, who co-wrote a book with Ms. Rice. The families also complained that last week's hearings deteriorated into a partisan spat over a book by Richard A. Clarke, the former counterterrorism official. ''They were right on that one,'' Mr. Kean conceded.
So the Jersey girls are not congratulating themselves now on Ms. Rice. ''There are no victories here,'' Ms. Casazza said. Ms. Breitweiser added: ''A victory implies that this is a game. And this is not a game.''
[B]End Part I
I decided to expand on my original tribute (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10711). As more articles are found, they will be posted.
September 16, 2001
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B04E1DB163BF935A2575AC0A9679C8B 63
Larry King: Lorie Van Auken is in New York. Her husband Kenneth is missing. He was working on the 102nd floor. What does he do, Lorie?
Lorie Van Auken, wife of missing World Trade Center worker: He works for Cantor Fitzgerald. And he's a bond broker. And he was on the 102nd floor. And we just haven't heard anything at all.
King: Did you talk to him at all? Did he call home?
Van Auken: He called home. He left a message. And that's the last I heard from him. . . .
King: Let's listen to the voice of Kenneth Van Auken calling home.
Kenneth Van Auken: I love you. I'm in the World Trade Center. And the building was hit by something.
I don't know if I'm going to get out. But I love you very much. I hope I'll see you later. Bye.
-- ''Larry King Live,'' Sept. 12
October 24, 2001
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E3D6173BF937A15753C1A9679C8B 63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=3
KENNETH VAN AUKEN
An Arbor of Memories
Kenneth Van Auken's job as a bond broker bought him the house with the yard in East Brunswick, N.J. But his passions for carpentry and gardening built the cedar-wood arbor in the yard where his widow, Lorie Van Auken, now goes to grieve.
Mr. Van Auken, 47, who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald and left two children, finished the arbor a week before he died. Last week, the clematis plants that the Van Aukens picked out together for the arbor came in the mail. Mrs. Van Auken planted them with a friend at hand to keep her from crying too hard.
Not far from where the pink flowers will crawl up the arbor, a big old maple stands dying, its leaves brown for months. But it is being allowed to stay for now. ''My husband loved this tree,'' Mrs. Van Auken said. ''We had decided to wait till spring to cut it down. Give it one more chance to go green again.''
While Mrs. Van Auken is gardening to confront her loss, their 12-year-old daughter, Sarah, has written and recorded a song, ''Daddy's Little Girl,'' that has been played on pop radio stations.
''Daddy, are you there?'' the song goes. ''Cause I've, I've looked everywhere.''
''Maybe you'll appear, somehow whisper in my ear.''
December 14, 2001
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A04E4DB103FF937A25751C1A9679C8B 63
''It makes me feel very sad and very ill that somebody could be so happy about those events when we feel so completely the opposite about them, so distraught and sad. It's like an alternate universe.''
LORIE VAN AUKEN, whose husband was killed in the World Trade Center attack, on the bin Laden tape.
December 14, 2001
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07E4D7103FF937A25751C1A9679C8B 63
Another widow, Lorie Van Auken, whose husband, Kenneth, was a bond broker at Cantor Fitzgerald in 1 World Trade Center, turned on the television in her kitchen in East Brunswick, N.J., to catch a glimpse of the videotape. She soon regretted having done so.
''It created waves of nausea coming over my body,'' Mrs. Van Auken said. ''I have this nauseous feeling as I speak. It makes me feel very sad and very ill that somebody could be so happy about those events when we feel so completely the opposite about them, so distraught and sad. It's like an alternate universe.''
Mrs. Van Auken watched the broadcast with her 12-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son at her side. That was not very easy either.
''Did I want them to see the tape?'' she said. ''No. I don't want it to exist. But it does exist, and the kids are going to see it one way or another.''
TRACES OF TERROR: SURVIVORS; Trade Center Widows Lobby for Independent Inquiry
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9803EEDE163CF931A25755C0A9649C8B 63
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: June 12, 2002
The widows marched through the halls of Congress today, brandishing photos of their dead and a potent brew of patriotism, grief and indignation. The four women, New Jersey homemakers whose husbands vanished in the rubble of the World Trade Center, head a group demanding an independent inquiry into the events surrounding Sept. 11.
