story10590.xml
Title
story10590.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2004-05-11
911DA Story: Story
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE NATIONAL FIRE ACADEMY ALUMNI
A TRIBUTE TO FALLEN BROTHERS-A NATIONAL TRAGEDY
By Ron Kanterman-Executive Leadership Team
October 1, 2001
I write to you with a heavy heart. As a former member of the New York Fire Department and a fire service advocate, I like all of you are trying to come to terms with the incredible loss of life in New York, in Pennsylvania and at The Pentagon. What separates the World Trade Center attack from the others is the thousands lost in one location along with 343 fire personnel and 70 police officers. Eyewitness accounts from survivors of the twin towers stated that firefighters passed them going up into the building while they evacuated down the stairwells. Some of the encounters were at the 40th and 50th floors. Forty or 50 floors up? I would suggest that the best of the best that go to the combat challenge every year could barely make it. I?m banking on pure adrenaline. Yes, our brothers along with NYPD and Port Authority PD Officers were going up higher in to the buildings to rescue and evacuate people. Probably something all of us would have done under the same circumstances. We are all sad and in the case of the members of the FDNY are all still in shock. It will take a generation for things to get better in New York. When today?s probies retire 20 or 25 years from now and no one is left working in the FDNY who was on the job on September 11, 2001 things will get better for them.
Millions of stories have emerged from these tragedies. My cousin works in Tower 2. She was late because she had to walk the dog that morning. And then there?s the police officer who filed his retirement papers a few blocks away at the pension board and then responded to the buildings. He never emerged. People were laid off on Monday from one company in the WTC. Others were hired to start that week or transferred back from over seas. My brother-in-law?s Brooklyn Engine Co. responded on the second 5th alarm after the second plane hit. They got on scene as the first tower fell. They were spared. They headed toward the remaining tower. It started to come down. They were spared again. One of my graduate students from this past summer?s semester, a young Lieutenant with so much promise is on the list of those missing. BC Ray Downey a friend through Fire Engineering and FDIC is missing as well. His retirement party was week before the attack. Yes, there are millions of stories.
My Rescue Team staged at the Staten Island ferry waiting to go to New York. The City of Elizabeth Rescue went instead. We stayed back to protect Union County. Thirty-five other Union County units along with units form Middlesex and Essex counties (New Jersey) moved over the bridges into firehouses to cover parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island. Mutual Aid Coordinators occupied the Staten Island Communications Offices. Long Island companies came in from the east to cover other parts of Brooklyn and Queens. Westchester County came in from the north. For the first time in history, the FDNY needed mutual aid.
I was in Fairfax, VA with the IAFC Hazmat Committee for a scheduled two day meeting when this all happened. We ended up at IAFC headquarters, manning phones and helping out where we could. What started out as a committee meeting ended up as a full day of press interviews, worries of those who were back home and concern for the members of our home fire departments. I drove back home to New Jersey with break neck speed through the night. My industrial facility was locked down with local police at the gates toting shot guns, wearing vests and helmets, as was the local refinery. My fire department was on stand-by. For three hours on I-95, nothing flying and no other cars on the road. What the hell really happened over the past 12 hours? My mind was racing faster then the big 8 in my Suburban.
On Wednesday night, I went to the 8th Division in SI to meet with the Division Deputy to liaison between NJ and NY. A good friend and fellow adjunct college professor at the local community college was the shift Deputy that day. It made things easy. The 8th Division is in the same quarters with Rescue Co. 5. They just got their rig back to quarters. Damaged, dirty, no glass anywhere and 12 men less. That?s half the company. What most people don?t know was that the box came in just before 0900 which is FDNY shift change. The day shift was already in for relief. Once they heard what it was, they got their gear and jumped on the rig along with the night shift. The losses for the special units like Rescues and Squads was doubled throughout the city. One house in midtown left for the alarm with 16 men. Only one returned. This will take a long, long time.
I visited the site two weeks later, at night. It was surreal. It looked like a movie set. High intensity light towers. Trailers, tents, people moving about with ID tags. Food tables, people on cell phones and radios. The US Armed Forces are present. Uniformed soldiers in downtown Manhattan? Can this be? The piles of rubble are 10 or 15 stories high still two weeks in. Cranes moving about. Two firefighters in an elevated tower ladder spraying down the still burning fires and hot steel. I worked in a building known as One Liberty Plaza in the early 70?s. (That?s the building they thought would also fall two or three days after the attack.) Standing on West and Vesey streets, it took me 15 minutes to get my bearings. I?ve been on that intersection thousands of times but without the landmarks, it was difficult to really put things in perspective. We stood and stared, looked, wondered and realized that no one could possibly be alive. My only hope is as this letter went to the web page, I would be proven wrong over time. The TV does no justice to the enormity of it all and yet being there, it still didn?t look real.
