Judson Box never knew how his son died. For nine years, he had only silence.
Gary Box was 35 years old and had spent five years as a firefighter with Brooklyn’s elite Squad 1 when the World Trade Center was attacked on September 11, 2001. At a time when his squad’s truck was stuck in traffic in the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, Gary did not wait. He put on about 34 kilos of equipment and ran on foot toward the Twin Towers. He entered the North Tower to help with the evacuation and never came back out. His body was never recovered.
In 2009, a clue at the Tribute Center, a center dedicated to remembering the victims of 9/11, sparked in Judson an obsession to find something, anything, from that morning. He searched for five straight hours through the archives of the 9/11 Museum until he had no strength left. The next morning, his wife Helen showed him a photograph: a firefighter crossing the tunnel between stopped cars, moving straight toward the disaster while everyone else fled. It was Gary.
The image had been taken by Erik Troelson, a Danish businessman who had been stranded in that same tunnel while on his way to a meeting. Nine years later, Troelson and Judson Box met on a stage and embraced in front of everyone. Judson could only repeat one thing: thank you.