Tom McSherry and the Weight You Carry Long After the Cameras Leave

Teaching first responders when the towers fell

When the first plane struck the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Tom McSherry was in Lake Havasu, Arizona, teaching a two-day course on critical incident stress management for first responders.

The irony was not lost on him.

At first, he assumed the news coming across the television was a small plane accident. But as the second plane hit the tower, the reality became clear. The room of firefighters and law enforcement officers he was teaching immediately shifted into response mode. Pagers began going off. Many in the room were part of regional response teams, and no one knew what would happen next.

Setting up a crisis line before heading to New York

Within hours, McSherry left Arizona and traveled to The Salvation Army's Western Territorial Headquarters in Long Beach, California, where he helped establish a crisis line and begin coordinating support efforts. As a longtime disaster response professional, understood that the physical response would be critical, but he also knew the emotional toll would be immense.

After helping prepare teams through peer support and critical incident stress management training, McSherry was deployed to New York City, where he eventually served as assistant incident commander, overseeing operations for The Salvation Army's response at Ground Zero.

The desire to serve

His first glimpse of the devastation came before he even landed. Flying into LaGuardia Airport, he could see the smoke still rising from the site. But one of his earliest encounters after landing would become one of the stories he carried with him.

The volunteer who picked him up from the airport was an EMT from Virginia who had driven to New York to help. She was a cancer survivor, a mother of four, and had lost her brother in the attack on the Pentagon. Her other brother, also stationed there, survived but was hospitalized.

"She wanted to do something," McSherry said. "And one of the antidotes for helplessness is action."

That desire to serve was something McSherry saw repeatedly among volunteers and responders. People from across the country wanted to help, even when they were personally affected by the tragedy.

What The Salvation Army ran at Ground Zero

At Ground Zero, McSherry witnessed the devastation of the attacks while helping coordinate The Salvation Army's response, including feeding operations and hydration stations for first responders and support services at the Family Assistance Center for survivors and families who had lost loved ones. He remembers the sights, the sounds, and even the smell of the site, details he says people watching from home could never fully understand.

"It's one thing to see it on television, but your senses are struck quite differently when you're there," he said.

For McSherry, some of the most powerful moments came not from the scale of the disaster, but from the individual stories of courage, grief, and resilience. He remembers speaking with a Port Authority officer who helped people escape the towers and with one of the people whose life was saved by him. He remembers responders searching through debris for remains and personal belongings. He remembers families arriving at the Family Assistance Center seeking help navigating unimaginable loss.

But he also remembers moments of hope. He remembers seeing people lining the roads to thank responders as they drove by. He remembers children's drawings covering the walls of temporary response stations with messages of gratitude. He remembers the small conversations that reminded people they were not alone.

How The Salvation Army cares for responders long after a disaster

25 years later, McSherry continues serving first responders through chaplaincy work and crisis intervention. His work remains rooted in the same lesson he learned on 9/11: disasters affect more than the immediate event. They affect the people carrying the weight of it long after.

"The disaster on hand is likely the latest issue, but not the only issue for people," he said.

For McSherry, the role of The Salvation Army has always been about meeting people where they are, providing practical help, emotional care, and spiritual support when it's needed most. After 9/11, that meant standing alongside a nation in grief and reminding people that even in the darkest moments, compassion could still be found.