When we were children, we were told that the passage of time would make things better, that time would heal all wounds, and that with time we would gain a clearer perspective on tragedy. We were told after a time we would understand why something awful happened or why people we loved were taken away from us too soon.
It has been five years since the sun that shone down on a beautiful Tuesday morning over New York City in September 2001 was eclipsed by a hideous cloud of dust generated by a mindless act of hatred-an act of hatred that sought not only to pulverize two giant buildings, modern symbols of America, but also to destroy our dreams, our hopes, and our beliefs. It has been five years, and it still makes no sense; it still hurts like it was yesterday.
The memory of that terrible day hangs over us like that dust cloud. The wounds to our hearts have not hardened; they still throb with pain. They are unscarred, still raw and exposed, like the soil at Ground Zero. The hearts of every one of us, who on that day at that sickening moment swore an oath to never forget, still flood with tears for our fallen brothers when thoughts of that infamous day flash through our minds.
Our hearts were broken, but our dreams, our hopes, and our beliefs were not destroyed on September 11, 2001; they were forever strengthened. We became a stronger nation, a stronger fire service on that day. We became better firefighters, better Americans, better people. We know this because we carry other memories of that day-memories that sustain us, memories that are far more powerful and indelible than even the most horrible images of terror and tragedy from 9/11.
We remember the heroes.
When we close our eyes, we can see them: hundreds of our brothers, moving up crowded stairwells full of fleeing, panicked citizens; hundreds of our brothers moving to fight the fire, stop the threat, do our work. We can see FDNY members at their very best, loaded down with gear and purpose, the steady thump of boots on the risers, one step followed carefully by one more, never hesitating, never questioning, never turning back.
We see some of the greatest firefighters in the history of FDNY confronting a conflagration that would consume them, along with thousands of innocent human souls-our FDNY brothers confronting it because they chose to confront it, a choice they made when they raised their hands on appointment day. Danger threatened New Yorkers, and our brothers from FDNY,
knowing the risks, ran in to meet it face to face.
We remember the heroes-not only the entire companies that raced to the scene and whose rosters are now rendered in the cool, chiseled marble of a monument, a headstone, or a memorial but also the individuals and the singular acts of courage, far too numerous to render justice to on this single page. But, again, when we close our eyes for a moment, we can see every one of their determined and committed faces, racing forward to make a difference, to save a stranger and help a brother firefighter.
We can see the off-duty squad member from Brooklyn who grabbed his gear and ran through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel on foot to the WTC and never returned. We can see and hear the radio crackle, the button being depressed determinedly by the firefighters who made it to the 78th-floor sky lobby in the South Tower seconds before the building collapsed. We watch our brothers make sure that the frightened and stranded citizens who never got out did not die alone but in the arms of hero FDNY angels who came to rescue them, who never stopped trying to save them.
We remember the heroes, and with each privileged step we take in their footsteps, we get stronger. We honor them when we persevere, when we don’t turn around. We honor them when we move forward. Nothing will ever make things better for the families and friends of those we lost. Nothing can fill the void. Time will never erase their memories. Time will never ease the pain of their murders. But yet we find courage, we find passion, and we find renewed purpose to be the very type of firefighter they proved they were.
We remember the heroes. We honor their memory by our efforts at strengthening our communities’ local
capabilities, by participating in our states’ response readiness and supporting our country’s homeland defenses. We are moving forward, maybe not as fast as some would like, but we are moving forward. We have a lot of accomplishments to be proud of and bring honor to the 343 heroes we remember.
We are moving forward. We remember Christian Regenhard, a 28-year-old Marine sergeant who graduated from the FDNY fire academy just six weeks before 9/11. He was a probie, filling in for another squad member when he headed for the WTC. He didn’t come back. He was lost, but his memory will live on forever. Christian’s name soon will be attached to the new Center for Emergency Response Studies at John Jay College.
We are moving forward. We are moving forward by supporting one of our own, Fire Chief Dave Paulison, to run FEMA. He will need us to be there for him as he keeps moving FEMA forward. When we close our eyes, we see the “Spirit of New Orleans,” a pumper donated to FDNY after 9/11, back in New Orleans staffed by FDNY brothers and New Orleans Fire Department members, fighting to protect that beautiful city on the gulf after Katrina. We are moving forward to strengthen FEMA with the International Association of Fire Chiefs mutual-aid intrastate and interstate program.
We are moving forward in code development: New York City is demanding by code the retrofitting of all
commercial high-rises with sprinklers and reflective striping in stairwells. Code improvements in New York also stipulate that better information be supplied to the fire department and that the fire resistive rating in
high-rises be increased to four hours. We are moving forward. We can’t let this code advancement stop in New York. We can never forget that what our brothers did let us force this as a national imperative.
We remember the heroes. We will never forget. We will honor them forever in our thoughts and our actions. We will always miss them. We move forward in their memories. REMEMBER THE HEROES.
Chief Bobby Halton (Ret.)
Editor-in-Chief, Fire Engineering Magazine
