Pinned in the Dust as Tower 2 Fell

Full transcript

4,676 words · 27:52 runtime

00:00 Defining Service and the Unchanging Core

0:00 that. Today's guest reminds us that heroism doesn't begin with applause. It begins with choice. Clarence Singleton is a United States Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War and a Purple Heart recipient whose life has been shaped by service long after the uniform come off. After Vietnam, Clarence rebuilt his life in New York, joining the Fire Department of New York City and spending more than two decades running towards danger while others ran away. And when the towers fell on September 11th, despite no longer being on duty, Clarence put on his gear and went to ground zero anyway. Not because he had to, because it was who he was. He later told that story in the heart of a hero. Not to relieve trauma, not because he had to, but because it was

1:37 who he was. He later told that story in the heart of a hero. Not to relive trauma, but to preserve its meaning. Clarence, welcome to Voice for Valor. Thank you, Mike. Before we get into your background and we talk about Vietnam or 9-11, I want to start here. How do you define service? I believe that service is the rent we pay for the privilege of being a U.S. citizen. And I think that all of us need to serve in some respect, whatever your choice, you know, make America better. Thank you. When you look across your life, Marine, firefighter, author, what part of you has never

02:32 Roots of Courage — Upbringing and Fear

2:34 changed? The love of people, Mike. The jobs that I've had, the things that I've done was all in support of and helping people. For years, I asked myself, Clarence, why would you run into burning buildings to save others, people that you don't even know? And it took me some time to come up with the answer, but that is for the love of them. everyone do well so if i get me to sacrifice myself and put my life on the line to save others and it's all worth it where did that come from is that something that your your parents taught you grandparents where did that where did that process it could be from parents i was just thinking earlier this morning i grew up in south carolina and my mother was it was a nice family

3:29 you know we were very poor but um we had morals and values and i could hear my mother saying treat people well already respect people and uh also um one thing she would say is uh respect your elders and as well as if you can't say something nice about a person don't say anything at all so i think it was probably instilled in me as growing up you know where in south carolina where did you grow up some to south carolina sumter yeah s-u-m-t-r that doesn't have anything to do with ford i was gonna say is that close to charleston because uh there's some pretty significant stories that go down from fort sumter yeah yeah that's near the charleston area of fort something but the person that uh discovered our time was general

4:17 sumter okay i lived in charlotte north carolina which is very close to the border so i just didn't know geographically speaking where you were in location from uh in the south carolina

04:27 Vietnam — The Cost of War and Identity

4:28 area you were very young when you went to vietnam what did that experience teach you about fear well fear you know it's um as a matter of fact i was the in my days they termed it the outstanding marine out of my unit in paris island i was the number one marine and i went to vietnam and fear i felt fearful on several occasions but it's doing what you need to do in spite of fear and even after the war you know there's some things in civilian life now that i'm afraid of doing but i do it anyway because fear lots of time we call it false it is false and uh it's appearing real but it's false and i just go ahead and do whatever i have to do and after i'm on the other

5:26 side i said wow that wasn't bad at all you know i was creating this illusion that uh what was going to happen and it didn't happen as i thought it was so even now i don't let fearful things or things that i deem as being fearful affect me i just go ahead and do it i have to do i have school-age children right now a senior in high school and a freshman in high school and i feel like that word fear has almost transitioned into anxiety my kids always are talking about this anxiety that they're dealing with and i feel like it was fear when i was growing up i'm 50 years old i know you're a little bit older than i am but in my day the word anxiety never came up it was always fear which is it's essentially the fear of the unknown

6:09 and so always trying to tell them you don't you really don't know right you're anxious you're fearful but you don't know until you try exactly my eldest son my wife forced him to wrestle he tears did not want to wrestle did not want to be part of that and then once he started going to wrestling practice he said okay i'll do the practice but i don't want to do any meets any competitions and then eventually started doing competitions and then this is his senior year so we just went to his senior night and had a chance to walk out on the mats they introduced him they introduced my me and my wife and saying i think nice things about zach and where he's where he's headed next year

