Remembering 9/11: New Year's Eve Service

Kathleen Kooiman, a chaplain with the Orange County Sheriff Dept., was a resident of Rancho Santa Margarita in 2001 when she was called upon to deliver the New Year's Eve service at Ground Zero.

She was to speak to firefighters, police and iron workers just a few blocks from where New Yorkers would celebrate in Times Square, an event no one would begrudge them after the devastation of the 9/11 terror attacks.

With Kooiman that night was her daughter, Jamie Cannett, 18, who had wanted to attend the Times Square happening. But about 20 minutes before the dropping of the ball to ring in a new year, the ringing of an alarm pierced the night.

It was standard procedure that whenever a body was found inside the rubble of the World Trade Center, "everyone in the pit would rush to where the body was," Kooiman explained. No one expected to find a body that late in the recovery process, but it was that alarm that sounded. 

It wasn't just a body, it was a firefighter who appeared to have simply ran out of air inside a pocket that had protected him from the rubble. He was still holding his flashlight.

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"It was a very solemn experience," said Kooiman, who had gone to Ground Zero as part of a group from . "I had prepared all day for that service, and then when it all happened, my preparation meant nothing."

As the flag-draped body was moved through an Honor Guard of everyone inside the pit, the chaplain saw a stirring sight, an image galvanized: "My daughter was on the opposite side of me, flanked by two huge firefighters, at full salute."

The church service, scheduled for midnight, did not adhere to schedule. Kooiman lost track of time, and time didn't matter as 2001 gave way to 2002. New Year's Eve had become irrelevant.

"All I could share was that we could see God in each other because of how everyone would lay down their lives for each other," said Kooiman, who moved to La Palma after marrying but whose daughter now occupies their home on Lake Santa Margarita. "It was a much more intimate experience than we had originally planned, and then we sat down and ate together. It could not be a service as you would imagine, not after finding another comrade."

Kooiman was not restricted to Ground Zero, where she served as a chaplain three times. She also worked in the Fresh Kills Landfill, where debris was taken to be systematically sifted and searched for body parts, belongings, identifying material.

Her involvement changed her forever.

"It gave me a different perspective of the world," Kooiman said. "It made me more patriotic. At this point, I was picking up body parts of my fellow countrymen. I could see the agony and the anguish of the workers of NYPD, NYFD, ironworkers and others. Coming away from that, you don’t forget it. President Bush just did his 9/11 video, and he said something very important; it will become a day on the calendar, but for those who lived through it, they will never forget.

"As I am talking to you, I am there. I can see it, I can smell it, I can feel it. I don’t know that it will ever go away."