Metro

Manhattan native helps 9/11 families deal with grief, testify against terrorists

Karen Loftus didn’t lose anyone on 9/11 — but since she opened the Pentagon’s Victim and Witness Program, she’s become a shoulder to cry on for so many family members who just call to talk and remember the dead.

“Our goal is: when they talk to us, to just listen. These people, they’re special. They went through hell and back,” she said.

Loftus, a retired Navy captain, is responsible for making sure 9/11 victims’ families understand they have a right to testify against those who carried out the attacks. She also handles their travel arrangements to Guantanomo Bay.

And even though she has a staff of seven, Loftus, a Manhattan native, personally escorts family members to Cuba for military commission hearings for the 9/11 perpetrators.

“I’m very hands-on with the 9/11 families. I don’t delegate that,” said Loftus, 55, speaking publicly about her job for the first time.

Relatives of victims appreciate that.

“She’s an absolute gem,” said Tom Acquaviva of Wayne, N.J., whose 29- year-old Paul was at work at Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial firm hardest hit by the World Trade Center attacks.

“She understands your sorrow and your grief,” said Acquaviva, who was among victims’ relative who went to Guantanomo for the most recent round of hearings involving 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and will be going back next month.

Immediately after the attacks, Loftus was assigned to compile an oral history for the Pentagon. Then, for no particular reason, she was given her new role — which became her life’s mission.

On the first anniversary of the attacks, Loftus met her first 9/11 family. “I spent the next six months trying to help them recover documents,” she recalled.

That’s when Loftus, who has three grown children, developed her special attachment to those who lost loved ones.

“I don’t know why I particularly like it,” she said. “It is depressing at times. You can’t interview too many people because you absorb their grief.”

“It’s a bureaucratic job but she’s not just a bureaucrat,” said Acquaviva. “Let me put it to you this way: All bureaucrats should be like her.”