You're listening to the Getting Salty Experience podcast. Hello, Hello, Roofie Ouncus.
So, look I missed him so much. Ray, I got my
little Roofie. Look at that. It's good to be a roofie man.
Sure the world that guy direction, he's like, I'm a fund hunting everywhere,
rabbit season, stuck seasons, rabbit season pain in Iowa. I can
tell you that he'd be freezing his balls off right now if he was in
Iowa. Everywhere, it's everywhere, it's cold as hot. If you want
to see him though, we do actually have some pictures. This is what
he's busy doing, Mike. Let's let's pull them up here. One of
three on his face, Yes, you see it. There you see even
better his face with a couple of dead ducks around his He's been killing Daffy,
living the Louis dream. If if that's what you're into, good for
you, God bless Yeah. Why do you got to wear all the camoflage
though? Like, are they ducks that hip? Ti? No? They
actually have great eyesight and you have to be still and if you're wearing something
bright, they'll they'll see it, So you have to be very still.
You have to have a duck line. You have to be in like camouflage,
otherwise they'll they'll pick up your movement. Wow, you want something tonight.
See, it's not just a Louis Faston statement. You know tabo When
you're going to shoot board defensile's ducks with a gun, that's spray's bullets.
Sounding like you're shooting one, right, you're shooting like a spray of bullets
rifle just to hunt. Listen more and more from live thing get shot.
So it's not that easy. Yeah, all right, I'm gonna put Louis
away from now we'll put them back. What else is going on? I
still got the beard look at him, Mike, Look you know, paying
tribute to him. Yeah, great character of don't look like I'm twelve.
Yeah, so got to do mic and everything you never really did. But
the bear definitely I like it very much. Mystery perhaps the world. Yeah,
we got to get some spots. But first we're going to segue into
something else because race got Oh wait, did you did you play the other
thing? Mike? First? Yeah, let's play the disclaimer that we will
have for all episodes going forward. Disclaimer we'd like to know before the start
of this interview that the opinions about to be expressed by the guest of tonight's
Getting Salty Experience podcast are that of the guest and do not directly or necessarily
reflect the views of the host of the Getting Salty Experience Podcast. So we
got Branson checking in from Kansas. It's cold on a poll. There's nutsack
here. He said, that's cold. But it didn't bother the Chiefs on
Saturday Night, Right, it did not be football fan mikey Yep. The
Bills just rocked out. Green Bay just turned over something that's hold one out
of the hat man, right, yep, pulled one out of the rest
or the hat. Whatever it is. I don't know, all right,
Ray, so get it too before we get into spots, go ahead.
During the deceeventh twenty to seventy show, I made some comments about a man
that we had a discussion with that back in nineteen ninety eight that were up
rude, on quld for and inappropriate. These comments were not in spirit of
the show, and I regret ever making those statements. Because those comments were
made on the show, I feel the need to apologize to that man for
making those comments. Those comments were again on tuld floor and unnecessary. I
apologize to that division thirteen chiefs, and I'm most very sincerely sorry that that
happened. I want to thank Kevin and the Getting Salty crew for allowing me
to make that apology kid tonight. Thank you very much. You know what,
man, all you could do is when you do something wrong, is
to be a man and take ownership of it. I tell people that all
the time. They say, if you gotta funk up, to step up.
Well, once you funk up, you got to step up. That's
it, bro, you know. So that's I felt the need to do
that here tonight because I made those comments here. Thank you. You're manned
up right. Thank you. If you feel like saying something about saying about
me, I could kill us. I've never follow me. I have a
fixed skin. Ba. I survived the middle school watch table. I can
survive anything, so you can bat Yeah, this is this is this isn't
the kitchen table. That the guys can come back. So that's why I'm
here. Yeah, I gotcha. All right, let's do some commercials.
Thank you, appreciate that. Thank you. Ray First's hear from our friends
over at Armortone. Armour Tough interlocking floor tiles are the best choice to replace
new or aging, stained or cracked concrete or epoxy floors. Here's why.
ARMOURTOF tiles come with a lifetime warranty and are usually installed in one or two
days, depending on the size of your station, with virtually no disruption in
daily operation. Armourtough interlocking tiles are guaranteed from chipping, cracking, peeling,
braking, or staining once installed. The tiles are non skid and non slip
and meet the ADA standards for the friction coefficient. The tiles are stained resistant
and impervious to any chemicals or volatiles that are used in the fire service.
Once installed, your floor will be easy to clean with just soap and water.
Install an armourtf tile floor in your apparatus base offices, training rooms,
workshops, exercise rooms, kitchens, banquet halls, or any other room in
your station. Call Vince Today for a no obligation quote at nine oh eight
nine one seven seven six nine seven. Why install a breakable epoxy floor that
will need replacing in five to ten years when you could have a floor that
will last a lifetime. Drop a haligan on an armor tough floor and you
won't see any damage. Don't try this with concrete or epoxy. Join the
hundreds of career and volunteer fire departments nationwide who have chosen an armor tough interlocking
tile floor. Armour Tough interlocking tiles are half the price of epoxy and will
last a lifetime without issue. Again, call Vince today for a no obligation
quote at nine oh eight nine one seven seven six nine seven. Excellent,
My Jim, you in touch with Vince's daughter. I did. I helped
her out with a few things behind the scenes. So you have a new
commercial coming out soon, hopefully soon. Yes, all right, and we
gotta we gotta who we got here. We had a guy from Pennsylvania's Rob
Brady coming from Danville, Pennsylvania, to come from all over the place coming
out of woodwork tonight, you know what I mean? Indeed, all right,
that's all we got right as far as commercials tonight, we got one
later, we have one later on. Ye. All right, let's get
this guy in here. Man, this guy has got the very extensive career.
