NATIONAL GUARD BUREAU

Historical Services Branch

Interview NGB-12

INTERVIEW OF

1SG JOSEPH RANAURO

HHC, 1st Battalion, 101st Cavalry

CONDUCTED BY

MAJ LES’ MELNYK

National Guard Bureau

Wednesday, September 19, 2001

Transcript reviewed by 1SG Ranauro and returned without 

comment, January 2002

TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
2

1 P R O C E E D I N G S

2 MAJ MELNYK: This is MAJ Les’ Melnyk, the Army 

3 National Guard Historian at the National Guard Bureau, 

4 and I am interviewing 1SG Joseph L. Ranauro. I spell 

5 R-a-n-a-u-r-o. 

6 He is the first sergeant of HHC, 1st 

7 Battalion, 101st Cavalry, located in the armory on 

8 Slossen Avenue in Staten Island.

9 This interview is taking place on the 19th of 

10 September, on the steps of the U.S. Customs House, at 

11 the lower tip of Manhattan. 

12 1SG Ranauro, you have read and signed the oral 

13 history access agreement and agreed that everything you 

14 say here can be used by the Army however they use. 

15 1SG RANAURO: Yes, I do.

16 MAJ MELNYK: I'd like for you to start by 

17 briefly telling us what you do both in a military and 

18 civilian capacity, and maybe a brief synopsis of your 

19 military career.

20 1SG RANAURO: In the military, I'm currently 

21 the HHC First Sergeant for the 101st CAV. Prior to 
3

1 that, I was the Alpha Company First Sergeant for about 

2 three years.

3 Prior to that, I had the Mortar Platoon for 

4 two years. Prior to that, I was an E-8 and I was the 

5 Master Gunner for the CAV Squadron, and progression 

6 down from there was a platoon sergeant in a line 

7 company, tank commander, gunner.

8 Prior to that, I was in the New York Air 

9 National Guard. I came into the service in 1971. 

10 My civilian job, I'm a senior court officer 

11 for the New York State Court System in the State of New 

12 York. I've been on the job for 32 years, 28 of them 

13 have been in the capacity as an officer in the lower 

14 courts.

15 All my time has been spent in the criminal 

16 term. My various assignments have been working in 

17 courtrooms. I'm also on the Judicial Protection 

18 Program, with guards all our judges with death threats 

19 and emergency service type of operations, and we 

20 currently have the anti-terrorist perimeter patrol 

21 around all the courthouses in lower Manhattan that are 
4

1 run by the State of New York.

2 MAJ MELNYK: If you would, 1SG Ranauro, go 

3 back to Tuesday, September 11. Where were you -- your 

4 situation is somewhat unique. 

5 Describe your reactions when the attack 

6 occurred.

7 1SG RANAURO: We had just turned out for our 

8 day tour. We turn out at 08 in the morning. Myself, 

9 four other officers, are -- all our bosses were in 

10 Albany that -- had left for Albany that morning to --

11 as it happens, they were going up there for a briefing 

12 on weapons of mass destruction.

13 MAJ MELNYK: And you work where? 

14 1SG RANAURO: I work at 100 Center Street. 

15 That's in lower Manhattan. The cross streets are West 

16 Street, Center, and we cover basically the family, 

17 civil, and the criminal court buildings are located 

18 down there. It's principally five buildings that we 

19 are assigned to patrol.

20 MAJ MELNYK: About how far from the World 

21 Trade Center is that?
5

1 1SG RANAURO: I would say it is about the 

2 distance of about eight to ten city blocks. It's about 

3 five to eight minutes walking distance from our 

4 building. 

5 MAJ MELNYK: When did you become aware of the 

6 attack and what did you do?

7 1SG RANAURO: During -- during the week, every 

8 once a while, we hear military jets, they come down the 

9 Hudson, I guess, sightseeing or whatever, and we had 

10 heard a jet coming. We assumed from the sound of it it 

11 was a military type jet.

12 MAJ MELNYK: You were inside or outside?

13 1SG RANAURO: We were outside the building. 

14 My whole detail of -- the five of us at that point were 

15 outside on patrol.

16 We heard the jet approaching, and I'm a pilot 

17 myself, and one of the things I commented to one of my 

18 coworkers was the FAA is going to have this guy, 

19 because he was very, very low.

20 Then from behind one of the buildings on the 

21 west side, we had seen the airliner basically come up 
6

1 and slam into the side of the World Trade Center.

2 MAJ MELNYK: What direction was the airliner 

3 coming?

4 1SG RANAURO: He was going from north to 

5 south.

6 MAJ MELNYK: So down the Hudson River.

7 1SG RANAURO: Down -- right. Correct. Down 

8 the Hudson River. Initial reaction from most of us was 

9 that it was a pilot who probably had a mechanical 

10 failure and my reaction was it was probably trying to 

11 ditch the plane into the harbor and he wasn't able to 

12 make it.

13 Right after we saw the plane come in, my 

14 detail gathered up all our guys, which was a detail of 

15 ten men, ten officers, most paramedics and EMTs, we got 

16 all our equipment, our oxygen bottles, our trauma bags 

17 and everything else, threw them in the van and headed 

18 toward the World Trade Center.

