*EPF406 09/09/2004
New York Firefighters Remember September 11, 2001
(Memory of the attack has never faded for surviving firefighters) (1090)

By M. Charlene Porter
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- Wearing a form of 21st century armor, covered with soot and ash, they stepped from the mouth of hell itself, the wreckage of the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001. They were the firefighters of FDNY, the Fire Department of New York.

They were the people who had rushed up the stairs of the flaming towers and guided down many of the thousands who were able to escape. They were the people who stayed at the inferno when the rest of the city ran. They were the people who sifted the rubble and poked the debris in hopes of finding someone, anyone, who may have lived while the rest of the nation still reeled from the unimaginable shock and loss brought on by the worst terrorist attack in world history.

Many firefighters did not walk away from the smoking mountain left where soaring towers once stood -- 343 died doing their jobs, protecting their city and its people. With the loss of so many, Americans often call the surviving firefighters heroes for their sacrifice that day. Louie Cacchioli is a firefighter who rejects the term.

"I was doing my job," Cacchioli says. That day on the job, he raced into a blazing skyscraper and helped evacuate panicked workers inside; he got out of Tower One but was then buried in the rubble of collapsing Tower Two. He was found, but lives now with damaged eyesight, a 30 percent loss of lung function and post-traumatic stress disorder.

"The heroes are the 343 firefighters that got killed that day," Cacchioli said in a telephone interview from his home in Bayside, in the greater New York metropolitan area. "I don't consider myself doing anything out of the ordinary in going to a fire. ... If there's a chance of saving lives, that's your first priority."

Because of his injuries, Cacchioli never worked another day as a New York City firefighter, but he voluntarily undertook a gruesome, grim and dangerous job on "the pile," the enormous rubble mountain that covered Ground Zero, the tip of Manhattan once occupied by the Twin Towers.

There, in the midst of smoking debris and twisted metal, Cacchioli learned the greatest lesson of the 9/11 tragedy -- great disaster was met with an even greater support from the international brotherhood of firefighters and other caring people, near and far.

"When I was down there digging, not just myself, a lot of others, you turn around behind you, you have a firefighter from Italy, a firefighter from [Las] Vegas, a police officer or EMS [emergency medical service]," said Cacchioli. "Everybody wanted to do something."

Retired FDNY Chief Dan Daly shares a great deal with Cacchioli. They are both 9/11 survivors. They both lost dozens of friends and colleagues that day. They both came to their greatest understanding of the disaster while working the pile.

Daly describes "the horror of looking at that pile," in contrast to a "city of angels" that sprang up across the street, where volunteers gave out food, drinks, clean socks, prayers and massages to the workers.

"You felt so positive about mankind and all those wonderful people coming together to help you, and then you turn and face that scene from Dante's Inferno again," Daly remembered during a telephone interview from his home in Ossining, New York. "When I witnessed that, it was like the choices that we all have in our lives -- which side do we want to align ourselves with? I think it is the city of angels."

In some ways, the anniversary of 9/11 is meaningless to these former firefighters; the day is always with them. In September, November or June, the memory is always fresh, the losses always vivid. As media recognition of the event increases and commemorative events are planned with the approaching anniversary, these firefighters have rather different views about where the nation is three years after its deadliest terrorist attack.

"If 9/11 was a wake-up call, a lot of people went back to sleep again," said Daly. People have tried to bury the painful memories of the events, he believes, when more citizen involvement is really needed if Americans are to live in a safer, more secure world.

Rather than a sleeping America, Louie Cacchioli sees people who are acutely aware of the terrorist threat, ever mindful that it might happen again, anytime, anywhere.

Cacchioli is also angry. He's read the final 9/11 Commission report recently released by the bipartisan National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States that investigates the events leading up to the terrorist attacks. He concludes that people in high places failed him and failed their country when the nation was so stunned and unprepared for a terrorist assault.

Chief Daly is in Hungary to commemorate the third anniversary of the 9/11 attacks at the invitation of Hungarian firefighters that he met on a previous trip to central Europe. In the last several years, he has visited 22 cities in eight countries, speaking to first responders, officials, and citizen and student groups. In these speaking engagements, he always reminds foreign audiences that on 9/11, first responders were able to facilitate "what could be the most successful rescue operation ever" as upwards of 25,000 people safely made their way out of the stricken buildings with fire and police personnel assistance.

Daly also is eager to share his story as a survivor and his belief in the courage, compassion and togetherness that can unite the world in the face of disaster. "I come back feeling optimistic," Daly said of his new career in international outreach. "After every trip, I come back feeling that we do have an opportunity ... at some point in our evolution to all work together for peace."

Back in New York City, members of FDNY will gather in dress uniform in the days ahead in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and other neighborhoods of the city for ceremonies to rename streets in honor of their comrades who gave their lives on September 11, 2001. Those ceremonies will be watched by countless thousands, in the United States and overseas, who continue to see these firefighters as modern-day heroes -- no matter how reluctant.

This article is part of a special collection of memorial materials marking the third anniversary of the September 11 attacks. The collection is available at http://usinfo.state.gov/is/Hope_and_Rebuilding.html

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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