Independent Perspective News

Translation by Carolina Friszman.

The fire brigade was the public entity that lost most men: 343. However, they don't feel special, and even feel guilty for staying alive. Their comradeship is usually based on family ties.

NEW YORK.- It's been a hard night for the fire brigade of Amsterdam Ave and Street 66, on the Upper West Side. Three false alarms and a small fire in a church. The men haven't taken their unifoms off yet when two young blondes who are coming back from a party appear in the middle of the night and ask them be photographed with them.

"They are our heroes. The whole city's heroes", says one of them as she tries to convince them.

On September 11 thousands of lifeguards, paramedics, policemen, emergency workers and common people helped saving lives from the chaos and destruction left by the impacts of the two planes against the Twin Towers. However, when the buildings collapsed, no other group lost as many men as the firemen: 343.

Their boldness and dedication immediately brought them to the popular podium; now they have turned into almost mythical characters. They get invited to all kinds of events: the Wall Street opening, dinner parties with foreign dignataries, talk-shows, people applaud them on the streets, some participate in reality-shows and the logo of the FDNY is reproduced in T-shirts, sweaters, caps and all sorts of merchandising. And, as if they wanted to establish their status, their new recruiting campaign has the slogan "Heroes wanted".

The guilt of being alive

Not all of them feel at ease in this position. The men in the Amsterdam Ave. quarter (Engine 40, Ladder 35), don't like being reminded of what happened that sunny September morning. Of the 13 men who went to the World Trade Center, only one, Kevin Shea, returned alive.

Shea, 34 years old, should be happy about his luck, but today his thoughts torture him. The hits from the collapse provoked an amnesia; all he remembers is entering the Twin Towers with his mates; then he woke up when he was rescued on the street, covered with dust, his neck broken and his body covered with bruises and burnts.

Today, he feels anguish when people call him a hero; he's not sure whether he was saved by chance or because he was a coward. He returned to the brigade after a long re-hab, but he couldn't stand it. He asked to be transfered and now he does administrative work in the Central Department.

"Nothing will ever be normal here", said Tony Canariato to LA NACION, 23 years old, one of the new firemen who have joined Shea's brigade. "We are getting used to routine again, but there's always something that reminds us of what happened on September 11; now it's the anniversary. There's a strong sense of guilt for being alive and a great deal of sadness in the air, especially when we're visited by the victims' families."

(...)

Mostly male, predominantly white, of Irish or Italian origins, New York firemen -underpaid as everywhere else- usually come from families of firemen. It's very common to see a father and his son, or two brothers fighting the same fire. The personal bonds that grow in the quarters are so strong that they always go out together in their spare time.

"The brigade is definitely not the same, many things have changed -points out Canariato-. I mean, every time we lose somebody it's like losing a member of our family, a brother; and in this case we've lost almost all of them."

(...) The comradeship spirit is though to be the reason why in the exams (every four years) there are some 30.000 candidates for about 5000 available posts. After September 11, the number of applicants haven't decreased; nevertheless, more experienced firement are retiring sooner than before. (...)

"Sometimes I wish I was with them, with the ones who died. They don't suffer anymore", said Liutenant Girard Owens, 49, 23 years as a fireman. He had never thought of quiting his job, but today, while he goes through the retiring paperwork, he fights an inner struggle with guilt and depression. He wonders why he survived when so many "brothers" died. Sometimes, when asked about his job, he prefers to lie. He doesn't want to be called a hero. To him, the heroes are those who died.