By John C. O'Connell
He was there in uniform representing the Port Authority with other police officers and firefighters at memorial ceremonies led by French President Jacques Chirac. Carbonaro helped plant an American Oak near a replica of the Statue of Liberty at the French senate.
The moment came when a little girl approached him, her mother standing next to her, crying. They were part of a group of Americans living in Pairs that had assembled for the event, to remember and to honor.
The little girl looked up at Carbonaro and asked for his autograph. Humbled, he told the girl that he was no rock star.
"No," the mother said, "you're a true hero."
Reflecting on this and so many other moving moments since the day America was attacked, Carbonaro said the most impressive thing he's seen since that awful experience has been the strength and dedication of his co-workers at the Port Authority and in the American people.
"The most remarkable thing is to see their resolve and the resolve of our country at large to come together over this, and to not let it change the way we conduct our lives. I've seen how strong people really are, how willing they are to help, and how resilient my co-workers are with respect to getting the job done."
And they've had to be resilient. Port Authority police have been working 12-hour tours, five to six days a week, since Sept. 11. They used to work eight-hour shifts. They used to have 28 days vacation. Since the attacks, vacations have been limited to five days. Carbonaro hasn't had a vacation for 15 months.
'This is going to be a rough one'
On Sept. 11, once he heard the news, Carbonaro headed for the smoking towers that Tuesday morning shortly after arriving at work from his Valley Stream home.
As a lieutenant with the Port Authority Police stationed at Kennedy Airport, he knew that in addition to many thousands of others, many of his co-workers and fellow police officers would be at the epicenter of the carnage; the World Trade Center was the headquarters of his employer, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
He rushed in with other officers to find utter chaos. "This is going to be a rough one," he remembers telling them as their patrol car, sirens blaring, sped along Belt Parkway to the scene. It was worse than he could have ever imagined.
Now, almost a year later, Carbonaro can't shake the things he saw from his mind.
"We're doing fine [now], but everybody's tired and looking forward to getting back to some semblance of normalcy with respect to our work schedule. As Gen. Westmorland said [during the Vietnam War in which Carbonaro served], 'We're starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel, and it's not the other train.'"
The Port Authority - which lost 75 employees, 37 of whom were police officers and one of whom was Walwyn Stuart, also of Valley Stream - will graduate a class of 250 new officers right after this Sept. 11. Then there'll be another class in December. This may lighten the load of the PA police by the beginning of 2003.
"The most incredible thing is that it is already one year. It seems - although while we've been going through this it seemed like it was taking forever - now that we're near it, it seems like it was only yesterday that all of this actually happened."
No chance to 'decompress'
Carbonaro's thoughts are mixed about the upcoming "anniversary" of the attack. "I'm looking forward to the first anniversary to be over, because it's a milestone, and also we're really seriously worried about possibly a second Sept. 11th terrorist attack."
He misses the people he knew who were lost. Carbonaro's wife and son are Port Authority employees, too, and together his family knew about 50 of those who perished.
The nature of his work doesn't allow him much opportunity to escape thoughts of Sept. 11.
"The problem is that most of us here, because of the amount of time that we're working, and the fact that we're right involved in this, we haven't had the opportunity to really decompress. Every day we see signs of the attack on the World Trade Center. We wear a new patch on our sleeve that shows the World Trade Center. Every day when we come in we have bulletins about the FBI is notifying the Strike Terrorist Task Force about different things that are going on. We have pictures of all our lost personnel and we have pictures of the Trade Center everywhere. So it's hard to get away from it."
The Port Authority and the police unions have offered professional confidential counseling services to any employee who wants it, Carbonaro said.
He hasn't availed himself of that service. He's chosen the support of his own family.
"For me, I had the luxury that they're here also; they know what's going on here. They have a taste for the pressures that we're under, and they understand them and they support me through them."
As for the anniversary next week, "I'm looking forward to it coming and then going in an uneventful way. The memorials will be fine, with many tears shed."
Carbonaro won't be going to any memorials downtown, though he would like to. He'll be on the job at Kennedy.
"We'll be extremely busy here that day. They'll be expecting 130 to 180 heads of state to arrive from all over the world for the United Nations General Assembly meeting, and they will all want to visit the Twin Towers site."
President George W. Bush will be visiting as well.
Later in the morning of the 11th, there will be multi-faith memorial service at the Ramada Hotel near the airport. Carbonaro plans to participate.
'Hardening the target'
Asked how he thinks the War on Terrorism is going, he thinks the country is just starting to realize how small the world is and how great an impact global terrorism has on all of us. While he knows the government has much more to do internationally to combat terrorism, he is sure about how people in his profession are responding at home.
"I know, unequivocally, that everyone that I work with in the law enforcement community, and the ancillary communities that assist us, are all working as diligently as possible to prevent any further terrorism on our soil where we have the ability to impact it. ... I can tell you first-hand knowledge that we here address issues with respect to making our community a more hardened target. 'Target hardening' is a phrase we use in crime prevention, and what it means is to make your area a much more difficult location for someone to take advantage of."
Regarding travel at JFK and the other Port Authority airports in our area, Carbonaro, community relations officer for the airport, thinks it's improving every day.
"The safety here at the airport, although it was good prior to Sept. 11, is much better now than it ever has been and it will get better. We're in a transition period now where we have the Transportation Security Administration, the TSA, taking over the screening of passengers and baggage.
"We're awaiting new equipment to do a better job of X-raying checked luggage as well as carry-ons and we're now in that transition period where it's getting better and better every day.
"I would be a fool to say to you that it will ever be absolutely perfect, but it will be as near perfect as humanly possible. And I see it happening."
