Patriotism Mobile, the Freedom F-150, or simply one all-American-truck, whatever you want to call it, Cuppy Johndro is behind the wheel of a driving tribute to those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.
Since she had a mural depicting a pre-911 New York City skyline installed across the tailgate on her Ford F-150, another across the back window depicting the American flag and an eagle, and other pro-American items affixed to the vehicle, hardly a day goes by when Cuppy doesn’t hear just how much the truck evokes feelings of patriotism in those who see it.
“But that’s not why I did it,” she said. “I did it for me, because I had to.”
Born and raised a New Yorker through and through, Cuppy was serving in the Air Force stationed half a world away in Italy with her husband, Terry, also a then-active duty veteran, when the U.S. was attacked ten years ago.
Even in Italy, the shock and horror of the Sept. 11 attacks reverberated though their lives. Cuppy recalls that the base was on complete lockdown for two straight days — nobody in, nobody out without extremely specific credentials.
She was at the local hospital when the attacks occurred; one staff member identified that Cuppy was a New Yorker and called her attention to the news; it was at that moment she first saw the smoking towers of her hometown.
“I asked her ‘what is that?’ and she responded ‘this is real,” Cuppy recalled. “The next thing I knew there were armed guards securing the downtown hospital and they said ‘you can’t go home.’”
“The hell I can’t,” Cuppy recalls saying, making the 40-minute drive home in 20 minutes. Once home with her family, Cuppy’s attention turned to getting in touch with her New York family. The Internet was down and phone lines were tied up, but she was finally able to reach her mother and brother to learn that her family was safe.
In Italy, the Johndros were told to stay in their homes as their safety as Americans overseas was at risk, “they didn’t even know the security of Americans in the States,” she said. “Everything was completely shut down, you couldn’t do anything; I sat and cried for days that my hometown was being blown up.”
When the kids came home from school, the Johndros knew that they’d have questions about what was happening. Their children were in second and sixth grades at the time.
Cuppy recalls telling her children that there are always bad people and no matter where you live, there’s people that seem good but are downright evil. She emphasized that the attacks were a very unfortunate thing that we couldn’t have predicted, but instilled right away that you can’t hate a certain group of people because a bunch of fanatics.
Almost immediately after the attacks, the neighborly response in Cuppy’s Italian community was overwhelming.
“All our Italian neighbors were great, of course there’s a language barrier, but they would come over very apologetic and bring us food,” she recalled, which helped as the base commissary was shut down with the heightened security.
Shortly after they landed in NYC, Cuppy saw Ground Zero firsthand for the first time.
“It was the most negative feeling I’ve ever felt,” she recalled. “I wanted to hurt somebody, I felt physically ill, sick to my stomach — I just wanted to lash out.”
The atmosphere didn’t improve as Cuppy made her way down to the platform, six months to the day after the towers fell.
“You could not stop staring — and looking — and knowing that there were people still buried there,” Johndro said. She recalled the one firefighter in particular as she paid her respects, “The look on his face was just sheer devastation. Helplessness.”
While honoring those who died during the attacks, Cuppy and the other mourners were asked to leave the platform. Another body had been unearthed and proper respect needed to be paid, including shrouding the victim in an American flag.
The mood had changed significantly since she’d last been in New York. It was quiet — people had become more reverent, friendlier.
“There were posters of the faces of the missing people everywhere, and it was awful to see,” Cuppy said. “To know that with every face there was somebody missing them — they were family members, they were friends … they were somebody’s daddy.”
On the evening of the six-month anniversary, Cuppy saw the Tribute in Lights Memorial illuminate two pillars of remembrance on the NYC skyline for the first time — she was driving up the New Jersey Turnpike and had to pull over, grabbing her video camera to capture the moment and shedding tears from the sentiment.
Cuppy’s made numerous trips to Ground Zero since that first trip — in fact, she can’t go to New York without paying her respects at the site.
“I can’t go to NYC and not stop,” she said. “Even if I’m upstate, I’ll drive two hours to see it. There’s something that draws me there; it’s an overwhelming feeling and I don’t know what it is.”
Being exposed so frequently to the sites at Ground Zero hasn’t diminished the significance or the horror of the attacks in the slightest for Cuppy. She still cries every time — even nearly 10 years later — but never shies away from the hurt she experiences at Ground Zero.
“I don’t want to forget, and I don’t think we should,” she said. “It’s like Dec. 7, 1941 — ask any American who was around back then and they’ll tell you they’ve never forgotten the day, or where they were or what they were doing.”
Which is why she attended the fifth anniversary at the site with her sister, silently listening for nearly four hours as the names of all the victims were read and small ceremonies were held — the experiences she had during that service inspired her to attend the 10-year anniversary on Sunday in NYC.
During the five-year anniversary, Cuppy remembers the feeling of everyone standing together, listening to little stories here and there as the victims were honored.
“I couldn’t help but want to be part of that, to stand there and listen because this is something that affected America — it was a direct attack on our nation and I couldn’t help but want to hear their stories,” she described.
Everyone’s lives were impacted by the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, and Cuppy wants to hear their stories; she’ll never forget what happened that day, and she’ll never forget how the country came together out of tragedy.
“People talk about it all the time, but to know that the people were one body, one America, united,” she remembered, adding that at times she wishes it were still that way.
Cuppy will be attending the 10th anniversary ceremony at the base of the under-construction Freedom Tower with her son, Christopher. They’ll spend the evening at the lesser-known Teardrop Memorial in Bayonne, N.J.
Come Sunday morning, Cuppy will be proudly remembering the victims of the attacks in her hometown and doesn’t see any reason why Sept. 11 ceremonies should be anything less than crowded.
“You might not believe in the government, but you can’t not believe in the troops or the people that are out there doing their jobs every day — these people (who died on Sept. 11) just went to work,” she said, posing the question “could you imagine your work being bombed?”
The answer, undoubtedly, is a resounding “no” for the vast majority of civilians.
Cuppy has always worn her patriotism on her sleeve quite literally, as she’s frequently dons apparel displaying a variation of the stars and strips. She grew up in NYC listening to stories her grandfather told of his days in the Army and experienced a strong sense of patriotism at an early age. At 14 years old, she started volunteering for good causes and couldn’t wait do her part to help her country, recalling how she’s always had a flag in her hand and the American spirit represented in the shirt on her back.
Which is why there’s no better driver for the patriotism-evoking truck than Cuppy. She credits Boulevard Graphix owner Joe LaPierre for his efforts in making the truck look exceptional.
At first she wanted the Tribute Lights, but decided she didn’t want to remember NY like that.
“I wanted to remember it that way it should be and the way it was, that’s why I got the daytime photo,” she explained. “Plus you can’t see the Statue of Liberty in the nighttime photo, and what better symbol of freedom?”
The daytime photo has additional meaning for Cuppy as well; her father, a lifetime worker of the Circle Line — providing sightseeing cruises of the Statue of Liberty, was buried at sea near the statue.
Cuppy is well known throughout Aroostook County for her volunteerism, serving as the secretary of the Loring Heritage Museum, a volunteer for the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life and a volunteer for the Veterans Memorial Park Association, but her love of The County can’t diminish her love for the city that never sleeps.