19 About halfway there, we caught the very, very 

20 tail end of the second plane striking the building. He 

21 came up from the southerly direction, popped up almost 
7

1 in like an F-16 type maneuver, attack thing.

2 He tried -- it appeared that he tried to bank 

3 the aircraft sideways into the building, but he wasn't 

4 able to do that. He was in too much of a bank to keep 

5 it that way. The plane would have turned and missed 

6 it.

7 So he leveled the wings and went into the 

8 south tower from the south side.

9 We had, myself and my guys, along with all the 

10 firefighters and police officers that were down there 

11 had to back off because of all the debris coming off 

12 the building. 

13 MAJ MELNYK: What was your reaction? Did your 

14 assessment change at that point?

15 1SG RANAURO: Yeah. Right after that, we 

16 figured it was some type of attack or something like 

17 that. It was too much of a coincidence that two planes 

18 would hit the same type of building at the same time.

19 And since we go through a lot of training for 

20 this stuff, that was our assessment right away.

21 We had to back off from the building. There 
8

1 was too much debris coming down. We helped civilians 

2 get out of the area, told them to just keep running 

3 north or towards the East River.

4 When the debris subsided a little bit, we 

5 moved towards the north tower, down on -- at that 

6 point, we were on -- we had just turned southbound on 

7 West Broadway and we were stationary there, waiting for 

8 a lot of debris to come down.

9 We were telling people to run north and east 

10 towards the river. Once the debris had stopped to a 

11 manageable level, we started down West Broadway, 

12 towards the buildings. 

13 We met with members of New York Police 

14 Department, Fire Department, and EMS, and explained to 

15 them we have paramedics, we're all trained, where do 

16 you need help.

17 MAJ MELNYK: What was the scene like there at 

18 the plaza?

19 1SG RANAURO: The scene on West Broadway 

20 coming up onto Vesey Street, which is the north street 

21 on the northern side of the World Trade complex.
9

1 MAJ MELNYK: Northern side of the -- right.

2 1SG RANAURO: The scene was pieces of 

3 aircraft, one of the engines of one of the aircraft, 

4 glass, debris, hands, limbs, all types of body parts. 

5 As we got closer, it got worse and worse. 

6 A lot of soot and smoke from the debris that 

7 had fallen and a lot of damage to the surrounding 

8 buildings, as we got closer to it.

9 About a block away from Vesey Street, when we 

10 were still going southbound toward the towers, people 

11 were jumping out of the building. Three people came 

12 out. The fourth came out and he was on fire and came 

13 down. 

14 We found out later on that a couple of these 

15 people fell on firefighters and killed them as they 

16 were walking and responding.

17 We went around the west side of the towers, 

18 which would be on the Church Street side, and they were 

19 evacuating people next to the -- on the corner of Vesey 

20 and Church, which would be the northwest corner, 

21 there's Border's Book Store and there's a very large 
10

1 overhang from Border's.

2 Correction on the location of Border's. It's 

3 the northeast side of the -- I believe it's Six World 

4 Trade. The map is too small. I really can't read it.

5 MAJ MELNYK: Right. Definitely the northeast 

6 corner of the complex.

7 1SG RANAURO: Right. They were evacuating 

8 people from the sub-levels, the escalators had come up 

9 into the lobby behind Border's, they run adjacent 

10 behind the Border's Book Store, which is L-shaped. It 

11 runs right around to Vesey Street.

12 And the police department had a line of 

13 people, some -- a couple of the officers had bull 

14 horns, telling the people do not use cell phones, do 

15 not look up, and head to Broadway. That's where the 

16 triage is, and all the rest of the medical help was 

17 waiting for them up there.

18 So we helped -- so my ten guys helped get a 

19 lot of those people out. I would say probably about 

20 seven or eight hundred people, before the building 

21 started to come down.
11

1 At some point, maybe about ten minutes after, 

2 we got on the line near the doorway to help either 

3 carry people or rush them out of the building.

4 About eight officers from our academy, which 

5 is down here on Williams Street, had seen the incident 

6 and they came up to help. Some of them are EMTs, and 

7 they joined with us.

8 Probably after about ten minutes, EMS came out 

9 and said we need paramedics in the basement, that we 

10 have a lot of burn victims.

11 And my partner, Tommy Jergens, CPT Harry 

12 Thompson from the academy, Officer Tai Bacon from my 

13 building -- he doesn't work in my detail, but he's also 

14 a paramedic -- and one of the other officers who was 

15 off duty coming to work saw what happened, he's also a 

16 paramedic, he joined in, and he was only in our command 

17 about a week. I really didn't even know him.

18 I heard his name being mentioned. They 

19 responded to the EMS that was on Church Street and got 

20 the little folding chairs with wheels on it and headed 

21 down into the basement.
12

1 And we were all kind of looking at one 

2 another, not understanding why there would be so many 

3 burn victims. We found out later on that all the jet 

4 fuel went down the elevator shafts and flooded the 

5 lower levels with jet fuel.

