Following the terror attacks in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, the area where the World Trade Center towers stood became known as Ground Zero. Recovery efforts began immediately, and countless first responders and volunteers combed through the rubble looking for survivors for days and weeks. During this time, one South Carolina Baptist man witnessed the destruction and trauma firsthand in his role as an FBI chaplain.
Chaplains Joe Williams (left) and Richard Sale visited the memorial site at Ground Zero in early October with a group of EMS responders they ministered to following 9/11.Richard Sale, a South Carolina Baptist Convention consultant and SBC-endorsed chaplain who now works with the Florence Police Department, was leading a conference in Georgetown on 9/11. Sale is a member of the FBI chaplain program’s founding class of 1991, and the agency contacted him on Sept. 12 to put an FBI chaplain team together and report to Ground Zero immediately.
The role of an FBI chaplain is to minister in times of national tragedy. Sale was called to the scene of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and said that experience helped prepare him for what he went through at Ground Zero.
“I think chaplaincy is one of the greatest mission outreaches we have in our convention,” Sale said. “Our main purpose is to promote Christ.”
Sale and another FBI chaplain, Joe Williams from Oklahoma, were the first two non-New York chaplains to enter Ground Zero. Sale chose to work the midnight shift so that the firefighters, police officers, EMS workers, and volunteers working through the night would have the same support as those in the daytime. He walked the perimeter of Ground Zero hour after hour to talk, listen, and pray with them. During the two and a half weeks he was there, he was with responders when bodies were recovered from the rubble, and at other times, in the morgue where victims were being identified.
“My point of refreshing happened each night. I’d find a bench that wasn’t damaged, off from the Hudson River, where I could see the Statue of Liberty, and I’d sit and think of our nation, of God, of freedom, and about what of that had been destroyed,” Sale said. He made a point to call home every day to talk with family or friends to help himself deal with what he was experiencing. Ground Zero chaplains also debriefed as a group every night to discuss logistics and share about the day.
While on their shifts, the chaplains wore protective gear – a hard hat, vest, boots, goggles, and a respirator – because glass and debris continued to fall for days after the attacks and the smoke continued for weeks. First responders would see “FBI Chaplain” on Sale’s vest and call out to ask him to pray or read Scripture with them.
“I was called ‘Father,’ ‘Chaplain,’ ‘Priest,’ ‘Rabbi’ – they just knew why we were there,” Sale said. “One firefighter pulled a New Testament out of his boot and asked me to read Scripture with him, so we sat and read together that night.”
Sale said he knows God was present at Ground Zero, working to bring people to him. He described a place among the fallen bricks and mortar where pieces of steel had fallen together in the shape of a cross. Someone spray painted a message about God just below it.
“I felt that God was walking right beside me the entire time that I was there,” he said. “I was going to the morgue, watching the sadness and the devastation, and I could not have gone through it or put in the hours each day on my own strength. As chaplains, we were nothing but servants there, helping people see God,” Sale said.
The FBI chaplains worked with a particular group of EMS workers during that trip and have continued to stay in touch with them. In early October of this year, the two groups met again at Ground Zero. Sale has returned to the place many times since 9/11, but some of the EMS workers agreed to return only because the chaplains would be with them.
“One of the EMS workers was emotionally disturbed because of the events and still suffers a good bit from it,” Sale said. “These EMS workers lost some of their own there. It is still with them, and I don’t think it’s something they’ll ever get over.”
“God cried along with everyone else on 9/11. I know God was there. I believe God shed many, many tears in his own way,” Sale said. “I am thankful that I was able to be a servant of God in the midst of it. And I’m thankful that I could represent South Carolina Baptists on this most recent trip.” – SCBC