6:48 and he was so excited to get on the mat and wrestle that night and i just kept thinking zach if it wasn't for your mom forcing you into this you wouldn't have had this experience so when your parents provide you some sort of guidance rather than always fighting back about the anxiety or the fear perhaps perhaps those elder people in your life actually know a little more than you give them credit to you know mike i was with the second battalion ninth marines in vietnam as a matter of fact of the two dog tags over an issue was mandatory one around your neck and one laced in your boots you probably know i know but please share with them please share with our guests

7:26 yeah that's because if uh you know you're blown apart in parts they can identify you and after going through all of this some days especially in the mountains soon the choppers can't come in to drop food and even to pick you up if you get injured or wounded but at the end of my tour, I was going to volunteer to do another tour of duty in Vietnam. The Marines stayed 13 months. I think the other branches stayed 12. But I had gotten over the fear. I'd become used to it, accustomed to fighting, living in hardship. It's amazing what the human body can adapt to. And I met one of my friends that I went to high school with. I told him, I said, I'm going to stay here for another tour. He said, Clarence, get out of here and go home.

8:14 I had no choice because I was wounded shortly after that, and they extracted me out of the war. You're a very physically fit man and I know that you joined in Vietnam at a very young age. What made you choose the Marines? Well, for years, I would say because there was a guy at our high school, he went into Marine Corps. I was a senior. And he went into the Marine Corps. And he came back, well, he was one of the football players for our high school in Southern Carolina. He was built and and looking good in a uniform. So I said, yeah, that's what I want. So while I was in high school, a Marine Corps recruiter came to the school and I went in and talked to him, so I enlisted.

8:57 As a matter of fact, some years later, I started getting paid, and I looked up a check.

09:00 Reclaiming Joy — Healing Christmas Trauma

9:02 I said, from the time I became active, I don't deserve this amount of pay, but they went back to the time I was in high school. Oh, wow. Now, the real life example is, I didn't find out until a long time after coming back from Vietnam. I grew up in a poor family. So going into the Marine Corps and doing my best and coming out, being a tough Marine, now I am somebody below the level of consciousness. You know, this is going on. And I didn't realize that until years and years later, as a matter of fact, after the World Trade Center by talking to a therapist. And another thing, problem I had with Vietnam, I used to, Christmas and New Year's, I didn't verbalize it, but I would say to myself,

9:54 people tell me, Clarence, Happy New Year's, Merry Christmas. And I was saying to myself, oh yeah, stuff I've grumbled inside. So finally, one day after September 11th, I was talking to a therapist, and she said, Clarence, no wonder you feel that way. You were wounded December 23rd in Vietnam. You lost buddies. And I was like, oh, okay. From that moment on, I started feeling better about Christmas. As a matter of fact, I started wearing a little red Santa's cap. You know what I mean? Yeah. But I had a breakthrough, just by talking to someone. And I think that's important for us to share things with people, no matter how much we think it's going to hurt us. It might help someone else.

10:37 I love the fact that you mentioned one of your high school peers that you looked up to, and he came home looking fit in his uniform. So many folks don't realize that sometimes you gotta leave home to grow, to grow up. I don't think I would have the level of, confidence that I have today, if I would have never left my hometown and tried something different. What about you? Did you ever have that moment? I mean, you mentioned Christmas, you mentioned some of the reflection because of you being injured. When you came home, at what point did you realize, I'm a different man? Actually, other people brought that to my attention. And I can remember my sister saying, me and another Marine, we were talking,

11:26 she said, wow, you guys, your voice has even changed. There's a Marine called Boone, can't they make it? She yelled and screamed. And also, people look up to you. It's like, here is Clarence, he's my Marine. Now also, there's another, there's a negative side to that also. They look at you like you're not balanced anymore, mentally. And so you have to go through that challenge also, because you fought in a war, people think you're psychologically out of it, which isn't so. I mean, wars can cause some of us to lose it, but for the most part, I know that I'm still mentally capable and fit, you know? And so, as I was just sharing a couple of days ago, and people lately have said a lot of great things about me,

12:18 and I don't necessarily need it for self-validation, but I like to hear them say things about, nice things about me, and it just tells me, oh, okay, that's how I'm presenting myself to them. So stay on that course, you know? Earlier, you mentioned being injured. You were ready to volunteer for a second tour in Vietnam, and you mentioned being injured, receiving the Purple Heart, I believe. Yes.