6 MAJ MELNYK: That was my question, as well.

7 1SG RANAURO: So my four guys came out, along 

8 with my partner, Tommy Jergens, came out and they had 

9 four very bad burn victims. They were probably burned 

10 over 60 percent of their body.

11 They brought them to EMS and they were removed 

12 to the burn center, I believe, at Bellevue.

13 My guys went back down again. I gripped my 

14 partner, Tommy, I said, "Tommy, stay up here with us," 

15 and his last words to me, it turns out that he says, 

16 "Joe, there's people down needing help, plus we're all 

17 paramedics."

18 He was a combat medic. He was assigned to the 

19 69th Infantry with the New York National Guard. Before 

20 that, he was with, I believe, the 82nd, but I'm not --

21 either the 82nd or the 101st. 
13

1 MAJ MELNYK: Would he have served in the 69th?

2 1SG RANAURO: Yeah. Yes, he did. In fact, 

3 his enlistment had just ended and he was going to 

4 switch over to our unit. He had just gotten married 

5 four months ago and he was waiting to get settled in 

6 with his wife and everything else and he was going to 

7 reenlist with the 101st CAV.

8 They went back down into the basement. We 

9 were still continuing to get people out, and I would 

10 say it was maybe about -- and the time frames, I look 

11 them now in the newspapers, and it seemed like it was 

12 just slow motion.

13 So when I say maybe it was 20 minutes later, 

14 it may have been a half hour. The times were very 

15 blurry.

16 It seemed like about 20 minutes after they had 

17 gone back down to get another load of burn victims that 

18 were down here, we heard popping sounds that initially 

19 we didn't know what they were.

20 Maybe about a minute after we heard them, we 

21 thought there were explosions in the south tower and 
14

1 one of the guys I work with, Teddy Leosokis (phonetic,) 

2 says to me, "Joe," he says, "take a look at the 

3 building," and it was actually waving. 

4 The whole building was waving all the way 

5 from, I would say, maybe about the tenth floor all the 

6 way up.

7 MAJ MELNYK: The outer skin.

8 1SG RANAURO: Right. The outer skin of the 

9 building had waves in it, like you see in the movie or 

10 something like that. 

11 We looked across the plaza, looking towards --

12 looking eastward towards Church and up to Broadway, and 

13 there was a lot of people there and internally, I said 

14 to myself, I'm not going to be able to run and make it 

15 through that, because we assumed that the buildings 

16 were going to topple one way or the other.

17 And we chose to all pile into the lobby of the 

18 -- right behind the Border's. We got about 40 or 50 

19 feet into the lobby. We turned the corner going -- we 

20 were going northbound behind Border's in the lobby.

21 Then we made the turn going westbound, and we 
15

1 got maybe up the second set -- there's a small, I 

2 think, six stairs in there. 

3 I got to the first step and the rush of the 

4 wind and the debris blew us about ten feet further into 

5 the lobby and just -- we were just basically buried in 

6 there. 

7 MAJ MELNYK: So the debris --

8 1SG RANAURO: Right. I made the first step. 

9 The gush of the air and the debris blew us in there, I 

10 guess, about ten or fifteen feet, and everything went 

11 black. Just tons of dust and nobody could breath for, 

12 I would say, a good three to four minutes. Nobody 

13 could catch their breath.

14 I mean, I was gasping to the point where I 

15 thought, well, I may not die getting crushed here, but 

16 I might wind up having a goddamn heart attack. And we 

17 were all laying down on the ground.

18 It was mostly firefighters, police officers, 

19 my guys, a part of my guys.

20 MAJ MELNYK: How many of your guys?

21 1SG RANAURO: That were actually in there, 
16

1 there was, I guess, about seven of us that were in that 

2 particular area. 

3 MAJ MELNYK: Right.

4 1SG RANAURO: So we're laying, it's pitch 

5 black, you can't see anything. One of the guys I work 

6 with, Teddy, who I mentioned before, was about six 

7 inches from my face. When I finally got my breath, the 

8 first thing I yelled out was, "Teddy, where are you." 

9 He's yelling into my ear, "I'm right next to you."

10 Our eyes are covered, our ears had stuff in 

11 them, and basically everybody had their tee shirts up 

12 around their mouths and trying to block off all the 

13 stuff that we were ingesting at that point.

14 One of the female sergeants from the academy, 

15 Pat Manarano (phonetic,) was right behind me and, 

16 again, she yelled in my ear, and then we started -- it 

17 was like touching one another and we're alive at this 

18 point.

19 And then we started to -- the officers and the 

20 firefighters in there started to go in opposite 

21 directions to see which way we were able to get out, 
17

1 and it was blocked on both sides.

2 At some point, the Port Authority emergency 

3 service cop who was in there with us got his bearings 

4 and he was able to breath. He had a little bit of 

5 debris on his legs. They pulled him out.

6 But everybody -- as far as I know, everybody 

7 came out unscathed. And there was also probably, I 

8 guess, about ten or fifteen civilians in there with us.