''It's not about politics,'' said one of the women, Kristen Breitweiser, 31, of Middletown, as she sat in the office of Representative Tim Roemer, an Indiana Democrat who is a member of the House Intelligence Committee. ''It's about doing the right thing. It's about the safety of the nation.''
Until now, it has been a largely Democratic chorus calling for the establishment of a blue-ribbon panel, much like the commissions that dissected the attack on Pearl Harbor, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the explosion of TWA Flight 800. President Bush has resisted the creation of an outside body, saying Congress can handle the job and suggesting that an additional investigation might interfere with national security.
''I don't want to tie up our team when we're trying to fight this war on terror,'' he said last week.
But recalcitrant Republicans may soon find themselves face to face with the likes of Ellen Mariani of Derry, N.H., whose husband was on the United Airlines flight that smashed into the south tower of the trade center. Mrs. Mariani, her shirt emblazoned with American flag pendants and an oversized picture of her husband, joined four busloads of relatives, friends and others who came to Washington today to rally for the establishment of a commission.
''I want a real investigation. I don't want lip service,'' she said. ''I'm angry, and I'm not going away.''
At a gathering across from the Capitol under a broiling sun, speaker after speaker described their cause as nonpolitical and a matter of grave national concern. Mindy Kleinberg, of East Brunswick, a mother of three who lost her husband, Alan, on Sept. 11, said she still had many questions: Why were fighter jets not dispatched to intercept the hijacked planes? How were the terrorists able to train at American flight schools? How can future attacks be prevented?
''I want to be able to look into the eyes of my children, and tell them the evil is over there, that they are safe and that their country is secure,'' she said. ''Nine months have passed and I still cannot do that. I do not have answers.''
The organizers said they began their planning two months ago, long before the recent disclosures about intelligence lapses. Ms. Kleinberg, Ms. Breitweiser and two other women, Patty Casazza and Lorie Van Auken, met in a local bereavement group and said they were inspired by Bob Monetti, whose son died in the crash of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. ''He said: 'You're not getting any answers. It's time for a rally,' '' Ms. Van Auken, 47, of East Brunswick, said. ''We had no idea what we were doing, but we didn't think we couldn't do it.''
The women have eagerly waded into Washington politics. ''I hate to admit it, but before Sept. 11, I understood politics vicariously through my husband,'' Ms. Casazza, 41, of Colts Neck, said. ''I have a new appreciation for the way Washington works.''
On Monday morning, they reluctantly left their children in the care of baby sitters and drove south for two days of arm-twisting and speech making. They visited nearly a dozen members of Congress, and by Tuesday afternoon they and their allies had won over a handful of Republicans, among them Representative Christopher H. Smith of New Jersey, who agreed to sponsor a House bill calling for the formation of an independent commission.
''Just give me a list of the people who are giving you problems and we'll knock on doors,'' Ms. Breitweiser said during a meeting with Senator John McCain of Arizona, a Republican who is sponsoring a similar bill in the Senate.
Although the women were pleased with their progress -- and the extensive media attention to their visit -- Ms. Casazza could not stop worrying about her 11-year-old son, John, who was headed to a Yankee game this evening. ''I know I can't stop him, but it makes me so anxious,'' she said. ''All I want is to feel safe again.''
Correction: June 15, 2002, Saturday A picture caption on Wednesday about a Washington rally advocating an independent inquiry into the terrorism of Sept. 11 referred incorrectly to a victim, Paul Ambrose, whose fiancée, Bianca Angelino, demonstrated. He was killed while a passenger in the plane that hit the Pentagon; he did not die in the World Trade Center.
October 26, 2002
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B07E5DC1E3CF935A15753C1A9649C8B 63
One video narrative that is not yet finished is the one that Chris Placitella, a partner at Wilentz Goldman & Spitzer, in Woodbridge, N.J., has put together for Lorie Van Auken, whose husband, Kenneth, was a bond broker at Cantor Fitzgerald. So last week, Mr. Placitella, who also belongs to Trial Lawyers Care, invited Mrs. Van Auken and another widow, Patty Casazza, for a preview.