12:48 The Burden of the Purple Heart

12:48 It's obviously an honor, but it comes at a cost. How did you carry that cost forward? I, you know, for years, Mike, I wouldn't, well, we were a special breed of guides also. When we came home from Vietnam, we couldn't talk about it because of the ridicule, and they, you know, they called us names, guides couldn't get jobs, and things like that. I hid the fact for a long time that I had a Purple Heart, just to keep from being criticized and ridiculed by people. Only in the past few years now that I have Purple Heart license plates on my vehicles, all of my caps have a little Purple Heart pinned on them, and I think it's a badge of honor, you know? It shows that, for all of us guys,

13:35 that we went through hardships for the country, and it's nothing to be ashamed of, so I wear it proudly now, and it's one of the highest medals, you know? I'm gonna quote it. I'm gonna quote it, but I think it's the third one down. It used to be the highest, but then a few more came in. How many of your colleagues from your time in Vietnam do you still communicate with? Hardly, actually none. There were two guys. I was at the hospital, the hospital in Brooklyn. They had a picnic for the veterans, so I said, I'm gonna wear one of my Fox 29 shirt with the patch on it so somebody could recognize me if anyone there was from the unit. Two guys did. They came up, hey, we were with Fox 29,

14:23 and we've been friends for a long, long time, but we weren't in the unit at the same time. Okay. One was from New York. Oh, both of them was from New York, yeah, because we were at the Veterans Hospital. And, but one has since passed away, Vietnam-related, and the other one is still living, but he's down in, I think Atlanta or someplace like that, but I've never really contacted anyone from Vietnam. Also, sometimes you just don't want to know. I was in Vietnam. I was with the 27 Marines, and the 27 Marines came back to the States, so guys like myself who didn't have enough time in Vietnam, they sent us up north with DMZs. I ended up in Quang Tri, Providence, LZ Stud,

15:21 also known as Camp Vanderbilt, and so I wrote Scott a letter. I wrote Scott a letter. We separated, and he answered it, and I answered his, and he didn't reply, so I stopped. I didn't want to know, you know, if he was living or dead, and that's what happened to me with a lot of guys. I just didn't want to follow through because I didn't want the pain and more than that. They suffered, because that was one of the reasons I wanted to stay in Vietnam. I told you earlier, I didn't want to leave my buddies, you know, because I knew they would be going through hardships. You know, I know we talk about a lot of the dark times

16:00 Resilience and the Human Spirit

16:02 in military and our experiences, but at the same time, I don't think we talk enough about the resilience and how much you're willing to endure as you continue on through life. There's times that I look back at my military experience, which nothing, it pales in comparison to yours from a combat perspective, but I do remember specific times where I was flying 24-hour mission after 24-hour mission after 24-hour mission and thinking to myself, the level of exhaustion of, you know, me flying these missions on that third consecutive day of flying these 24-hour missions, we're getting ready to land. And I just started crying. And some of the guys I was flying with were like,

16:47 what's wrong? And I said, I have no idea. I'm just crying because of that exhaustion. Well, now, when I look at these days where I'm having a tough day or I'm having a hard week or I'm having a long day, like, hey, I haven't cried yet. So I know that I've got a lot more down inside that can handle this. You mentioned, you know, coming home from Vietnam. I know that the war doesn't end. But what helped you rebuild when the uniform came off? Well, that took some time, Mike. The short answer is spirituality. And I try to keep my spirits up. I exercise four days a week, go for walks. I can't do as much as I would like to do because I'm not a young guy anymore. I'll be 77 in a few days.