9 He says, "Guys, everybody" -- you know, nobody 

10 was panicking or anything. We finally got all our 

11 flashlights on. He says, "I know where we are," and we 

12 managed to break -- we managed to break the north 

13 glass, rear glass of Border's into the book store 

14 itself.

15 Once the glass came down, we felt a little 

16 fresh air coming through. So we knew somewhere there 

17 was some type of opening, whether it was to the outside 

18 or into one of the other buildings.

19 Basically, everybody was hands on shoulders or 

20 hands on gun belts or whatever we could grab, and we 

21 started heading, and then there's people on the outside 
18

1 that started clearing debris from the north -- the 

2 Vesey Street entrance to Border's, which is on the 

3 north side of the building, and we were able to get out 

4 that way.

5 All of us were directed to Broadway, near city 

6 hall, I think it was Park Place, and EMS was there 

7 doing basically eye washes and getting our ears 

8 cleaned, because we were covered -- covered with dust 

9 and small pieces of -- it looked like snowflakes, of 

10 some type of insulation, and, with our luck, it's 

11 probably asbestos and we'll all be dead in ten years.

12 But -- so most of us headed -- most of the 

13 guys headed up towards Broadway and I think it was Park 

14 Place. We were cleaned out as much as we could get by 

15 emergency -- the EMS people up there.

16 We were all waiting up there and on our radios 

17 trying to account for everybody and little by little, 

18 all the guys from our detail were checking in, except 

19 for one of them, which is my partner, Tommy Jergens.

20 We found out later on he was either in the 

21 second or the third level, we're not sure. He's still 
19

1 down there, him, Harry Thompson, and one of our other 

2 personnel. So we don't think, as of this point, nobody 

3 has heard anything and I don't think they made it out.

4 So we're standing on Broadway near city hall 

5 and that's when the north tower came down. Again, time 

6 frame wise, I'm sure you could look it and it's, you 

7 know, it's documented, but everything was moving very 

8 slow for us.

9 At that point, we gathered up as many of our 

10 guys as we could. We went towards Canal Street, which 

11 is northbound on -- northbound on Broadway, because my 

12 son, who is also -- who was a copy, was stationed up 

13 there, I wanted to go check on him.

14 And then eventually we returned to our 

15 building. We counted heads and we realized we had 

16 missing personnel. 

17 At some point, I think it was about 2:00 

18 o'clock in the afternoon, my detail and another bunch, 

19 I guess about another 25 officers, went back down to 

20 help with the digging, but at that point it was chaos 

21 down there and they weren't allowing anybody in.
20

1 So we went back to the command. I went back 

2 into my building. I spent maybe about 15 minutes in my 

3 building, until I looked out the window, and I says, 

4 "I'm out of here, I ain't staying in this building." 

5 Washed my hair, got home, and I guess about 10:00 

6 o'clock at night, I reported to the armory because the 

7 unit had been activated.

8 MAJ MELNYK: Where is home, again, for you?

9 1SG RANAURO: I live on Staten Island. 

10 MAJ MELNYK: You live on Staten Island.

11 1SG RANAURO: Right.

12 MAJ MELNYK: When you reported to the armory, 

13 what situation did you find with your company? What 

14 orders were you given? Were you able to provide 

15 information that they didn't have? 

16 1SG RANAURO: Yeah. I provided as to what we 

17 had seen and what we experienced. By then, most of the 

18 HHC and Alpha Company, which is also on Staten Island, 

19 were in. The other three line companies from upstate 

20 New York were on their way in at that point and 

21 basically everybody met up on Wednesday morning.
21

1 The people running it from Troop Command was 

2 the normal chaos from them. They told us to report to 

3 Battery Park City.

4 I had at least 30 soldiers from my medical 

5 platoon, transportation, and maintenance platoons 

6 working up on One Liberty Plaza at the makeshift morgue 

7 that was up there, and, also, quite a few of them got 

8 into the actual dig site. 

9 The dig site was utterly chaos. Most of the 

10 experts that handle this type of thing from the fire 

11 department were killed in the building collapses. 

12 So really there was -- all the smart guys at 

13 that point were gone and it was basically each section 

14 was doing things the way they wanted to do it.

15 However, when I was up there with our morgue 

16 personnel, speaking to the lieutenants and some of the 

17 people from the police and fire departments, when I 

18 told them we had a 100 soldiers down here to help, they 

19 were elated

20 But once it was pushed up through higher, I 

21 guess through the Mayor's office, they said no, no 
22

1 National Guardsmen will be in there digging. But some 

2 of our guys did get down into the site and actually did 

3 dig. 

4 It was very frustrating for all the soldiers 

5 not to be able to get in and lend a hand, when you see 

6 civilians who are walking around the streets, in the 

7 site helping and this, that and the other, and we had 

8 over a 100 men that could have went in there to help 

9 and we were denied access to highers.

10 So what our guys did was just interface here 

11 on the ground. Most of my soldiers are police 

12 officers, firefighters, EMTs, and this, that and the 

13 other.

