Troops from all around the country helped civilian staff at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, and the Lincoln Center in the Bronx for more than six weeks. The Army Reserve had dispatched task forces to each of these centers that included preventive medicine and infectious disease specialists, nurses, administrative staff and other medical specialists. 

Lieutenant Aykhan Alibayli was one of those volunteers working on administrative tasks and testing in the Lincoln Center from April 12 until May 27. 

“Initially when we were there, the hospitals were overwhelmed and didn’t have enough staff,” he said.“The nurses were working seven days a week non stop, so we were there to help them fill in their roles. But now that infections are low, they’re transitioning back to normal operation.” 

According to Alibayli, the hospitals are switching some of their floors from intensive care units (ICUs) back to medical surgical floors and clinics. 

Despite the exposure, all of the members of the 85-soldier task force in the Lincoln Center tested negative for the virus.

 “[The negative test results] probably show you that the proper hygiene and PPE usage does in fact work because we were right there in a COVID infested area.“All the patients were COVID-positive patients, so the fact that none of us got sick shows you that if you use the proper precaution you would be safe,” said Alibayli, who also tested negative for the virus. 

Major Theresa Simard who worked as a doctor in one of the ICUs in the Lincoln Center said she was sent home because the situation at the care facility is significantly better now. She attributed the decrease in cases to social distancing and the city lockdown. However, now that the cases have decreased she believes it is safe for the city to start slowly reopening. 

“If enough people can just keep it together, wear their masks, maintain social distancing and be respectful of the desease, we can go to stores, go shopping. We just can’t be on top of each other,” Simard said. 

Joining military and civilian medical workers during a pandemic was an unprecedented effort. It was a complex operation as the Army, Navy, Air Force and U.S. Public Health Corps had to all be deployed almost at once. Alibayli said that in the event of a resurgence, the military will be better prepared to confront the pandemic.

 “I think this time around the Army has a lot of lessons learned,” he said.“Because previously, we’ve never really done an exercise like that. I think the closest one was Katrina, but even then it wasn’t really a public health epidemic. But I think this time around, it was a good experience for us to really understand better in the future, how to deploy resources and utilize them in a quicker and more efficient way.”

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Inside this wooden container sits the flag that covered Johnny Kihm's casket when his body arrived at Dover Air Force base. Photo by Chris Palmer.

NORTHEAST PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – Cecelia Kihm’s life changed the day that two strangers knocked on her front door.

It was April 19, 2011. Kihm, 51, a freckled, sandy-haired pre-school teacher, was at home in her green-carpeted living room watching the television show “Ellen.”

She opened the door to two Army soldiers, standing in uniform on the concrete steps in front of her brick rowhome in the Castor Gardens section of Philadelphia.

“When I looked at them, heat just went down my body,” she said.

Her baby-faced 19-year old son, Johnny, had deployed to Afghanistan a month earlier. Several members of his unit had died already, including three that week.

She invited the soldiers in. After taking a few seconds to collect her thoughts, she asked them to deliver the news.

Her son was dead, they said. Killed in combat.

During sleepless nights since Johnny had enlisted, Kihm told herself that if this day ever came, she wouldn’t react like characters do in movies. No violent crying, no denial, no hitting the messenger.

But she was overridden with grief. She kept saying, “It’s too soon. It’s too soon.”

She went upstairs to tell her oldest daughter, Marybeth, who was 24 at the time.

“I didn’t even know how to say it,” Kihm said.

Her husband John, just returning from work, collapsed in agony when he saw the two men in his living room. He cried on the adjacent dining room floor.

And Kihm’s middle child, daughter Meghan, who was then 21, threw up after she was told.

“It was horrible,” Kihm said.

This scene – a family torn apart by news of a young soldier’s untimely death – is not uncommon. As of April 28, 2012, nearly 6,500 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan since the Afghan War began in 2001. Thousands more have died in non-hostile situations, through circumstances like training exercises, illness, or by suicide.

But all military families who lose a loved one have to deal with a variety of unique challenges, according to Ami Neiberger-Miller, a public affairs officer with the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS).

“The experience of military loss is so unique,” she said.

According to TAPS research, more than 80 percent of military deaths are traumatic and unexpected, catching family members by surprise. Military families are often thrust into the spotlight after the death, forced to take up the role of spokespeople to the media and strangers who want to honor the family and the fallen soldier. And some military family members suffer from insomnia, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.