17:39 77. I mean, you look like you're in your early 60s. That's mind blowing, you're 77. But I try to eat. I don't eat totally good food, but I eat mostly food that are healthy, that's healthy. And I go for a walk four times a week and I try to keep my spirits up. I try to stay fit, spiritually, mentally, and physically. Once I keep those three dimensions of the human body in shape, I'm good to go, you know? But it takes constant work because there's a lot of negativity around also that could infiltrate my thinking. So I just try to ward that stuff off by staying spiritual. I've been filling out job applications and one of the questions on there is, are you suffering from any of these things?

18:25 And it has a litany of things, you know, heart disease, anxiety, PTSD, just a litany of things. And it's not military specific. It's just, do you fall in any of these categories? And I thought to myself, why are we trying to paint ourselves into these pictures? Or why are we into these corners of judging somebody because they have, like I said, obesity or they're a smoker or something along those questions. And every time I see that PTSD question or I see that anxiety question, I thought, shouldn't we all be able to be resilient folks that don't have to disclose this type of stuff on our resumes, on our applications? Yeah. I went to the doctor yesterday and there was four questions that they asked me

19:12 and I was like, what does this have to do with my medical issues, you know? But you're right. As a matter of fact, I was driving a couple of days ago and I saw this guy overweight, I mean, to a large degree. But I said to myself, you know, God bless him. You know, maybe he has some other kind of issues going on. So I try to look at it from a brighter side, you know, because every time I see someone that's overweight, it's not just because of eating. He could have some kind of medical issues, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And as well as post-traumatic stress, I used to, I was at a VA hospital here in Richmond one day and this guy was sitting across from me

19:51 and the waiting room was kind of crowded. And I could look at him and tell him, man, this guy is suffering from post-traumatic stress. And I said, if anybody says anything to him, he's going to fly off the handle. And sure enough, a lady just asked him a question. He flew off. I understood what he was going through because I was there. I'm still there. I suffer from post-traumatic stress and depression. But I mentioned to you earlier, I just try to get through it by dealing with, staying spiritual, deal with it in that manner. And I do believe that everything that has happened to me and is happening is happening for a reason. And that's one of the reasons I'm talking to you to pass this on to other people

20:32 that may be in the same situation that I am. Say, hey, look at Clarence's, made it the way he is. Maybe I can do it as well. And you can, you just, sometimes we just need people to mimic on, you know? You mentioned spirituality quite a few times. And I know that this leads us into your next chapter of being a firefighter in New York City. Can you explain, is there, do you have any spiritual moments that you can share with us when you were in times of danger?

21:00 9/11 — The Moment of Collapse

21:01 When you're working the firefighter mission in New York City? Oh yeah, yeah. Well, let me just say when that happened on September 11th. When I got to the scene, as a matter of fact, I was retired at the time. And I was in Brooklyn, I had a part-time job riding around doing mortgage inspections. And I could look over to Manhattan and I saw this large plume of smoke. And I said to myself, something in Fire Department Jordan, I said, something is cooking over there. Then I heard it on the radio in the car that a plane struck down, so I headed over. And when I got there, I connected with some guys. There were all of us just coming in off-duty. We were extinguishing fires and car fires

21:50 and ambulance fires around the perimeter. The North Tower, that was the South Tower had collapsed already. And when the North Tower started collapsing, we heard this loud bang, like something let go. And the other firefighters and myself, we just stared at each other. We heard it again and instinct told us that the building was collapsing, so we ran. And I'm assuming I fell, I ran about 30 feet and I fell. And I couldn't get up as quickly as I wanted to because I had my right shoulder was dislocated, forward dislocation. And I knew I was still in a collapse zone because to be completely out of the collapse zone, you need to be away a distance equal to a height

22:36 and a half of the structure. And that was a 110-story building. I knew I was nowhere near being that far away from out of the collapse zone. And I'm on my hands. I'm on my hands and knees. And I'm waiting to die. It was peaceful. And very peaceful. And I thought to myself, I'm going to die just like the four firefighters we lost earlier this year, a wall collapse on them that killed them. So I'm waiting for the big piece of metal to hit me. And I could hit a tower right in back of me collapsing. And it's a good thing it pancaked because if it had fallen out, we'd forget about how good we were talking. And when the noise stopped from the collapsing building, I got up.