14 So they went to the low level, the guys 

15 actually doing work on the ground, and they were given 

16 missions right from there and we kind of like just 

17 stayed away from all the Troop Command and the Mayor's 

18 office and everything else, and that's the way we were 

19 able to help down there.

20 It was just really chaos in that area, until 

21 they got organized, which was about -- I guess about 
23

1 four days into it.

2 MAJ MELNYK: What was your primary function as 

3 the first sergeant? What were you -- what kept you 

4 busy? What were your challenges? 

5 1SG RANAURO: My primary job, after getting 

6 all my people in, was deploying the assets of the HHC 

7 Company, which is mechanics, medics, scouts, mortars, 

8 which the scouts and the mortars were used primarily 

9 for security missions.

10 MAJ MELNYK: They're traditional jobs.

11 1SG RANAURO: Right. The Mortar Platoon was 

12 lumped in with the scouts, because they're ground type 

13 infantry guys.

14 MAJ MELNYK: Right.

15 1SG RANAURO: And they basically helped to 

16 provide security details. The maintenance guys had to 

17 get some equipment up here to support us. 

18 The medics brought all our -- all our 

19 ambulances were brought up here and our transportation 

20 assets, we brought up three or four fueller Hemmets and 

21 they were both up.
24

1 At some point during the first three or four 

2 days, the fire department actually started running out 

3 of diesel in the pit and we supplied them with, I 

4 believe, two Hemmets to refuel a lot of their stuff.

5 And my one section was back in the armory 

6 taking care of the payrolls and everything else and 

7 basically the two-three shop ran on top, on site over 

8 here.

9 The biggest challenge I had was to motivate 

10 the men. All my soldiers were motivated to go out and 

11 work, but most of them that they were being denied the 

12 chance to do that and to actually get in there and help 

13 dig and this, that and the other, and that was the most 

14 frustrating thing, to keep the morale up and say, 

15 listen, we're doing other missions that are just as 

16 important, and they have the experts in there.

17 But when you see civilians in there who we 

18 know are not experts, it was very, very frustrating for 

19 myself and for --

20 MAJ MELNYK: Did -- I'm sure you felt the same

21 way yourself, but with your friends and partners there.
25

1 1SG RANAURO: Yes. Yes, very much so.

2 MAJ MELNYK: How much did -- how busy were 

3 you? How much did that weigh on you and affect you 

4 personally, or were you so busy that you forgot about 

5 it?

6 1SG RANAURO: There was enough moving the 

7 company from Staten Island to Manhattan and all the 

8 support elements that we needed to do this with.

9 The initial plan to move is basically move a 

10 lot of our assets over here, assuming that they might 

11 be needed. So it was basically a sort out type of 

12 thing, saying yeah, we'll probably need our heavy 

13 Hemmets over there. 

14 MAJ MELNYK: Right.

15 1SG RANAURO: As it turns out, they've moved a 

16 lot of food stocks for the volunteers that are cooking 

17 on site, this, that and the other, a lot of bottled 

18 water, et cetera, et cetera, and also moved troops from 

19 point A to B down here, and just tried to sort out and 

20 figure what possibly would be needed.

21 Naturally, a lot of generators and stuff like 
26

1 that. Home Depot, immediately, Tuesday night, after 

2 this has happened, donated $40,000 worth of generators 

3 and picks and shovels and everything else.

4 So that was probably the biggest thing, to put 

5 together a package to support what we needed to do up 

6 here.

7 MAJ MELNYK: Kept you very busy.

8 1SG RANAURO: Yes. That kept us busy. It was 

9 til like maybe a day or two later that I had some down 

10 time, that it really totally sunk in that my partner 

11 might -- there was a good possibility my partner and 

12 some of my friends might be gone, and, also, I had 

13 Tommy's wife, who just got married four months ago, 

14 calling me up saying, you know, "Have you heard from 

15 him, when was the last time you saw him," that kind of 

16 stuff. 

17 MAJ MELNYK: And you had to explain that to 

18 her.

19 1SG RANAURO: Yeah. We had to sit down, speak 

20 to her over the phone, because I'm on active duty and I 

21 couldn't get over there. But other members of my unit 
27

1 have been in contact with her and I think at some point 

2 this week they are going out to see her.

3 MAJ MELNYK: What about your own family? How 

4 did you let them know that you were okay?

5 1SG RANAURO: Initially, right after the first 

6 plane hit, I got my cell phone and called my son, who 

7 works -- my younger son, who works uptown for a wine 

8 importer, and told him to immediately get out of the 

9 city. 

10 My older guy, my older son, who is an officer 

11 in the 68 precinct, I had called him and he had seen 

12 it, because from Bay Ridge, you can see the towers. He 

13 had seen basically the whole thing.

14 And then I told my wife, I said don't even 

15 think about going to work, just stay home. And I 

16 checked on my mom and all this was in -- all these 

17 phone calls are made probably while all the guys were 

18 getting all the emergency bags out of the building down 

19 there. 