“There’s no rulebook to guide families and help them,” Neiberger-Miller said. “It’s a long journey.”

For the Kihms, just over a year after Johnny’s passing, the sadness that comes from being one of those families, shrunken by war, never ends.

“I always feel like I’m stuck in that two week period, from when we found out until when we buried him,” Kihm said. “It doesn’t feel like we just had a year. It doesn’t feel like it at all.”

Marybeth, now 25, put it more succinctly.

“It sucks,” she said.

“If you’re going to be in it, you’re going to be in it.”

At Cardinal Dougherty High School, Johnny ran cross-country and wrestled. But he was especially drawn to the Marines “Delayed Entry Program,” which gives individuals under the age of 18 a chance to work with soldiers to prepare for enlistment at a later date.

Once a week, he trained with the Marines, and throughout high school he dreamed of enlisting after graduation.

In March of his senior year, though, he changed his mind. After high school, he spent a semester at the Abington campus of Pennsylvania State University.

But his interest in the military wouldn’t stay suppressed for long. After his first semester of college, Johnny returned home for Christmas break and told his parents he had made up his mind: he wanted to enlist.

Kihm wasn’t exactly thrilled, but she had told her son when he was in high school that she would support him if he decided to join.

“I knew that’s what he wanted,” she said.

Johnny and his parents considered both the Marines and the Army, and eventually decided that the Army would be a better fit. He enlisted, and on March 1, 2010, deployed to basic training at Fort Benning, in Georgia.

“I really thought he was going to be alright.”

Johnny Kihm in his Army gear. Photo provided by the Kihm family.

In June 2010, after completing basic training, Johnny moved to Fort Drum, N.Y., with the 10th Mountain Division infantry unit. He was supposed to stay there until May 2011, when the unit would be deployed to Afghanistan. But the deployment date was moved up two months. They shipped out on March 17, 2011.

Kihm had two phone conversations and four Facebook chat sessions with Johnny while he was overseas. She kept a record of all the interactions in a datebook.

“I would sit by the computer and just look for that little dot to appear,” she said, waiting for him to sign on to Facebook.

Her last phone call with him was on April 15, 2011. The conversation was brief, but he said they would talk more later.

He died four days after the call.

Before Johnny’s death, the possibility of losing her son never felt real, Kihm said. But now, the reality is inescapable.

“Some days it’s more like day one than day two,” she said.

“All this wouldn’t have happened if that wouldn’t have happened.”

While the Kihms grapple with Johnny’s death on a daily basis, they have also found various ways to dedicate themselves to new causes in his memory.

John, Johnny’s father, has taken up volunteering at the Philadelphia Veterans Comfort House, a shelter for homeless veterans.

Cecelia sends boxes of supplies – cigarettes, magazines, Red Bulls – to Johnny’s unit (a pack of cigarettes is accompanied by a note, telling the soldier on the receiving end that they have to promise to quit smoking).

One of her more recent efforts was to style pillowcases for the unit members.

And after finding out that the soldiers don’t have anything to put into the pillowcases, she decided that her next goal is to figure out a way to send the troops pillows.

Together, the Kihms established a foundation – the Pfc. Johnny Kihm Memorial Fund – that, among other activities, is raising money through events and t-shirt sales to refurbish a United Service Organizations lounge for military members at the Syracuse airport, near Fort Drum (the Kihms declined to say how much money they’ve raised so far).

And they’ve received countless gifts, tokens of support and donations in Johnny’s name – occasionally from complete strangers – which they in turn donate to the foundation, or use to buy supplies for the care packages.

Ingrid Seunarine, a bereavement counselor in New York City who directs grief counseling programs for Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens, said that it’s common for people to donate time and energy to various causes after the death of a loved one. Doing so, she said, can help individuals cope with the loss, while also honoring the memory of the deceased.

“You have to keep that connection in your heart,” she said.

“It never stops.”

In the year since Johnny’s death, the Kihms have been visited by scores of wounded warriors and other supporters, wishing to pay their respects to the fallen soldier’s family.

Kihm said she has a deep sense of gratitude for the gestures and the soldiers who go out of their way to support them, especially those in the 10th Mountain Division.

“I feel like they’re mine,” she said.

