Stone's 9/11 hero unmasked after five years

'Marine mentality': Hero Jason Thomas
13 April 2012

A former American Marine has identified himself as the anonymous hero who pulled two police officers from the rubble of the World Trade Centre five years ago.

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New York authorities have wondered for years about the identity of the man who vanished without seeking any recognition for his heroic actions on the city on the morning of September 11 2001.

But Jason Thomas emerged from the shadows after director Oliver Stone included the mysterious Marine, known only as "Sgt Thomas", as a character in his movie, World Trade Centre.

When Thomas saw an advert for the film showing the character's heroics, he came forward and said, "That's me!"

In the movie, Thomas is played by William Mapother, a white actor who is Tom Cruise's cousin. Thomas, however, is black.

On the morning of the terror attacks, Thomas, who left the Marine Corps a year earlier, dropped off his daughter at his mother's home on Long Island.

His mother told him planes had struck both towers and he retrieved his Marine uniform from his truck and sped to Manhattan.

"When I got there I saw the second tower collapse," he said.

"It was devastating to see... this one building collapse, and it meant so much to America. It meant so much to New York. And you think of how many lives were lost. That's the first thing I thought of."

Thomas bumped into another ex-Marine, David Karnes, and the two began to search for survivors in the smouldering rubble.

Carrying torches and an infantryman's shovel, they climbed the mountain of debris amid shards of searing-hot metal, calling out for survivors.

It was dark before they heard a response coming from a deep pit.

'I kicked in that Marine mentality'

"I said, 'I think I hear a voice,'" Thomas recalled. "We both called down in the hole. And we heard a voice. At that stage I really didn't recognise what was being said. But all I knew was that we got someone. We got a person down here that needs our help."

The two crawled into the pit and found two Port Authority police officers, Will Jimeno and John McLoughlin, under 20 feet of debris. It took many hours, but both were eventually freed.

Thomas said he returned to Ground Zero every day for more than two weeks to help out, then left - and tried to forget.

"I didn't want to relive what took place that day," he said.

Asked why he didn't come forward sooner, Thomas - who's now living in Ohio - told Newsmax.com: "I didn't think it was something I should bring out. I was doing a job. I was doing my job as a Marine.

"You know, I kicked in that Marine mentality. I was fresh out of the military. I had all this training. And my whole thing was I wanted to help. And once I did, I felt mission accomplished; that's it. Let me go back to my life."

Thomas did not realise a movie was being made that depicted his heroics until he saw the image of two Marines peering into a hole at Ground Zero in an advert for Stone's film.

When he spoke to producers, they offered to fly him to the premiere of the movie, but he declined, saying it was "too soon" for him to see the film.

Producer Michael Shamberg apologised to Thomas for the racial inaccuracy in the film, saying the filmmakers realised the mistake only after production had already begun.

But Thomas said: "That did not bother me at all."

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