20 MAJ MELNYK: But after the collapse, did you 

21 try and -- cell phone traffic was --
28

1 1SG RANAURO: Cell phone traffic was a 

2 nightmare. At that point, nobody in my family knew I 

3 had gone down there. I don't know if that was good or 

4 bad. But later on, I heard a ration of screaming and 

5 yelling from my sons and this, that and the other.

6 MAJ MELNYK: You were warning them out of the 

7 city and you were --

8 1SG RANAURO: Yeah, I was trying. Right. I 

9 knew my son, my oldest son, who was a police officer, 

10 would probably have to come in at some point, that's 

11 his job, and he's also a tank commander with Alpha 

12 Company with the 101st. 

13 So he was with the police department down at 

14 the dig site for I think two days and then he got 

15 called up and he came in.

16 So he is here in the National Guard capacity 

17 right now. 

18 MAJ MELNYK: How -- you've described some of 

19 the different things that all of your different 

20 headquarters soldiers have done.

21 How have they been performing? What is their 
29

1 morale like and how was the tragedy here affecting 

2 them?

3 1SG RANAURO: Their performance after the --

4 the initial -- the initial chaotic -- how can I put it 

5 -- atmosphere of the first four or five days, being 

6 frustrated, not getting up there to help and this, that 

7 and the other, has pretty much calmed down.

8 They know the professionals are in there doing 

9 it. They know the fire department basically cleaned 

10 house on the site up there and it's all professionals 

11 now in there.

12 And we have a defined mission of providing 

13 security in lower Manhattan. And once that mission 

14 came out and the guys basically knew what was going on 

15 and what their mission was going to be, they've gone 

16 out and done a superb job. 

17 The guys and the female soldiers and the male 

18 soldiers who volunteered for the morgue details, these 

19 are, for the most part, a lot of young medics who are 

20 college students and they, without hesitation, went in 

21 there and started moving body parts, and helping 
30

1 various doctors try to make IDs of bodies and watch 

2 some of the proceedings that were going on in there and 

3 carried body parts and bodies in and out, going up to 

4 the morgue.

5 So there is a corps of about 30 people that 

6 were doing that for, I guess, about three days 

7 straight, and they did nothing short of a super human 

8 job of jumping into a situation and seeing these 

9 grotesque things, of a five year old kid, decapitated 

10 bodies, and body parts, and never flinched and went 

11 back for three days in a row and performed their duty 

12 in 12 hour shifts.

13 MAJ MELNYK: How are they holding up?

14 1SG RANAURO: Right now we're in the process 

15 of -- the 42nd has brought in counselors from -- I'm 

16 not sure which unit. In fact, just before you, I was 

17 speaking to the major over there. She talked to me for 

18 about an hour about what I went through and losing the 

19 people I lost.

20 And today, during the day, she was on Staten 

21 Island talking to some of our young medics that were 
31

1 there on the scene. And it's definitely going to have 

2 to be an ongoing -- well, I don't know if you call it 

3 treatment, but a continuing support thing for the 

4 soldiers who went through this. 

5 They may not show it now, but I'm sure it's 

6 going to scar them for life, and right now it looks 

7 like one of the good things that Troop Command has done 

8 has gotten these counselors in here to help us.

9 We also have one of our senior NCOs on Staten 

10 Island who is affiliated with the American Red Cross 

11 and he has been nice enough, the doctors on Staten 

12 Island will do this, have been volunteering to come 

13 into the armory and talk to us, all this as a --

14 What we have planned is when we come off 

15 active duty, they are going to give us a one hour 

16 seminar type of thing on what the different symptoms 

17 are, which I probably have, I guess, about seven out of 

18 ten right now.

19 And then they will be available for individual 

20 counseling sessions, and the people from the Army said 

21 they will be coming to our armory every two or three 
32

1 months for the next year to speak to soldiers and --

2 MAJ MELNYK: To check up on them.

3 1SG RANAURO: Yeah. One of the big things is, 

4 you know, everybody's a big he man and this, that and 

5 the other. I'm no hero. I've been through a lot in my 

6 life, I've seen a lot, and it's affecting me. So. 

7 MAJ MELNYK: You're in the phase now where 

8 things are starting to relax and get routine.

9 1SG RANAURO: Right. We're starting to get 

10 into some type of routine and other than I'm having a 

11 lot of problems sleeping, because I keep replaying 

12 things and this, that and the other.

13 So what I did was the local newspapers are 

14 putting out what to look for and what to do to help 

15 that. And so I've been trying to -- they say eat right 

16 and this, that and the other. The only problem is the 

17 sleep problem is -- you know, you only get X amount of 

18 days when you're off shift and you try to make the best 

19 of it.

20 MAJ MELNYK: Looking at this now, you're due 

21 to go off, the current plan is go back and return to 
33

1 your armory on Saturday; is that correct? 

2 1SG RANAURO: Yeah. That's what I'm hearing 

3 right now.

4 MAJ MELNYK: When you start thinking about the 

5 after action review, what kind of comments are you 

6 going to make, both positive and negative, about this 

7 operation?

8 1SG RANAURO: Last night, we happened to be up 

9 at the JAG's office and we saw the DOD plan for 

10 evacuation in emergencies, this type of thing. And the 

11 date on it was from 1991. I think that needs to be 

12 revised.

