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ATTN FD EXPERTS
Brothers...
I have read these boards for a while now and truly appreciate the information and opinions from members throughout the country. Until now, I have chosen to simply watch from the sidelines. However, the culmination of a thousand little things has finally come to a head for me. I apologize in advance for what may become a long and rambling message. Please bear with me because the people I am speaking to need to hear this. I will try to approach this in a gentlemans fashion.
In the past weeks, my job has received an incredible outpouring of support and fantastic gestures from all around the world. You will never know how much these things mean to us and you must believe that we love you for it. EVERY visitor to this city that I have run across has been a home run.
However, in recent times a small and increasingly vocal minority has appeared. These people seem bent on turning the events at the WTC into their own personal platform. Either they want to tell the world of all the daring, heroic services they performed there, they want sympathy for all of the mental and physical damage they incurred from their heroic service or they want to travel the country selling their story in magazine articles and seminars in which they relate their own personal sacrifices as well as illuminating the glaring tactical errors made by the clearly inexperienced and outgunned FDNY.
In a job as big as ours, our members have contacts and friends in every corner of our country. It has been truly educational to hear some of the fables being spun throughout this great land. In these forums alone, I have seen several messages that contain the words "...I was there and..." or "... you wouldn't believe what I saw there...".
Remember this.... we were there when you were. We know what you really did. We have thousands of brothers who are still dealing with the unbelievable changes to all facets of their lives and the lives of their families. Not to mention the families of our dead brothers. While you are at home getting plaques and parades, doing interviews and working on your memoirs, we are still there.
Do we want your sympathy? No. Do we want you to respect our brothers, living and dead, who have not yet arisen from this nightmare? Absolutely. The next time you gather the boys together over a couple of cans to tell some spectacular war stories, think about what the real story is. Think about how good you actually feel making up horsesh#t stories about those first days, and the fact that my brothers that were actually doing what you claim to have done, are still in hell today.
The last straw for me was the nugget of information we received today from a pal at Fire Engineering Magazine. This guy is a straight shooter and has always been a friend to us. He told us that they had just received a proposed article from a FEMA hero from a department in the southeast. His name and job are not important. In this article, this rescue stud apparently was exposing the horrible misuse of FEMA personnel and overall poor management of the rescue effort by the chiefs of the FDNY. Fortunately, the stand up guy that runs that magazine isn't buying it.
The WTC is located in the city of New York. Any and all rescue operations occuring in the city are controlled by the officers of the FDNY. If your feelings are hurt because you missed your opportunity at rescue glory, too bad. Even with the losses we sustained, the FDNY has over 300 special operations members... not counting the cops. If you think that FEMA is coming in and taking over, then you certainly don't understand the way we, and hopefully you, operate. Those poor, inexperienced SOC brothers that were left when Chief Downey was lost probably did need your expert advice. After all, they only take in one or two collapse jobs a week in this city.
On this very website, an EMS member, of all people, tells of his harrowing experiences watching the whole thing on TV. We obviously needed him here because he had the incredibly valuable forethought that the effect of jet fuel on the steel structure would cause the first known total collapse of a high rise structure from fire conditions. Several forum contributors have speculated as to why members were even in the buildings when they collapsed.
I've got news for you. In this town, if even one civilian is in a building, who has a chance to survive, my brothers will go after them. And despite what you may have heard, those towers were loaded with people, right up until the end.
Say for argumants sake that every decision our officers made was wrong and that we really did screw this whole thing up. I am quite sure that there are several things that we would do differently tommorow and that several mistakes were made. But is now the time to discuss it? Have you listened to my brother that posts here from E40 and L35? His house has buried one man... out of ELEVEN! In NYC, we normally wait until after the job is over, before we start studying the operation. Forgive me, I overlooked the fact that the job IS over for you.
For those of you that were and still are truly trying to help us out, and to learn from this event, I apologize for the negative tone of this message. Again, we love you all and realize that these events have affected you too. But for those of you that are doing your act for the entertainment of those that don't know any better, keep your voice down... you never know who may be listening.
