DWIGHT DARCY – HIS LAST MOMENTS ON 9-11 by John P. Flannery

Dwight Darcy – playing Major General Lew Wallace (1963)

Suicidal al-Qaeda Terrorists killed Dwight Darcy on September 11, 2001, by crashing a passenger airline into the World Trade Center Tower where he worked on the 66^th floor, and this architectural behemoth, of steel, concrete, and glass, crashed to the earth, becoming an historic memorial to this nation’s lost innocence.

A shower of gray deathly ash covering lower Manhattan, blocking the light of the day, fairly represented the darkness that engulfed America.

Days later, on the evening that Congress was to vote on the Patriot Act, while I was working in Congress as special counsel, I went for a run.

When I arrived at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, there was a large circle of people, each holding a candle, lit to signify a life lost on September 11^th. 

One by one, each spoke of a remembered life.

It was a moving tableau.

I didn’t know that evening about Dwight but this is what I would have shared.

He was the year ahead of me at Fordham Prep, a rigorous Jesuit High School in the Bronx.

He had a soft fleshy face, as the Irish often have, was book smart, warmly friendly (even to underclassmen), favored the Yankees, was a natural leader, a classic debater, and, of course, like all the Irish, a first-class actor.

I remember watching Dwight play the role of Major-General Lew Wallace, the judge who presided over the trial of Henry Wirz, the commandant of the prison at Andersonville, for atrocities that Wirz committed.

It is now bitterly ironic to recall that he played a judge punishing atrocities when his life ended because of an atrocity committed against him.

A sweeter irony is that, like General Wallace, Dwight practiced law after the Andersonville trial.

He became a local prosecutor in the Bronx, where I also served.

He concentrated especially, however, on labor law, dealing with working men and women at the Port Authority, doing so for more than 25 years, and he was head counsel with his office on the 66^th floor of the World Trade Center.

Before practicing law, he taught High School English at Mount St. Michael’s Academy for the Marist Brothers (a real loss of talent to the Jesuits). 

He taught these students how to write but he also taught them about our nation’s history, its politics and about right conduct. 

It’s a wonder whether the role of General Wallace helped to inform Dwight’s life choices afterwards; General Wallace both loved the English language and was a man of faith (wrote the novel, “Ben Hur – a Tale of Christ.”) 

Dwight showed his faith in good works as president of the Catholic Big Brothers of New York, as president of the Parish Council of St. Joseph’s Church, and as an affiliated member of the Marist Brothers (sorry again Jesuits).

As for his last moments on that fateful day, one woman said he had foot surgery and his foot was in a cast on 9-11; she doubted he could have made it down the stairs to escape.

Dwight’s memory lights up the souls of those he knew but especially his wife Veronica and his sons Kieran and Ryan.

That’s what I would have said that evening by the reflecting pool -- had I only known.