13 I think parts of the plan are very good, just 

14 thumbing through it quick, but other parts do not have 

15 a contingency plan for this type or this magnitude of 

16 disaster.

17 Usually it's like tidal waves, tornadoes, that 

18 type of stuff. But there is no plan in place for this 

19 type of thing in a built up urban area like New York 

20 City.

21 The other recommendations, talking to myself, 
34

1 my NCOs and the officers, is they need to get a command 

2 structure in place that is more reactive and can 

3 interface better with the local authorities in New York 

4 City.

5 I have been through probably about eight 

6 activations with this unit, whether it be snow storms, 

7 hurricanes, tidal floods, and this, that and the other. 

8 The Troop Command that is run from upstate really has 

9 no idea how the civilian authorities work down here.

10 They send liaisons down. They do help, to a 

11 certain extent, but most of the guys in the units that 

12 are stationed down here, i.e., the 69th, my unit, 258, 

13 we work here every day.

14 Most of our members, most of the soldiers in 

15 our units are firefighters, police officers, court 

16 officers, ESU type people. 

17 And we get a lot more done by interfacing on a 

18 very, very low level than you could ever imagine 

19 getting done coming from the Troop Command and the 

20 Mayor's office.

21 The other big part of the problem, and we've 
35

1 seen it a couple times already, is the political side 

2 of it, where the government says, yes, says to the 

3 Mayor, you will get troops in here, and the Mayor

4 basically says okay, if I have to have them, let's just 

5 have them do menial things and that's the end of it, my 

6 fire department and my police department can handle 

7 anything, and a couple of times that's come back to 

8 bite him in the rear end, where units have been sent to 

9 support Long Island and then were brought back to 

10 support -- went in the five boroughs of the City of New 

11 York.

12 So I think there's a lot of political pulling 

13 back and forth over the Guard and the command structure 

14 needs to be probably brought down to a level to the 

15 units that are actually in the city and work for the 

16 city and pick up a phone and say to a deputy inspector 

17 from the police department I have a 100 people here, 

18 where do you need them now, rather than wait six hours 

19 to go to the Mayor's office, EOC and all the other 

20 bureaucratic stuff that really holds us up from doing a 

21 lot of missions that we could do within an hour's worth 
36

1 of reaction time.

2 Simple missions, like the ground zero would 

3 run out of water, the site on Staten Island, the Staten 

4 Island dump where they're taking all the debris to be 

5 sifted through, was running out of some supplies, and 

6 this, that and the other.

7 We went on a low level face to face with 

8 people who were actually in the trenches that need this 

9 stuff and we were able to get it done within one hour, 

10 where if we waited to go through EOC and Troop Command 

11 and the Aviation Brigade and everybody else who is in 

12 here, who really has no experience with dealing with 

13 these agencies, we would have waited six or eight 

14 hours, if they even let us do the mission.

15 So there's a lot of political mumbo jumbo 

16 going on. They bring brigades in here, like I said, 

17 that really don't have a good feel for what we can do 

18 in these type of situations.

19 I'm not saying we don't need a command and 

20 control structure, by no means. What we do need is a 

21 command and control structure that knows the workers in 
37

1 the city, that can pick up phones and call various 

2 people, and the National Guard is -- all the units in 

3 New York City and the units from upstate would be much 

4 more useful and will be much more productive.

5 And that's probably one of the biggest morale 

6 factors. We bring troops on site and we're told, well, 

7 the Mayor's office says you can't do this, and the EOC 

8 says you can't do that. 

9 So what we do is we wind up on low level 

10 weasel deals and we get our own missions and we 

11 generate them and we go out and do them.

12 On the positive side, I think the reactions of 

13 the soldiers, and I can only speak for the downstate 

14 guys and maybe Rockland and some of the other places 

15 where we've gone to do disaster type of stuff, the 

16 attitude and the morale and the can-do part of the 

17 National Guard soldiers located in the City of New York 

18 is exemplary. 

19 My people, we wound up with almost 400 people

20 on the ground by, I believe it was around 10:00 o'clock 

21 on Wednesday, whether they were at the armory or on 
38

1 site over here, and that was within a 12 hour call up.

2 Of course, this is an extraordinary type of 

3 thing where everybody saw it on the news. They said 

4 the Guard is being called up. Everybody wanted to 

5 help, so everybody came running.

6 But even on the low level snow storm and 

7 disaster type things, we always get a good response. 

8 We get a lot of support from the community when we go 

9 do these missions.

10 But like I said before, the most frustrating 

11 thing is to be on ground here with all our equipment, 

12 ready to go, and we are told, well, we have to wait for 

13 Troop Command to make a decision, EOC, and this, that 

14 and the other.

15 So after many years of experience of doing 

16 these type of things, we know how to do the weasel 

17 deals, where a sergeant with the police department 

18 that's a National Guard soldier will go over to the 

19 command post and say, listen, what do you guys need, 

20 and they'll say, okay, we can use XYZ here, there, and 

21 we generate our own missions and really bypass all the 
39

1 bureaucratic stuff that goes on in these types of 

2 things.