But she also said that at times, unexpected visits, combined with the milestones that pass without her son – Memorial Day, 9/11, his unit’s first extended period of leave – can make it feel “like the viewing day never stops.”

After a few hours of talking about Johnny, with the smell of a home-cooked meal wafting through her living room, the pain in Kihm’s heart surfaced. With her eyes welling up, she recalled a moment that happened at Johnny’s funeral.

During the ceremony, she said, she reached out and touched her son’s closed casket.
Then she put her hand on her husband. Marybeth had her arm around him as well.

Kihm then whispered to Meghan, telling her to reach over and touch Marybeth.

And they formed a chain, linking Meghan, to Marybeth, to John, to Cecelia, to Johnny.

“We were all holding each other,” she said, her voice quivering.

Later that day, the Kihms would bury Johnny at the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Northeast Philadelphia.

But at that moment, they sat together as a family for the last time.

“It was beautiful,” said Kihm, fighting off tears.

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Returning to ground zero for the first time since being deployed to the site two days after the Twin Towers fell, retired U.S. Army Sergeant Wilfredo Torres marveled at how different the area looked ten years later. Photo by Chris Palmer

Two days after the Twin Towers fell in 2001, Wilfredo Torres, a U.S. Army sergeant stationed in Harlem, was sent to ground zero with his platoon.

Ten years later, returning to Lower Manhattan today for the first time since 2001, Torres leaned against a guardrail at the corner of Church and Murray Streets and gazed up in awe at the buildings towering over him.

“It’s amazing how it’s so clean,” said Torres, 56, who now is retired and lives in Buffalo, N.Y. “When I was here 10 years ago, there was a lot of dust, a lot of garbage. The buildings were just covered in white.”

Torres spent 21 days in the rubble with fellow members of the military, firefighters, police officers and others, cleaning, deconstructing and pulling bodies out of the collapsed towers.

“We did whatever was needed,” he said. “Anything to help.”

Torres was one of many veterans at the remembrance ceremonies today, eager to share stories of war, death, hardship and triumph.

“It means so much to me to be here right now,” said Robert Dodds, 22, a lanky Army civilian affairs specialist from Pocono Pines, Pa. Dodds, sporting Army fatigues with a maroon beret, had vowed to spend as many 9/11 anniversaries as he could in Manhattan, but spent last year’s anniversary in Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

While serving in Afghanistan, Dodds said he was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade, or RPG. “We took, like, 50 RPGs to our vehicle after it flipped over,” he said. “I was with my friend. We were fighting for our lives, but we made it out alive. It was a miracle we didn’t die.”

“My legs got peppered with shrapnel,” he added. “I had some nerve damage on my right ankle. For a while it was hard to stand up without pain medicine. But after a bunch of rehab, it healed up pretty good.”

Dodds, stood with his friend Ashley Cialella, 22, of Levittown, Pa., also an Army civilian affairs specialist. Both he and Cialella have lost friends to the war.

“One of my sergeants died,” Cialella said. “My good friend Ralphie died, too.”

Dodds joined her in recalling their losses.

“One of my good buddies died when I was home,” Dodds said. “I hadn’t cried since I was a little kid, but I just lost it. I’d rather get wounded every day of the week” instead of losing a friend.

Scott Sanchez, 34, of Midwood, Brooklyn and a former field artillery specialist in the Army, lost a friend in a Humvee accident.

He said he dealt with minor symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder when he got home.

“It didn’t really hit me ‘til after I got out,” said Sanchez, who left the Army in 2007 and is now a student at Berkeley College in Manhattan. “A lot of guys in the military say ‘What are we doing?’ It’s hard to know sometimes.”

Despite the difficulties of military service, Vincent Fraser, 51, of Middle Village, Queens, a captain in the Army Reserves, swelled with pride as he looked around the area of Manhattan that was once caked in ash. He served at ground zero on the day of the attack. He thought it would take 10 years to clean up the rubble and debris.

“I remember seeing a firefighter being brought out with a flag on top of his body,” he said. “Everyone was crying. Barely a day went by when you didn’t cry.”

Then he paused and took a deep breath.

“But to see this,” he said, motioning towards the partially-constructed 1 World Trade Center tower. “This is a miracle. I was proud then, when we went to ground zero, and I’m proud now of being a New Yorker.”

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