23:30 Survival Instincts and the Mysterious Wall

23:31 And the smoke, the dust cloud came over. And every breath was suffocating. So I said, OK, Clarence. What are you going to do? Just use your training. So I got up from the floor. And I got one hand in front of me, probing because you can't see anything. Make sure I don't walk into anything. Keeping the weight on my back leg like we do when walking in a fire because you can't see anything in a fire also. And I came to a brick wall. And it was too tall for me to scale. So I remember moving to my left. It was a short, heavy wall. Brick wall. I managed to scale it. And I looked down about three steps. And I saw the fire marshal I was working with. And I said to myself, I should have run the way he ran.

24:18 You know? He might have been touched on it. And he looked at me. And he said, I see you made it. And I said, yeah, you too. And for whatever reason, I felt really stupid at that moment. I don't know why I had this thought. But a chief told me once, he said, Clarence, if you ever find a fire in a bar, always try to get close to the bar. This way, if the ceiling falls, you're going to get burned. And if the ceiling falls on you, the bar could protect you. And I had that thought. Why didn't I get close to the bar? You know, this is a 110-story building collapsing. So we had been, myself and the firefighter, had been taking photos of the logo using my camera. So I asked him, do you have a camera?

25:00 So he looked in his turnout coat pocket. That's the, like, the one with the coat behind me with the stripes. So he said, oh, no. He said, I lost it. I dropped it. I was running for my life. So I said, ah, don't worry about it. He was standing in a doorway. That's the doors, the, like, the glass doors. The metal bar that you would push to exit the building. And a lot of sunlight was shining through. Really bright, bright light. And I left him. And I'm outside. Then I remembered. I said, I'm wearing my glasses. So I pulled my glasses down over my nose. And that allowed me to see, I think it was, like, three- or four-year mess workers coming my way covered with dust.

25:44 And they helped me to the ambulance. And again, I started feeling stupid because I know I came to help. And I didn't know what to do. I was a firefighter for a long time. So I know that I had to take people out of service now to help me. But as they put more victims into the ambulance, I felt a little better. So they took me to the hospital. And the doctor said, Mr. Singleton, they said, we usually give anesthesia before we reset limbs. But he said, we expected a lot of people to come in, which didn't happen. A lot of people didn't come. Either you lived or you died for the most part. So he said, but we can snap it back into place. And you can go see a doctor later.

26:23 I said to myself, I didn't verbalize. Who do you think I am? Who do you think you're talking to? I'm a Marine firefighter. I got this. Yeah. Snap it back into place. Next time I pick up, I'll re-weave it up and see. So in any case, he did. He snapped it back into place. And he said, you can wash your face in the corner there. I hadn't seen myself yet. So I went in the corner, sink, splashed some water on my face. And I left. Later, I saw myself in Life magazine. I'm sent off for the Life magazine. I'm covered with dust. And I left the hospital. Two guys from France saw me. And they came over to talk. And they went into a store and bought me a t-shirt to wear. And I put the t-shirt on.

27:06 And I went back down to the collapse site. Sometimes later, I don't recall exactly how long, but several help groups were established. And I was in this one group. And I shared the story I just shared with you. And the lady looked at me. And she said, Clarence, I worked down there for 15 years. And there is no walls like the one you described.

27:30 The Mystery of the Non-Existent Wall

27:31 I have gone back down there several times looking for this wall. It doesn't exist. My son was there looking. My son was there with me once. And I was looking around. He said, Dad, come on. Give it up. You're not going to find it. What the high power therapists think is that when I was wounded in Vietnam,