On September 11, 2001, I had been a member of the Wheat Ridge Fire Department for about 2 1/2 years. I was sitting at home getting ready for my other job and watching the news, my normal routine. Life was pretty good, America was pretty good.
The news cuts to a live shot of the first tower, thick black smoke rolling out of one of the most iconic buildings in the United States, talking about how a plane had hit the building. I'm thinking "That's way too much smoke for that to be a general aviation aircraft, that was a big plane...". Fascinated, thinking about how FDNY was probably dumping hundreds of firemen on this box alarm, knowing they were one of the few departments in the world who had enough equipment, manpower and experience to climb a hundred floors of stairs and kick this fire's ass. But also thinking, "Jesus, how many civilians and passengers are already dead? What is the rescue portion of this incident going to look like???
Then, hearts and minds across America, and the globe, were broken. EVERYTHING changed. From the side of the screen, a large commercial passenger jet streaked across the sky and impacted the second tower. The smoke and flames exploded out the opposite side of the tower, accompanied by debris and what seemed to be a million pieces of paper. It was so surreal, most of us watching didn't really comprehend what had just occurred. But then reality slapped me in the face, and I knew this was a targeted attack. Somebody had done these things on purpose. But despite this knowledge, I was still thinking, only FDNY could handle something like this, but we are definitely looking at hundreds of dead and injured. Fear crept in, as I wondered what the hell was going on.
I'm watching as the bodies rain down on the streets around the towers, dozens of people leaping to their deaths from a hundred floors up, choosing the painless death of the fall over the terror of fire and choking smoke. Now the news is reporting that there are other missing planes, and before we get much further, the towers have collapsed, the Pentagon has been hit, and Flight 93 is a smoking hole in a field in Pennsylvania. We are most assuredly under attack, and the entire national apparatus is scrambling to figure out if there is more to come. Within two hours of turning on my television that morning, I had literally watched 3000 people die on live TV, and received the news that hundreds more were dead at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. The skies emptied as the FAA shut the entire national airspace down, not a single plane in the sky aside from the fighter jets scrambled over every major city in the US.
I responded to my fire house and we went on standby, knowing that if something like this happened in the Denver area, we would certainly be called in, as nobody in the metro area has the manpower to handle an incident like this without mutual aid from their surrounding departments. We were all glued to the TV as reports just kept coming in, live shots of the smoking apocalypse that came to be known as Ground Zero. My heart ached as I thought about the fact that I just watched hundreds of fellow firemen make the ultimate sacrifice in just a few minutes. I couldn't even begin to wrap my mind around the true scope of this tremendous loss of life and the impact it would have on all of us.
In the coming months and years, our nation would enter into a state of war that has lasted the better part of two decades. Every facet of our daily lives has been impacted by the events of that day. I spent a few days at FDNY Engine 23 (the Lion's Den) that November, attending the first official memorial service for all 343 firemen lost on 9/11. Madison Square Garden was filled to capacity as firemen from all over the globe joined us to mourn and remember the courage and will of those we lost. Spending those days with the guys from The Lion's Den, meeting the families of the six guys they lost on 9/11, seeing that terrible pile of steel and ash that used to be the two tallest building in North America, it scarred me. Like, I'll never not be able to feel sorrow and loss on September 11th again. But also a sense of pride that I spent ten years in the most noble profession, that those 343 brothers who died that day (and the hundreds more who have died from disease and suicide as a direct result of that day's events) were indeed my brothers.
When the FDNY pulled up in front of those towers throughout the morning, surely every single man knew that this was bad. Most of them probably knew that they were going to lose some guys on this job. But still, as the bodies rained down, as Father Mychal Judge was killed by a jumper, guys like Captain Paddy Brown and the men of Rescue 3 climbed ever higher into the hellish landscape of a mortally wounded high-rise because "THIS IS WHAT WE GET PAID TO DO, IT'S OUR JOB". Even as a third generation fireman, proud of my own ability to put rational though aside and enter a burning building, I struggled (and still do) to understand just what is must have been like to climb those stairs, ascending ever higher as scores of terrible injured people headed down in the opposite direction, seeking safety and refuge. It's that kind of sacrifice and bravery that keep my faith in humanity alive to this day. We are blessed to have men like this among us... Even though I left the fire service in 2010, I remain connected to this day with the guys I came up with, I still dream about various fires and incidents I worked, and am proud to have been part of that brotherhood for ten years.
So, without taking a political or social train off the tracks, without soiling the memory of 9/11 with a selfish personal rant about the two decades since that fateful day, I'll just end this entry today with one statement: "No greater love than this, to lay down ones life for his friends"... what's crazy about the truth in this verse is that those firemen weren't even doing it for their friends, they were climbing to their doom for complete strangers...
"When an man becomes a fireman his greatest act of bravery has been accomplished. What he does after that is all in the line of work." So said Edward F. Crocker, FDNY Chief 1899-1911
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