There were wedding pictures, bar mitzvah pictures, vacation pictures, sentimental pictures of the arbor and deck that he built.
But there was also no escape from the horror of Sept. 11. -- not when the narrative included Mr. Van Auken's harrowing, halting voice mail message. ''I'm in the World Trade Center. The building was hit by something. I don't know if I'm going to get out. I love you.''
And not when the narrative included the song ''Daddy's Little Girl,'' which was written by Sarah Van Auken, now 13. ''Daddy, are you there? 'Cause I've, I've looked everywhere. Maybe you'll appear, somehow whisper in my ear.''
As she watched her husband's life unfold on screen, Mrs. Van Auken crumpled tissue after tissue to dab away the tears. ''It's ripping your heart out,'' she said. ''But I'm glad I'm doing this, because it's something you'll have forever.''
Then, almost as abruptly as it began, the video was over. And for the next minute or so, no one said anything.
August 25, 2003
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02EFDD1239F936A1575BC0A9659C8B 63
''Right now I can look up at the sky and talk to him, but I can't go anywhere and reflect on his life,' said Lorie Van Auken, 48, whose husband, Kenneth, was on the 105th floor of the north tower on Sept. 11. His birthday is in a few days, and she said she yearns to have a place to visit on that day. ''I go outside and I don't know where to look for him. You feel lost. This would give me somewhere to go.''
Bloomberg and 9/11
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980CE3DA173AF93BA15752C1A9659C8B 63
Published: November 28, 2003
To the Editor:
Re ''Stonewalling the 9/11 Commission'' (editorial, Nov. 23):
As members of the family steering committee of the 9/11 commission, we find it inconceivable that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg would stand in the way of turning over tapes of the first responders' experiences, which could yield invaluable information about preparedness, to the commission. No training sessions or military exercises could amount to lessons learned from actual experience.
A theoretical plan could never anticipate every possible contingency, and even the most carefully designed exercise cannot possibly mimic reality.
Instead of spending millions of tax dollars on theoretical exercises, why not use what was learned from the horrors of Sept. 11 by the first responders? Mayor Bloomberg is blocking our ability to gain access to that knowledge.
LORIE VAN AUKEN
MINDY KLEINBERG
East Brunswick, N.J., Nov. 23, 2003
February 29, 2004
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9904E3D71E3CF93AA15751C0A9629C8B 63
After trying to kill the commission and then trying to put Dr. Strangelove-Kissinger in charge, President Bush and Dick Cheney have done their best to hamper the panel that's the best hope of the 9/11 widows, widowers and orphans to get justice.
''This is not no-fault government,'' said Lorie Van Auken, a 9/11 widow. ''You don't just let people go on doing what they're doing wrong.''
9/11 Widows Skillfully Applied The Power of a Question: Why?
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E2DC1539F932A35757C0A9629C8B 63
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: April 1, 2004
Kristen Breitweiser was at home in Middletown, N.J., cleaning out closets. Patty Casazza of Colts Neck was dashing to the dry cleaners. Lorie Van Auken of East Brunswick was headed out to do grocery shopping. Her neighbor Mindy Kleinberg had just packed her children off to school.
Then came word, Tuesday morning, that President Bush had agreed to allow his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to testify publicly about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. All at once, the cellphones started ringing and the e-mail started flying and ''the Jersey girls,'' as the four women are known in Washington, were getting credit for chalking up another victory in the nation's capital.
Americans just tuning in to the work of the commission investigating the attacks may not have heard of Ms. Breitweiser and the rest. But on Capitol Hill, these suburban women are gaining prominence as savvy World Trade Center widows who came to Washington, as part of a core group of politically active relatives of Sept. 11 victims, and prodded Congress and a recalcitrant White House to create the panel that this week brought official Washington to its knees.
''They call me all the time,'' said Thomas H. Kean, the commission's chairman and a former Republican governor of New Jersey. ''They monitor us, they follow our progress, they've supplied us with some of the best questions we've asked. I doubt very much if we would be in existence without them.''
The families have spent months pressing for Ms. Rice's public testimony; when the White House failed to send her to last week's hearings, they walked out in silent protest. On Tuesday, two Democratic senators, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Charles E. Schumer of New York, suggested that the families think about asking Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to testify publicly as well.
