As the Rev. Stan Dunk, an 18-year chaplain at Fort Hamilton Hospital, watched television in late October, he saw families carrying pictures of loved ones lost in the World Trade Center attack.

        “I was wondering,” he said. “"Who is taking care of them? Who is making sure they get food?' ”

        As it turns out, the 52-year-old United Methodist pastor would become one of their caretakers.

The Rev. Stan Dunk has returned to his chaplaincy at Fort Hamilton Hospital. (Gary Landers photo) | ZOOM |

        The chaplain's work at the Family Assistance Center at Liberty State Park in New Jersey began with a letter from the Association of Professional Chaplains.

        “When this envelope came,” the Rev. Mr. Dunk said, “I didn't have any personal choice. I was called from without and from within.”

        The letter said the Red Cross needed chaplains to relieve others on a team that goes to airline crash sites.

        “They used them all up because you can only deploy people for so long,” the Rev. Mr. Dunk said.

        He was one of 80 chaplains chosen to attend training and was sent Nov. 5 to the assistance center.

        There, family members could bring DNA samples, get medical and child care, apply for death certificates and seek counseling.

        Rabbi Seth Bernstein, an officer in charge of the team in Brooklyn, said a spiritual presence is vital to people's healing.

        “We're there for many, many different reasons,” said Rabbi Bernstein. “They want the connection. They want to continue to make some bit of sense of this.”

        The Rev. Mr. Dunk's days began with coffee and a prayer that is attributed to the New York Fire Department's senior chaplain, Father Mychal Judge, who died.

        “Lord, take me where You want me to go; Let me meet who You want me to meet; Tell me what You want me to say; And keep me out of Your way. Amen.”

        At the center, the Rev. Mr. Dunk led memorial services and presented urns to families during flag and urn ceremonies.

        Big block letters across his back read “Chaplain.” Hands tugged at his coat sleeves and arms slipped under his as he took families to Ground Zero.

        Sometimes he prayed, but often he was just present, to listen, to hold and to console.

        “I cried with them, I prayed with them,” he said. “I helped them put some order to the chaos in their lives.”

        Mourners needed to ask questions: How could this happen? How could anyone commit such an evil act?

        “I did more work with Cantor Fitzgerald than anyone else,” he said of the brokerage firm that lost more than 600 employees. “It could just rip your heart right out. People cried so hard there.”

        One man lost his son in Tower One and his sister in Tower Two. A woman wanted to know whether she should be concerned that her 2-year-old kept forgetting she had a daddy.

        “His remains were returned to her three times,” the Rev. Mr. Dunk said. “They found him and they found him and they found him again.”

        Holding out a blue velvet draw-string bag, he would gingerly place the round, rosewood urn in the laps of a family members.

        The urns were filled not with ashes of the deceased but with dirt and debris from the World Trade Center site.

        A woman told him that as she was running from the towers she heard a muffled drum beat.

        She said to him: “I turned around and, Chaplain, it wasn't a drum beat. It was people hitting the pavement.”

        “I haven't gotten over that one yet,” he said.

        On the boat trips, when family members can take a ride across the Hudson River to Ground Zero, there is a quarter-mile walk with a memorial filled with stuffed animals, American flags and carnations between the viewing stand and the boat dock.

        “That's where we had to remind people to go on,” the Rev. Mr. Dunk said.

        “I continue to pray for them. I think a part of me will always be there,” he said.

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