I spoke to my mentor on the phone last week, a recently retired high-ranking staff chief from FDNY. He mentioned that they (The City Officials) have just started discussing the almost 25,000 people who were evacuated and rescued by the FDNY and police prior to the collapses. We?ve all been caught up in the grief and disbelief and not what they accomplished on that fateful day. The remaining members now go to work at night and to wakes and funerals in the daytime. They flip to day shift and go to wakes at night. There will be 343 of them to attend. The cops are suffering too. We?ve always said the armed forces fought the wars abroad and the cops and firefighters fought the wars at home. How profound.
Well my brothers and sisters, it?s time to catch our breath and go forward. It?s OK to keep grieving and lest we never forget the incredible loss to the New York City Fire Department and the American Fire Service. They?re loss is ours. We share it with them as we do all of our line-of-duty deaths. An 18 year old volunteer firefighter lost his life this week in a training accident. We mourn his death too. There is a family without a son, a department planning a line of duty funeral and an entire community in mourning. The beat goes on. Isn?t it amazing it took an incident like this for the American public to recognize the job we do day in and day out, career, volunteer, military, industrial or otherwise? People are cheering the busloads of firefighters, USAR Team members and police officers going up and down the West Side Highway to and from the staging area. Why haven?t they cheered before? Don?t let the cheering stop. Honor the fallen firefighters with staying vigilant in marketing our mission. Keep reminding the citizens of our country that we?re first on scene for everything every time. People know that the fire department will show up. Pull the box. Someone comes. It?s that simple. The fear is that this all goes away over time, even the current patriotic spirit of our nation. Don?t let it. We can never forget.
It would appear that the National Fire Academy along with the USFA and FEMA will expand its mission and grow stronger in light of the past weeks events. The President of the IAFC and former Executive Leadership Team member of the NFAAA has already called for reforms and for FEMA to take more of an active role in anti-terrorism and terrorism response training. It could very well end up at ?our house.? Let?s be there for the NFA and do whatever it takes to continue to support and promote our institution and assist the staff with their new roles and responsibilities. It?s ours. We own it. Continue to embrace it. Leave the campus every time with the thought of going back. Keep in touch with your classmates. Keep an eye on our web site (NFAALUMNI.ORG)
In the mean time, pray for all the lost souls in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Fraternally yours,
Ron Kanterman
A TRIBUTE TO FALLEN BROTHERS-A NATIONAL TRAGEDY
By Ron Kanterman-Executive Leadership Team
October 1, 2001
I write to you with a heavy heart. As a former member of the New York Fire Department and a fire service advocate, I like all of you are trying to come to terms with the incredible loss of life in New York, in Pennsylvania and at The Pentagon. What separates the World Trade Center attack from the others is the thousands lost in one location along with 343 fire personnel and 70 police officers. Eyewitness accounts from survivors of the twin towers stated that firefighters passed them going up into the building while they evacuated down the stairwells. Some of the encounters were at the 40th and 50th floors. Forty or 50 floors up? I would suggest that the best of the best that go to the combat challenge every year could barely make it. I?m banking on pure adrenaline. Yes, our brothers along with NYPD and Port Authority PD Officers were going up higher in to the buildings to rescue and evacuate people. Probably something all of us would have done under the same circumstances. We are all sad and in the case of the members of the FDNY are all still in shock. It will take a generation for things to get better in New York. When today?s probies retire 20 or 25 years from now and no one is left working in the FDNY who was on the job on September 11, 2001 things will get better for them.
Millions of stories have emerged from these tragedies. My cousin works in Tower 2. She was late because she had to walk the dog that morning. And then there?s the police officer who filed his retirement papers a few blocks away at the pension board and then responded to the buildings. He never emerged. People were laid off on Monday from one company in the WTC. Others were hired to start that week or transferred back from over seas. My brother-in-law?s Brooklyn Engine Co. responded on the second 5th alarm after the second plane hit. They got on scene as the first tower fell. They were spared. They headed toward the remaining tower. It started to come down. They were spared again. One of my graduate students from this past summer?s semester, a young Lieutenant with so much promise is on the list of those missing. BC Ray Downey a friend through Fire Engineering and FDIC is missing as well. His retirement party was week before the attack. Yes, there are millions of stories.
My Rescue Team staged at the Staten Island ferry waiting to go to New York. The City of Elizabeth Rescue went instead. We stayed back to protect Union County. Thirty-five other Union County units along with units form Middlesex and Essex counties (New Jersey) moved over the bridges into firehouses to cover parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island. Mutual Aid Coordinators occupied the Staten Island Communications Offices. Long Island companies came in from the east to cover other parts of Brooklyn and Queens. Westchester County came in from the north. For the first time in history, the FDNY needed mutual aid.