Ms. Van Auken said that had always been their preference. ''Of course we would like them to testify publicly,'' she said Wednesday.
Before Sept. 11, the Jersey girls (the nickname, which distinguishes the women from their New York and Connecticut counterparts, was popularized in song by Bruce Springsteen) knew little about government and less about politics. The closest Ms. Casazza came to foreign affairs was processing visa applications for French trainees while working for the cosmetics company Lancôme. Ms. Van Auken could not keep the two chambers of Congress straight.
''I remember saying to Patty: 'Which one is the one with more people, the Senate or the House?' '' she recalled.
The story of how they helped move a seemingly immoveable bureaucracy is at once the tale of a political education, and a sisterhood born of grief. They gathered Monday in the sun-drenched living room of Ms. Casazza's spacious home to tell it. The place, with its well-tended lawn and tennis court out back, spoke of another life. Ms. Casazza, who has a 13-year-old son, is planning to sell it. ''Downsizing,'' she said simply.
Three of them were married to men who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, but the women were strangers until after the attacks. Ms. Breitweiser, 33, and Ms. Casazza, 43, voted for Mr. Bush in 2000. Ms. Van Auken, 49, and Ms. Kleinberg, 42, voted for Al Gore. All insist they had no political agenda, then or now.
But they had a burning question. ''We simply wanted to know why our husbands were killed,'' Ms. Breitweiser said, ''why they went to work one day and didn't come back.''
On Capitol Hill, lawmakers were pressing for a commission; in December 2001, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, had proposed a bill. By the spring of 2002, Ms. Kleinberg had befriended the father of a victim of Pan Am Flight 103, the plane that was bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. ''He said, 'The bill is languishing. If you want it to go anywhere, you have to make it happen.' ''
The women went to Home Depot, sawed wood for signs and staged a Washington rally; 300 people came out in the blistering heat. They staked out lawmakers and boarded the elevators marked ''Senators Only.'' They wheedled their way into the White House. Jay Lefkowitz, a former Bush domestic policy adviser, recalls giving them chocolate chip cookies, even as he successfully opposed some demands.
They stayed up nights surfing the Web, taking notes on things like Islamic radicalism and the Federal Aviation Administration's hijacking protocols.
''The Internet,'' Ms. Breitweiser said, ''has been our fifth widow.''
In the Capitol, they cried, they pleaded, they cajoled. Ms. Breitweiser showed her husband's wedding ring, found at ground zero still attached to his finger. Ms. Casazza brought photos of a Cantor Fitzgerald pool party, telling lawmakers, ''All the men are dead.''
They befriended reporters: Gail Sheehy, in The New York Observer, dubbed them ''the four moms.'' With her articulate manner and Ivory girl complexion, Ms. Breitweiser became a fixture on the television networks.
''No one wanted to say no to these women,'' said a Republican who participated in negotiations over the commission. He said the women ''were used'' by Democrats, an accusation Republicans repeated recently when Ms. Breitweiser criticized the Sept. 11 images in a Bush campaign advertisement. It is an acccusation she hotly denies.
Since the commission began its work, the Sept. 11 relatives, who call themselves the Family Steering Committee, have dogged its every move. When the panel complained of a lack of money, they lobbied for a bigger budget -- and won. When the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, refused to grant the panel an extension, they headed to Washington again, and the speaker retreated. ''Public pressure by the 9/11 families,'' Mr. Hastert's spokesman, John Feehery, said about the reversal. ''There is no doubt about that.''
For every battle they have won, though, the families have lost others. The commission rejected their calls to subpoena classified intelligence briefings and to fire its executive director, Philip D. Zelikow, who co-wrote a book with Ms. Rice. The families also complained that last week's hearings deteriorated into a partisan spat over a book by Richard A. Clarke, the former counterterrorism official. ''They were right on that one,'' Mr. Kean conceded.
So the Jersey girls are not congratulating themselves now on Ms. Rice. ''There are no victories here,'' Ms. Casazza said. Ms. Breitweiser added: ''A victory implies that this is a game. And this is not a game.''
[B]End Part I