By Erin James
The Evening Sun
EAST BERLIN, Pa. — Every year as September approaches, John Cleary knows the spotlight is getting nearer.
The former New York City firefighter whose soot-covered, exhausted face once graced front pages around the world, became a celebrity of sorts when a Reuters photographer snapped a picture of him on Sept. 11, 2001. When the picture was taken, Cleary says, he was leaving Ground Zero to take a short break from digging through rubble and searching for survivors.
It’s that photo that keeps the reporters calling.
Cleary, who now lives in East Berlin, said he has both granted and rejected requests for interviews during the past six years from reporters of numerous publications looking to pick the brain of the firefighter in the picture - one that ran on the front page of The New York Times’ Sept. 13, 2001 issue.
This year Cleary said he turned down a request for an interview from the New York Post.
“I’m not here for lights and cameras,” he said through a thick New York accent. “This is personal to me.”
The 49-year-old father of four said he does not want attention or special treatment.
But he does want people to remember Sept. 11, 2001.
The day
John Cleary was supposed to have the day off.
He was a few miles from his home in Warwick, N.Y., - a town tucked between the borders of Pennsylvania and New Jersey - when he first heard that an airplane had flown into the World Trade Center.
The 20-year veteran of New York City firefighting turned on the radio in his truck, knowing there was a good chance he’d be called in to work.
Then, a second plane flew into the towers. All emergency workers were called to the scene.
He left the house where he was helping on a home-improvement job and went home to retrieve a helmet labeled with the number 84, the one his father-in-law used in the days he was a firefighter. Because it was his day off, Cleary said his own equipment had not yet been cleaned.
“It didn’t matter if I was wearing a baseball hat, I was going,” Cleary said.
He hitched a ride with a New Jersey state trooper and the two drove toward the scene of the worst act of terrorism in United States history.
It was close to 11 a.m. when Cleary arrived in Manhattan and went to find other members of Ladder 24, Engine Company 1. The towers had already collapsed, an event Cleary said he does not regret missing.
“I’m happy I didn’t get to hear what it sounded like,” he said.
During the rest of Sept. 11 and the days that followed, Cleary worked with other rescue workers to bring some sense of order to a city where two 110-story buildings had been reduced to rubble.
Cleary said he was one of the workers who helped to rescue Port Authority police officers Will Jimeno and Sgt. John McLoughlin, who were entombed beneath 20 feet of debris when the twin towers collapsed.
He remembers when his excavation team removed one of the officers, who was crying.
“The guy was shaking like a leaf,” Cleary said.
At one point that day, Cleary decided to take a break. On his way from Ground Zero, a reporter asked him to take a microphone and tell viewers about the rescue efforts.
He agreed, on the condition that he not be asked to describe any gory details.
“I wasn’t looking for lights and cameras,” he said.
It was because of that interview that Karen Cleary learned her husband was still alive.
“I started bawling,” she said, adding that friends and family who saw the interview started calling immediately after the broadcast.
That was the Clearys’ first experience with celebrity, but it wasn’t the last.
In the Clearys’ East Berlin home, a framed issue of New York Magazine hangs on the wall.
On the cover is John Cleary in a picture that personifies exhaustion and disbelief. Some might say despair.
When it was taken, Cleary said, he was just trying to wipe the dirt from his irritated eyes.
“I look like a raccoon,” he said. “My eyes were so itchy.”
The photo, taken by Reuters photographer Brad Rickerby, landed on the front page of The New York Times two days after the twin towers fell. It has since been reprinted by publications worldwide, including the London Times, which once offered to fly Cleary to England for a more extensive interview.
Cleary said Rickerby must have snapped the photo some time during his walk from Ground Zero to the row of media. He assumes the photographer got his name and information by overhearing his answers to the reporter’s questions.
Karen Cleary said she first realized the significance of the photo while walking to the checkout line of a New York Wal-Mart and seeing her husband’s face on dozens of magazines.
But John Cleary said he is just one of hundreds who were fulfilling their duties that day.
“What kind of hero am I?” John Cleary said. “I was just doing my job.”
About a year after Sept. 11, John Cleary said he decided to move on from the profession of firefighting.
“It was too emotional,” he said. “I just didn’t want to do it anymore.”
Cleary said he doubts he’ll ever return to firefighting but has considered volunteering at a local fire company, something he said he’ll do when he can give a 100-percent commitment.
Today, he keeps busy restoring the Civil War-era home where he lives with his wife and 13-year-old daughter, Erin.
It is the Clearys’ dream house, one filled with antique furniture and lots of red, white and blue.
John Cleary said they left New York for personal reasons and had been looking for an 1800s-style home in the area for many years. The couple discovered East Berlin about 15 years ago while on a hunt for antiques. They moved into their home four years ago, John Cleary said.
“We always had an eye on this place,” he said. “This was the one.”
The Clearys have three grown children in addition to Erin. Two live in New York, and the other is a student at Penn State University. John Cleary said his oldest son enlisted in the Army after Sept. 11, having lost so many familiar faces.
While they’re in town, Karen Cleary said neighbors can expect to see American flags displayed proudly on the couple’s property.
“Our flags are always out, 365 days a year,” she said.
The Clearys said their patriotism was especially renewed after the events of Sept. 11, a day that seven firefighters from John Cleary’s fire house were killed. That day, 343 firefighters died, according to the Associated Press.
Had he been on duty that Tuesday, John Cleary said life for his family could have gone much differently.
“I would have been a statistic,” he said.
Today, on the sixth anniversary of the attacks, Cleary said he will spend time reflecting on the memories of those he knew who died that day.
In addition to the seven firefighters from Cleary’s engine company who were lost on Sept. 11, he said he can put a face to at least 100 names on the list of those who died that day.
But the memories Cleary concentrates on are the ones he remembers not with tears but with laughs.
“I try to think of the funny things,” he said. “It was like candid camera (at the fire house).”
Cleary said he thinks of Sept. 11 every day and realizes it will take the rest of his life to completely get over.
“Something just always reminds me of 9/11,” he said.
John Cleary said he returned to Ground Zero about six months after Sept. 11, but he doesn’t have the desire to return again.
The last time was just too unnerving, he said.
“It was such a weird feeling,” he said. “It was like somebody was calling me from above.”
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