I first met James Barbella when I was working for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. I had been woeking in the radio shop for a year and a half when he was hired. We were just going on strike so being the shop steward I told him to stay on the job as he was on probation and could be fired if he went out. He did not like this but saw the reason and stayed on the job. After this episode we became friends.

      I found out that he had just been discharged from the Marines and was very gung ho as they say. He was smart and did his work well and obeyed orders. Later on he joined the union (after his probation) and became the Treasurer when I became the Secretary. we both served for 1 year when we were voted out.

      About a year later a test for foreman came out and we both passed it. However since I was much older I didn't have much hope for a foremans job. I was then fifty and could retire at 57 with 20 years service (which I would then have) with a good pension. He was much younger and stood a good chance of getting promoted. Sure enough he got an offer for a foreman 2. This was less than he was getting now but I told him to take it as he would then be in the family so to speak and could go up. Since the pay he was getting would be transferred over he took the job and that started his rise.

      He worked at the World Trade Center and when I stopped by there we would get together and talk for awhile. When I retired he had become a foreman 4 and now had quite a few people working under him. He came to my retirement party and we had a great time. That was the last time I saw him although I heard about him from time to time.

      The first time the WTC was bombed he was working next to the bomb seperated by a thick wall. The blast blew him across the room and almost knocked him out. However he recovered quickly and went about helping people out of the basement where the bomb went off. For that act he received a medal and promotion to a foreman 5 position. This moved him from tower 1 to tower 2 and doomed him.

      From the time the first blast went off until 9/11 he got promoted to foreman 6 which was as high as one could go. His office was on the 33rd floor of Tower 2. When the first plane hit Tower 1 the tower he was in shook from the blast. Though he knew that his tower was not hit he told all the people in his office to get out fast and tell the other people on the floors below to do the same. He then started to go upstairs to warn the other floors. That is when the second plane hit. From what I gather from some of the Port Authority survivors he stayed on the 33rd floor helping people evacuate the building with no thought of his own safety. He was still at his post when Tower 2 collapsed burying him in tons of concrete and steel. I not only lost a good friend but many other acquantences who I had come to know.

      Jim as we used to call him was a very serious man and myself and another friend used to take great pleasure in teasing him. He took his job very seriously and I am certain that if he had lived would have gone even higher. He was well liked by the people he worked with. Those under him and over him. He was a good man, a credit to the Marines and I still miss him and talk about him when I go to the Christmas parties at the Electronic shop as it is now called. I have never gone back to ground zero and probably never will. I want to remember as it was, not as it is now.