COPE News Items (6/25/26)
Arnold Korotkin
An informed citizen is an empowered citizen.
I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO KNOW THIS
An Unlikely Account of Ground Zero After the 9/11 Attacks
by Solange Schwalbe
In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, Emmy Award–winning sound editor Solange Schwalbe entered Ground Zero as a contractor—one of only a few women working deep inside the pit of where the Twin Towers once stood. What she witnessed there would forever reshape her understanding of service, fear, and what it means to endure.
This memoir captures the recovery effort from the inside: the quiet rituals of honor, the relentless search, and the untold moments that history never recorded. Through scenes never before shared, Solange reveals a Ground Zero few have seen—where grief was constant, strength was silent, and humanity persisted amid ruin.
Interwoven with her personal journey is the redemptive spirit of America itself—a nation wounded yet unbroken, learning how to stand again. Written with emotional restraint and cinematic clarity, this is not only a story of spectacle, but also of both personal and collective resilience—and of what rises when everything familiar has fallen.
The official release date is set for August 11th, 2026, and you can find it on Amazon.com or Barnes & Nobles.com.