9/11 Father: 'I Don't Understand All of This Hate'
Updated: 3 hours 15 minutes ago
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Deborah Hastings
AOL News
(Sept. 9) -- Of all the things he carries in his heart -- grief, pain, longing and loss -- Lee Ielpi refuses to carry hate.

He carried the body of his firefighter son, 29-year-old Jonathan Ielpi, from the choking, twisted rubble of the World Trade Center. That was burden enough for the father of four grown children who gave 26 years of his life to the Fire Department of New York.

Nine years later, he has no time for the rhetoric of a small Florida pastor who said he would burn copies of the "evil" Quran, Islam's holy book, on the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The pastor, Terry Jones, announced Thursday afternoon that he was calling off the plans but later said he might reconsider the cancellation.


Retired New York City firefighter Lee Ielpi, seen here in December 2001 at the site of the World Trade Center in New York, volunteered in the recovery effort and helped carry his son Jonathan's remains from the site.
"I don't understand all of this hate," Ielpi, 66, told AOL News. "I'm not sure where these things come from. What's it going to do except promote hate?"

He pleads for tolerance. Especially on Saturday.

"It should be a special day to remember these people," he says. "You know how many people are still missing? Where they've found nothing (of them)? One thousand, one hundred and twenty-five."

Tribute WTC Visitor Center, which Ielpi helped found while city planners argued over a memorial site at ground zero, issued a public statement earlier this week saying it would be "disrespectful" to protest a planned Islamic center two blocks away. Both sides of the project have called for demonstrations Saturday.

Ielpi will be at the 16-acre graveyard where he helped dig his son from the ashes, watching the annual memorial, listening to its somber reading of the names of more than 2,700 -- firefighters, paramedics, office workers, busboys, janitors, financial executives, airline pilots, passengers and flight attendants -- who perished when two hijacked jetliners slammed into the twin towers.
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"People ask constantly, 'What's it like?' And I have a very simple answer: It's been nine years since I've seen my son."

Jonathan Ielpi was a husband and father of two young sons when he died in the towers. His father rushed to the wreckage and started to dig. So did Jonathan's brother, Brendan, just four months on the job as a firefighter in Brooklyn.

Days turned into weeks, but the Ielpi men kept digging. They helped carry out many bodies, and pieces of bodies, but none belonged to Jonathan.

The family had a funeral without his remains. Still, father and son kept dragging themselves to the steaming site. Every day, for hours and hours, they shoveled and pulled and heaved. Firefighters have a code: No one is left behind. Every firefighter gets carried out by his comrades.

It was winter when rescuers finally found Ielpi's first-born. They called Lee Ielpi at home on Long Island. On a cold December morning, Lee and Brendan helped carry the stretcher that bore what was left of Jonathan. By their sides were Jonathan's colleagues from Engine 288 in Queens.

"We were blessed," Ielpi says. "We were blessed that we got to carry him out."

Brendan Ielpi is still fighting fires in Brooklyn. Jonathan's boys are now 18 and 12. Their mother has remarried.

She has trouble talking about Jonathan's death, Ielpi says. Andrew, the eldest, has trouble talking about his father's death. Austin, the youngest, has no real memories of his dad. He was 3 years old on Sept. 11, 2001.

"It's hard for all the children who've grown up without a mom or dad," he says. "There is no rest. There is zero rest for the families."

Asked how he copes with what he carries in his heart, Ielpi breaks down. "I don't know," he says. "I'm able to talk about it, every day."

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At Tribute WTC, next to ground zero, Ielpi gives guided tours of the site, and of the visitor's center that contains artifacts including Jonathan's battered yellow "turncoat" with his last name stenciled on the back. He has become an activist for the families left behind.

The organization he helped establish provides education tutorials on its website for teaching children the lessons of 9/11. Lessons that include what it's like to suffer loss and how to continue living when it may seem easier to succumb to anger or despair.

"Tomorrow can be a better day," Ielpi says. "I can't bring my son back. I wish to God that I could. But maybe I can make a better day for my grandkids. That's what we're trying to do."

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This tore my heart out.

Sounds like another appologist delivering his message just in time for 9/11

I Dont understand All This Muslim Love?

it's all the peace and love their religion has to offer... unless your an infidel...

Muslims are The Infedel

Yep, the world is overflowing with peaceful Muslims!!

How Do the Muslims feel today?

Who cares??....maybe they're feeling the sting of retribution.

I dont understand hate,,,muslim , christian, or otherwise

Then step aside. Because most American do understand it, and where it comes from.

hate is easy, it's harder not to hate

I think it takes more effort to work oneself up artificially(without personal cause). Im not talking about hating the guy who dumped you, or hating the parent who abused you, Im talking about hatred of GROUPS of people ,,,,,,,dont quite get that one

Then step aside. Because most American do understand it, and where it comes from.

not sure, most people I know dont get it, most people you know might


not sure which one of us knows a more 'representative' pool of americans,,,

Then step aside. Because most Americans do know.

repetition is not explanation,,,lol

but I get the point that YOUR experience with people have been hateful ones,,,

Then yours must be too.

well, for me anyhow, things seem usual when I experience them often, they seem ODD when they are out of place


for me, hatred of groups of people is out of place(thus, the reason its hard for me to understand), it is an UNUSUAL philosophy for me because it is out of the USUAL of my life,,,

when certain groups of people act hostile to the rest of the world. when the majority of the "good" ones do not condone the actions of the bad ones, and even secretly support the bad actions of the bad ones.
goes crazy when someone mentions their profit, even murdering people for it.
thinks that people that are not part of their religion must die
treats women like slaves
anything that they disagree with, they change their beliefs to counter it
dislikes anything that is not muslim
thinks other should die for their beliefs
no regard for life, including their own
trying to take over the world, not in the cute pinky and the brain fashion either

a rather long and incomplete thought there ,,lol

but if I read between the lines and TRY to complete it, is your point that hatred of groups comes from some idea of what one thinks a 'majority' of a group does or doesn't do?

if so, how does any one person come to be so intimately knowledgable about a whole 'group' of people(unless they are a group specifically located in their community )

and do those who HATE these groups also HATE all other groups who have ever done or not done those things?

If I hate muslims, for example, for 'treating women like slaves', shouldnt I also feel hatred for all the christians of biblical times who lived by very similar tenets? and if they(christians) are to be absolved from similar past behavior,,isnt HATING muslims a rather strong emotion,,, kind of like a recovering alcoholic hating a drunk?