Brief encounter after 9/11 brews friendship after two men meet 11 years later at a Port Washington diner

So many stories about 9/11 are sad, but two Port Washington men share one that, whenever they tell it, brings a smile to people's faces.

Milton Josephs and John Chalker had two chance encounters — one in which Chalker went the extra mile to help Josephs in the harried days after 9/11. The other — 11 years later — was when they bumped into one another in a Port Washington diner, recalled that moment, and realized they lived in the same community.

"We've kept in touch. We're good friends," said Josephs, 54. "It's one of the strongest coincidences of my life. It's a 'feel-good' story from 9/11."

The first meeting

In September of 2001, Josephs had recently moved from London to lower Manhattan. Then the planes struck and the towers tumbled. He had been in London tying up loose ends on his move. As 9/11 occurred he was on a flight here from London. It was turned around midflight. By the time Josephs returned to New York a few days later, the area around the World Trade Centers had become a militarized zone guarded by soldiers and police.

John Chalker was a Port Washington patrolman at the time, and a part-time member of the Army National Guard. His regiment — the 'Fighting' 69th Infantry — was mobilized and deployed to Ground Zero, he said.

"We were the first soldiers in the war against terror. We were right there at the site," said Chalker, 69.

The Friday after the attacks, Josephs, just home from Britain, was walking toward his Greenwich Street apartment when he reached a checkpoint. There was Chalker, standing guard.

Josephs asked Chalker if he could go on to his apartment, a few blocks from the collapsed towers.

"I hate to say this but I can't let you. That building was damaged and we're keeping people away," Chalker recalled telling him. 

Josephs persisted; he brought up that he was a commissioned officer in the Royal Air Force in England.

That spurred Chalker to say his own father was an crewman on a B-29 bomber during World War II. If Josephs could produce a military ID, he'd take him. 

Josephs came back the next day in military uniform with his ID. Chalker handed him a helmet and they walked up nine flights of stairs with flashlights in the dark — power was still out — to Josephs' apartment. Josephs quickly gathered clothes, toiletries and his passport and headed out to stay at the parents of his fiancee in Roslyn Heights.

The second meeting

Years passed. Five years, 10 years. The two men's' second encounter occurred under far more pleasant circumstances, in a setting where so many important meetings happen on Long Island — a diner.

Josephs had married his fiancee and moved to Port Washington in 2002. The terror attacks changed the trajectory of his career, from working in human relations to emergency disaster planning at an insurance company. He then turned to teaching and school administration in Levittown. 

Chalker, for his part, had served a year in Iraq in 2004-05, even though he was 52 at the time.

"Somehow I passed all the training. I must be a tough guy," he said.

Chalker said he earned a Purple Heart after his Humvee encountered an "improvised explosive device" in Iraq. He credited "being here" to the vests sent by police — including from Long Island and the NYPD ---to the soldiers in Iraq, who placed the vests on the floors and under the seats of vehicles.

His injuries were not life-threatening, he said.

In the fall of 2012, Chalker was sitting on a stool at the Port Washington Diner when he struck up a conversation with a man a few seats over. It was Josephs.

Chalker commented on the man's British accent, and Chalker said to him that, in the aftermath of 9/11, he was a guardsman at Ground Zero. He had helped a Brit make his way to his apartment near Ground Zero.

That's when they put things together.

"I looked at him for about 30 seconds, and realized he was the guy who got me to my apartment," Josephs recalled. "Here we were, 11 years later, and the guy happens to sit down next to me."

That serendipitous encounter began a friendship that has lasted to this day. The two had that instant rapport that often occurs between those who've served in the military, Josephs said. They get together every few months.

Chalker helps lead VFW Post 1819 in Port Washington, and Josephs has become involved. 

"He can't be a full-fledged member" of the VFW because he's British, Chalker said. "But we include him in activities."

Their lives now

At their meetups, the two men talk about their lives now, how Josephs divorced after 10 years of marriage. How they've watched Joseph's daughter, Lily, grow up. She's 19 now, and wasn't even born when 9/11 occurred.

"He texted me the other day that he saw my daughter in Starbucks," Josephs said.

They talk about 9/11. Josephs recalls the "utter horror and sadness" of first seeing the massive pile. He recalls the "sick sweet smell" in the air and that, when he got into his apartment, his dark wood furniture was covered with a quarter inch of dust.

Chalker had stayed at Ground Zero until Thanksgiving that year before returning to the police force in Port Washington. He retired nine years ago. He's married.

The two men also talk about the imprint that 9/11 has left on their lives. Chalker came through a bout of cancer that he linked to his time at 9/11, but he doesn't like to talk about it other than to say, "It's an awful thing."

"I got the full dose of 9/11, from the attack site all the way to the Middle East in Baghdad," Chalker said. "Then cancer."

Josephs recently signed up for the World Trade Center Health Registry, which was created to identify and register people who were exposed to the toxic substances around the downtown site. He plans to check into a terrible cough he gets three times a year, he said.

When they do get together, the two men sometimes share their story with others.

"People tell me they get goose bumps when we tell them we bumped into each other 11 years later," Josephs said.

Chalker, for his part, said, "It's one of the few positive stories about 9/11."

By Craig Schneider

craig.schneider@newsday.com@Scraigo

Craig Schneider is a Long Island native and Stony Brook University alumnus. He joined Newsday as a general assignment reporter in January 2018 after 20 years at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.