Posted on 09/10/2002 3:17:06 PM PDT by Focault's Pendulum
It has taken me a year to write this. We buried one of the last of the NYC Firefighters today. That's why I think this might be appropriate.
I was a volunteer firefighter for over ten years in a small nondescript town in Southern NJ. My Dad was a Captain in Jersey City and served for close to thirty years before retiring. He's been gone over twenty five years now....but I remember being proud of him...even tho he was a tough SOB and could sometimes be found taking out his frustations at the dinner table with 5 rowdy kids and a wife (Mom's still alive and kicking butt at 83) who had to sometimes wonder...."How did I get here?
As a kid I watched my Dad run into burning buildings, seemingly disregarding his own safety. He was a hands on kind of guy, who refused the top command, and continued to exercise his field command from within...not from without.
Shortly after Dad built a small summer home down in Dover Twp. NJH He decided to retire...and the entire family moved there.
I had not given any thought to follow in my father's footsteps until sitting in a bar at the ripe age of twenty....Jerry Bowen" the bartender said "stop on by the firehouse...you might enjoy the company. He was correct...I enjoyed the friendship offered, went through all the training....and it was extensive. I did it without thinking of my legacy, or my Dad. It was just somthing to do in an otherwise boring Shore Town.
A few years later....I have walked through burning buildings..scared out of my skin.....retrieved pets at the threat of my own safety....extricated a good friend from a single vehicle accident...and I did not recognize him at the time
This story is not about me....nor about my DadThis story is about those firefighters who went in.
They knew!!!They had a feeling some of them might not come back.....they went anyway.
Up to the 78th floor. And they still did it.The commanders knew some of them would die....and the troops did it!.
They walked to the face of death...I would have taken at least one of their places...should they live again.
btw.....I know your father is proud.
"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13
Thank you my friend from an entire world away.....I probably miswrote this to appear as a vanity...it was not...I did not personally know these firefighters....but I have had a year to think about what I would do.....I would have probably recocnized my mortality....then walked up the stairs.
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