[ 11-28-2001: Message edited by: southbronx ]
I have read these boards for a while now and truly appreciate the information and opinions from members throughout the country. Until now, I have chosen to simply watch from the sidelines. However, the culmination of a thousand little things has finally come to a head for me. I apologize in advance for what may become a long and rambling message. Please bear with me because the people I am speaking to need to hear this. I will try to approach this in a gentlemans fashion.
In the past weeks, my job has received an incredible outpouring of support and fantastic gestures from all around the world. You will never know how much these things mean to us and you must believe that we love you for it. EVERY visitor to this city that I have run across has been a home run.
However, in recent times a small and increasingly vocal minority has appeared. These people seem bent on turning the events at the WTC into their own personal platform. Either they want to tell the world of all the daring, heroic services they performed there, they want sympathy for all of the mental and physical damage they incurred from their heroic service or they want to travel the country selling their story in magazine articles and seminars in which they relate their own personal sacrifices as well as illuminating the glaring tactical errors made by the clearly inexperienced and outgunned FDNY.
In a job as big as ours, our members have contacts and friends in every corner of our country. It has been truly educational to hear some of the fables being spun throughout this great land. In these forums alone, I have seen several messages that contain the words "...I was there and..." or "... you wouldn't believe what I saw there...".
Remember this.... we were there when you were. We know what you really did. We have thousands of brothers who are still dealing with the unbelievable changes to all facets of their lives and the lives of their families. Not to mention the families of our dead brothers. While you are at home getting plaques and parades, doing interviews and working on your memoirs, we are still there.
Do we want your sympathy? No. Do we want you to respect our brothers, living and dead, who have not yet arisen from this nightmare? Absolutely. The next time you gather the boys together over a couple of cans to tell some spectacular war stories, think about what the real story is. Think about how good you actually feel making up horsesh#t stories about those first days, and the fact that my brothers that were actually doing what you claim to have done, are still in hell today.
The last straw for me was the nugget of information we received today from a pal at Fire Engineering Magazine. This guy is a straight shooter and has always been a friend to us. He told us that they had just received a proposed article from a FEMA hero from a department in the southeast. His name and job are not important. In this article, this rescue stud apparently was exposing the horrible misuse of FEMA personnel and overall poor management of the rescue effort by the chiefs of the FDNY. Fortunately, the stand up guy that runs that magazine isn't buying it.
The WTC is located in the city of New York. Any and all rescue operations occuring in the city are controlled by the officers of the FDNY. If your feelings are hurt because you missed your opportunity at rescue glory, too bad. Even with the losses we sustained, the FDNY has over 300 special operations members... not counting the cops. If you think that FEMA is coming in and taking over, then you certainly don't understand the way we, and hopefully you, operate. Those poor, inexperienced SOC brothers that were left when Chief Downey was lost probably did need your expert advice. After all, they only take in one or two collapse jobs a week in this city.
On this very website, an EMS member, of all people, tells of his harrowing experiences watching the whole thing on TV. We obviously needed him here because he had the incredibly valuable forethought that the effect of jet fuel on the steel structure would cause the first known total collapse of a high rise structure from fire conditions. Several forum contributors have speculated as to why members were even in the buildings when they collapsed.
I've got news for you. In this town, if even one civilian is in a building, who has a chance to survive, my brothers will go after them. And despite what you may have heard, those towers were loaded with people, right up until the end.
Say for argumants sake that every decision our officers made was wrong and that we really did screw this whole thing up. I am quite sure that there are several things that we would do differently tommorow and that several mistakes were made. But is now the time to discuss it? Have you listened to my brother that posts here from E40 and L35? His house has buried one man... out of ELEVEN! In NYC, we normally wait until after the job is over, before we start studying the operation. Forgive me, I overlooked the fact that the job IS over for you.
For those of you that were and still are truly trying to help us out, and to learn from this event, I apologize for the negative tone of this message. Again, we love you all and realize that these events have affected you too. But for those of you that are doing your act for the entertainment of those that don't know any better, keep your voice down... you never know who may be listening.
[ 11-28-2001: Message edited by: southbronx ]
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