Another day of infamy

The list of names of those who perished in the 9/11 terrorist attacks begins to blur after one reads the first several hundred names. The horrific loss of that dark day five years ago is almost too much to comprehend.

It's only when the focus is on an individual name on the list that the magnitude of what happened and what was lost becomes painfully clear.

The Sentinel staff decided to focus on one person from each town in our coverage area who died in the World Trade Center attacks and how their families have coped since the loss of their loved one.

What happened to Edward Strauss, James Francis Lynch and E. Rudy Bacchus are stories of courage. Although they are lost, their stories still shine, lessons for all of us in how to live and how to die.

Edward Strauss, of Edison, was the Port Authority's operations chief at the World Trade Center.

He chose to remain at his command post in Tower Two. Most likely, he told firefighters the best ways to reach various sections of the building, to speed up the evacuation of the frightened people who worked there.

"I'm busy," was one of the last things he said to his wife in a final phone call.

Port Authority Police Officer James Francis Lynch wasn't even supposed to be at the World Trade Center that day. The Woodbridge resident was home on sick leave, recuperating from shoulder surgery. But as soon as he heard what had happened, he called his mother and told her he had to go up to help. He never came back.

E. Rudy Bacchus wasn't supposed to be at the World Trade Center that day either. The Metuchen resident and independent stock trader had attended a hastily called breakfast meeting at Windows on the World. The meeting was originally scheduled for the morning of Sept. 12.

Rudy Bacchus died in one of the elevators. His daughter has no doubt that her father, a church deacon, prayed with the other occupants before they died.

Why write their stories, five years after their deaths? The Edison/Metuchen Sentinel and the Woodbridge Sentinel newspapers are only three years old. We have no background stories on any of those lost in our coverage area.

And the fifth anniversary of that black day is a sad milestone. The stories of these three people are a microcosm of just what was lost that sunny September morning. The now familiar phrase "Never Forget" is right on the money.