09/10/2026
Roger Meyer always dreamed of being a police officer.
Whether it was watching “CHiPs” as a child or starting as a cadet with the Mount Gilead Police Department at 14 years old, Meyer knew his path was leading him into public safety. However, Meyer never could have imagined where that path would ultimately lead him in the immediate aftermath of the darkest day in modern American history.
“I was only 21 years old at the time. Hell, I was just a kid then. I’d never been through anything like that before,” he said. “But with my experience in law enforcement, it was just one of those situations where I knew everything was going to be a higher level of threat. I had an idea of what, from a law enforcement standpoint, was coming down the road, such as bomb threats and other threats coming in. It put me on alert myself.”
As search and rescue operations began taking shape that evening, emergency service departments across the country mobilized to do whatever possible to assist. In the Village of Edison Fire Department, Meyer’s fire chief was inquiring about volunteers willing to be sent to New York City. Meyer expressed his wish to go, needing only the county’s clearance for the time off.
“I sat down with the director at the time … and he said he did not have a problem with me going,” Meyer recalled. “But with me being a county employee, and having not been there for a year and having the vacation time, he needed to get that cleared through the Morrow County Board of Commissioners. So he made a phone call, and within a few hours, the board came back and said I could absolutely have the time off.”
Meyer’s recollection of his first day volunteering, now three days removed from the attacks, was being dropped off several blocks away from ground zero. While many people were working all around him, Meyer was struck by how quiet the area seemed to him.
“You could see everyone working, but you couldn’t hear it. Your body just wasn’t processing that sound,” he said.
As he worked his way towards ground zero, Meyer was met with a view that defied the words one might use to describe it. To call it surreal or bizarre couldn’t properly frame the devastation in front of him.
“At nearly 21 years old, I’d certainly never seen anything like it before,” he said. “Even in my years of public safety after that, I’ve certainly never seen anything like it, of course. If I had to explain what it looked like, it would truly be the generic explanation that everyone uses. It looked like a war zone. It looks like what you see on the news from places that have been bombed.”
https://www.delgazette.com/2026/09/09/meyer-reflects-on-9-11-rescue-work/