3 And I also think they need to come up with a 

4 contingency plan for these types of disasters, 

5 especially -- you know, it may not be necessarily New 

6 York City, because of the assets of the fire and police 

7 departments, because of the size of them, but the 

8 smaller city, i.e., like Newark, New Jersey or some of 

9 the neighboring cities that don't have the civil 

10 assets, we may be asked to do a lot more. 

11 I think a plan really needs to be put in place 

12 and I think you need people who are familiar with the 

13 area to be in command of these types of things not 400 

14 miles away and not have really a clue of what's going 

15 on.

16 MAJ MELNYK: Do you want to address issues 

17 like force protection here or the --

18 1SG RANAURO: One of the things we ran into 

19 during the first one or two days, myself and one of my 

20 other soldiers, we had moved down to the ferry terminal 

21 down here. I think it was Thursday and it was really 
40

1 raining very bad and the marina and Aviation was nice 

2 enough to not only give us ferries to bring our 

3 equipment back and forth, but let us use the terminal 

4 up there to keep our soldiers dry and run a TOC out of.

5 I was just coming out of the building and one 

6 of my soldiers, an E-6, Doug Marcarcione (phonetic,) 

7 was also a police officer, was with the police detail 

8 down there and they had a description of some people 

9 running around that were terrorists, and this, that and 

10 the other, and we wound up chasing two people that 

11 turned out to have video films of all the disaster and 

12 all the response, I think it was $85,000 in cash, and 

13 both bore passports from the Mideast.

14 We didn't actually catch them. We kind of 

15 went around the building, around the water, and forced 

16 them into the police department's hands.

17 We are not allowed -- even the police officers 

18 and law enforcement people were in a serious threat 

19 posture down here. 

20 We are not allowed to have any weapons or 

21 anything like that to even protect ourselves if 
41

1 something happened. And they have us working check 

2 points, working traffic control, you know, interfacing 

3 with motorists and this, that and the other, and it's 

4 not really a good thing to have.

5 And I'm not -- don't get me wrong. I'm not 

6 saying every soldier should have a weapon out here, but 

7 mostly people in law enforcement and carrying them day 

8 in and day out, there should be some kind of provision 

9 to either be a nine mil -- I'm not talking about 

10 bringing tanks and 50 cal machine guns up here, but 

11 there should be something for self-protection for the 

12 soldiers that are working these various details.

13 And like I said, we're unique, because a lot 

14 of our people are law enforcement. So I know most of 

15 the guys and I'll probably get busted for this, but 

16 most of our guys are carrying their personal weapons 

17 anyway, just for our own safety.

18 So that needs to be looked at a little bit, 

19 especially if we're going to be doing these types of 

20 check points and this, that and the other.

21 And it's also a little bit of a show of force 
42

1 and I don't think the civilian population would have a 

2 problem with that under these circumstances right here.

3 And, again, it goes back to each 

4 circumstances, what you -- what would be called for.

5 MAJ MELNYK: Do you want to address the 

6 civilian population? How have they been?

7 1SG RANAURO: I think as a whole, from 

8 everything we have seen, being staged, having our 

9 armory on Staten Island, naturally, there was a --

10 today we received, I guess, maybe about 200 posters 

11 from the kids on Staten Island, thanking us, and this, 

12 that and the other, and actually from all over the 

13 state.

14 The support from our people on Staten Island 

15 is great, as always. We have received countless 

16 donations of donuts and cakes and food, this, that and 

17 the other, to support the men while they're doing the 

18 mission, and the same thing in Manhattan.

19 The usual liberal population of Manhattan, who 

20 would be aghast at seeing a soldier in uniform on the 

21 street in lower Manhattan, has come over to us and say 
43

1 we'd like to thank you, your support and your presence 

2 here makes us feel safer, send you here, send you 

3 there, food. 

4 So I think the people in Manhattan have taken 

5 to us, especially when they hear that most of the units 

6 down here are stationed within New York City itself.

7 MAJ MELNYK: Are there any last things you 

8 want to add?

9 1SG RANAURO: No. I think that --

10 MAJ MELNYK: You'll be glad to get home.

11 1SG RANAURO: Yeah. I'll be glad to get home. 

12 And I just want to pay tribute to my soldiers, that 

13 they've done a great job under the circumstances. They 

14 have responded very quickly.

15 They did a lot of work under harsh conditions, 

16 where you're dealing with dust.

17 And I forgot to mention one other thing. 

18 There's many unstable buildings up there and our 

19 soldiers were up there, and I'm not in the greatest of 

20 shape, but I ran from the World Trade Center to the 

21 East River when there was a threat of a couple other 
44

1 buildings collapsing, and our soldiers working in the 

2 lobbies of those buildings and working in the morgue.

3 So they ran a couple of times. Each time the 

4 alarms went off that a building looked like it was 

5 going to come down, and they were working under those 

6 conditions and dealing with, you know, body parts.

7 (End tape.)

8 (The interview was concluded.)

9 * * * * *