THE VILLAGES, Fla. \u2014 Friday marks a dark day in American history: 25 years since 9\/11, and a Central Florida man who played a pivotal role at Ground Zero is sharing the stories of first responders and his experiences.<\/p>\n
Chaplain Gary Kadow has collected hundreds of pieces documenting the event, haunting reminders of the sights, smells and sounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cHell. When we\u2019re children, we hear about Hell. The fire, the brimstone, the smell, the sulfur, everything. That is exactly what 9\/11 was like,\u201d said Kadow.<\/p>\n
Some of the most iconic pictures Kadow took himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was there for hours after the first plane hit. Two state troopers came to my house and escorted me to Albany,\u201d he recalled. \u201cAnd it was still burning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before he called The Villages home, the Buffalo, New York native served as a chaplain under several state and federal administrations.<\/p>\n
Initially tapped by former New York Gov. George Pataki that day to help coordinate rescue efforts, that mission quickly turned to recovery, Kadow said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could see the most horrendous things you could possibly imagine,\u201d Kadow said. \u201cPeople melted to the ground and children who buildings had crushed and just unbelievable things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Days of digging through debris searching for survivors and remains took a toll on him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe made a pathway to get down to try and recover the remains of those that were down there. You would walk in (and) the ground no more than 20, 30 feet away, would split open like a volcano, and flames would shoot out 30, 40 feet in the air,\u201d Kadow explained of the chilling scene. \u201cYou knew walking down there that you may not come out again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ten days at Ground Zero prompted Kadow to seek counseling and eventually journal about his experience.<\/p>\n
He later turned that journal into a book, \u201c10 Days of Hell and Heroes\u201d, sharing his experience and remembering the heroes of 9\/11 \u2014 from the steel workers, first responders and volunteers to the search dogs.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo of the dogs died that first day. A shepherd and a Rottweiler. Their paws were cut to shreds in that debris pile,\u201d Kadow recalled.<\/p>\n
The 80-year-old shared those stories Saturday, Sept. 5, during his \u201c9\/11 Remembrance\u201d presentation at Eisenhower Tower in The Villages.<\/p>\n
Delivering hope, healing and light for one of the nation\u2019s darkest days.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy whole world changed at that point. But I have no regrets whatsoever,\u201d he said. \u201cWe get through it, we will make it. Just don\u2019t you give up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE VILLAGES, Fla. \u2014 Friday marks a dark day in American history: 25 years since 9\/11, and a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,115,139,275,135,3690,835],"class_list":["post-392311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-spectrum-news-staff","tag-tampa","tag-the-villages","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}