I was in Fairfax, VA with the IAFC Hazmat Committee for a scheduled two day meeting when this all happened. We ended up at IAFC headquarters, manning phones and helping out where we could. What started out as a committee meeting ended up as a full day of press interviews, worries of those who were back home and concern for the members of our home fire departments. I drove back home to New Jersey with break neck speed through the night. My industrial facility was locked down with local police at the gates toting shot guns, wearing vests and helmets, as was the local refinery. My fire department was on stand-by. For three hours on I-95, nothing flying and no other cars on the road. What the hell really happened over the past 12 hours? My mind was racing faster then the big 8 in my Suburban.
On Wednesday night, I went to the 8th Division in SI to meet with the Division Deputy to liaison between NJ and NY. A good friend and fellow adjunct college professor at the local community college was the shift Deputy that day. It made things easy. The 8th Division is in the same quarters with Rescue Co. 5. They just got their rig back to quarters. Damaged, dirty, no glass anywhere and 12 men less. That?s half the company. What most people don?t know was that the box came in just before 0900 which is FDNY shift change. The day shift was already in for relief. Once they heard what it was, they got their gear and jumped on the rig along with the night shift. The losses for the special units like Rescues and Squads was doubled throughout the city. One house in midtown left for the alarm with 16 men. Only one returned. This will take a long, long time.
I visited the site two weeks later, at night. It was surreal. It looked like a movie set. High intensity light towers. Trailers, tents, people moving about with ID tags. Food tables, people on cell phones and radios. The US Armed Forces are present. Uniformed soldiers in downtown Manhattan? Can this be? The piles of rubble are 10 or 15 stories high still two weeks in. Cranes moving about. Two firefighters in an elevated tower ladder spraying down the still burning fires and hot steel. I worked in a building known as One Liberty Plaza in the early 70?s. (That?s the building they thought would also fall two or three days after the attack.) Standing on West and Vesey streets, it took me 15 minutes to get my bearings. I?ve been on that intersection thousands of times but without the landmarks, it was difficult to really put things in perspective. We stood and stared, looked, wondered and realized that no one could possibly be alive. My only hope is as this letter went to the web page, I would be proven wrong over time. The TV does no justice to the enormity of it all and yet being there, it still didn?t look real.
I spoke to my mentor on the phone last week, a recently retired high-ranking staff chief from FDNY. He mentioned that they (The City Officials) have just started discussing the almost 25,000 people who were evacuated and rescued by the FDNY and police prior to the collapses. We?ve all been caught up in the grief and disbelief and not what they accomplished on that fateful day. The remaining members now go to work at night and to wakes and funerals in the daytime. They flip to day shift and go to wakes at night. There will be 343 of them to attend. The cops are suffering too. We?ve always said the armed forces fought the wars abroad and the cops and firefighters fought the wars at home. How profound.
Well my brothers and sisters, it?s time to catch our breath and go forward. It?s OK to keep grieving and lest we never forget the incredible loss to the New York City Fire Department and the American Fire Service. They?re loss is ours. We share it with them as we do all of our line-of-duty deaths. An 18 year old volunteer firefighter lost his life this week in a training accident. We mourn his death too. There is a family without a son, a department planning a line of duty funeral and an entire community in mourning. The beat goes on. Isn?t it amazing it took an incident like this for the American public to recognize the job we do day in and day out, career, volunteer, military, industrial or otherwise? People are cheering the busloads of firefighters, USAR Team members and police officers going up and down the West Side Highway to and from the staging area. Why haven?t they cheered before? Don?t let the cheering stop. Honor the fallen firefighters with staying vigilant in marketing our mission. Keep reminding the citizens of our country that we?re first on scene for everything every time. People know that the fire department will show up. Pull the box. Someone comes. It?s that simple. The fear is that this all goes away over time, even the current patriotic spirit of our nation. Don?t let it. We can never forget.
It would appear that the National Fire Academy along with the USFA and FEMA will expand its mission and grow stronger in light of the past weeks events. The President of the IAFC and former Executive Leadership Team member of the NFAAA has already called for reforms and for FEMA to take more of an active role in anti-terrorism and terrorism response training. It could very well end up at ?our house.? Let?s be there for the NFA and do whatever it takes to continue to support and promote our institution and assist the staff with their new roles and responsibilities. It?s ours. We own it. Continue to embrace it. Leave the campus every time with the thought of going back. Keep in touch with your classmates. Keep an eye on our web site (NFAALUMNI.ORG)
In the mean time, pray for all the lost souls in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Fraternally yours,
Ron Kanterman
Collection
Citation
“story10590.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed January 10, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/17048.