I hope we get to the whole thing tonight. Uh in and out
of the fire service. Well, pertaining to the fire Service. Seems like
he's a very dedicated man to the fire service, and he's still given today.
Mike, you bring him in. I'm gonna work the applause here.
All right, Ladies and gentlemen retire out of the FD and y especially including
his Stitt and Rescue three in the Office of Emergency Management. Firefighter Tim Brown.
Welcome to the show, mister Brown. You sure have you watched this
show before? I have? Oh so, all right, I was surprised
that somebody in there who is at Paul Conway City loves you. Whoever that
is, I love him. Here's my brother. Yes, all right,
let's get patriotic first. Yeah, let's gonna say yep, we have that
covered up right now here we go. I pledge allegiance to the flag of
the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one
nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Excellent and yes,
Robert Britt, Robert Brady, Bobby Brady, Yes, yes, Bobby
Brady. Willie at the Farmhouse Show in May so it'll come to see me
and Louie. All right, mister Brown, let's start. Let's go back
the ways. Let's go back to your family life. You're not a native
of New Yorker, right, you grew up in Connecticut. Yes. Us
a little about the early days of Tim Brown. I was a bad kid
when I was twelve thirteen years old and I met a young young man one
year older than me back then named Jay Walsh. And you might recognize Jay's
name. And Jay was a junior fireman. And I saw him at a
fire near my house and I said, what are you doing here? He
was sixteen. I was fifteen at this time, and he was like,
I'm a junior fireman. And my ears went straight up like this. I
said, you're a what he said, I'm a junior fireman. I said,
can I be a junior fireman? He said, yeah, you could
be a junior fireman. Come down on Wednesday nights. So I went.
I started going down to the volunteer firehouse at fifteen years old, and you
know, the first night I went down, I was under the weather.
The following week, they said to me, Tim, you can either be
stoned or be a junior fireman, but you can't be both. And that
is when I stopped being a bad boy. I was gonna ask you,
bad boy, what times? All? Right? That went pick one?
But really I give I give credit for this whole thing to Jay Walsh because
I never would have I never would have done. Uh. You know I
had this career if it weren't for him introducing me. And subsequently Jay becomes
a New York City fireman and gets promoted to lieutenant and does over twenty years
in the New York City Fire Department. So, uh, Timmy Klett,
Jay Walsh, Tim Brown, we all became a New York City fireman from
Newington, Connecticut. Wow. Yeah, Always to like one guy that just
sets your career off in one direction, right, it's one person in your
life to set it off in a certain direction. That's great. Well,
you know Zach that you joined the junior junior, the junior fireman. Now
now you're testing me. I guess it was I guess it was seventy eight
or something, or seventy seven, seventy seven, and then you see seventy
seventy became an EMT right first too. Yeah, yeah, so when you
were fifteen, I was a junior fireman, so I couldn't be like a
real volunteer fireman. But in that time, I became a real EMT Newington
volunteer ambulance And I did that, you know, until I was seventeen,
and then I joined the actual Newington Volunteer Fire Department for whatever it was a
year and a half before I went off to college. Well what did your
family think about that you joined the juniors get involved in the fire service.
My dad thought it was great, My brothers thought it was great. My
mom hated it. A mom Yeah, she always hated my interest in the
fire service because she was she was scared mm hmm and fair enough, you
know, even after all the nots that you put it through before you got
right away. Oh, I I tested my parents from when I was a
little kid, so I I feel sorry for them. They raised five children
and I was by far the biggest tennis the menace of the five of us.
And and uh, yeah, I was just a troublemaker. So in
a way, the fire service kind of uh straightened my ass out and gave
me something to focus on and something I enjoyed. So for all the all
the kids out there that are listening, join your local volunteer fire department,
uh and straighten your ship out. Oah, volteer. Fire department has a
junior program and it draws a lot of guys in and it keeps them and
it sets them in the pair to make it a life to it absolutely absolutely
change your life. None of your brothers wanted to follow you. My younger
brother Chris, who's watching, shout out to him, also became a Providence,
Rhode Island firefighter. He did twenty six years in Providence, Rhode Island.
And now my brother and my proudest follow one is his daughter Taylor,
who is now a Providence firefighter. Awesome, great, Yeah, and the
United States Army medic and so I couldn't be more proud of her. Wow,
definitely those Browns. How you have to tell you? So then you
go to unl University of New Haven, right, and then you tell us
about that you joined the fire department over there, and it's I forget what
you called it, a bucky right. Yeah. So I lived at the
firehouse, which was combination of paid and volunteer. But I lived at the
firehouse for free in West Haven's Center district while I went to college at the
University of New Haven. In exchange for that, I jumped on the truck
whenever I was there, I was an extra pair of hands, extra manpower.
It caused some I was the first one, so of course change is
difficult, so it caused some kind of problems. But I guess I feel
like I plowed the way a little bit for future young people to be able
to live in the firehouse. And I couldn't have been happier. I really
could have cared less about college, and but I really liked jumping on the
truck. What was your major in college? Will you go down fire science?
That's why I want to go to age. Did you want to finishing?
So I did three and a half years, and I got offered a
paid job in New Britain, so I did not finish. A few years
yars ago, when I got my National security clearance, UH renewed my investigator.
They're very thorough. So my investigator asked me why I lied to her,
and of course it took me aback because I didn't. And she said,
why didn't you tell me you had an associates degree from the University of
New Haven. I said, because I don't. I didn't. I never
got anything. I just walked away from it. And she said, you
have an associate's degree from the University of New Haven And I said, no,
I don't. She said, yes, you do, and she pulled
out she pulled she pulled out a piece of paper and showed it to me.
And so just two years ago I found out I had an associate's degree.
I didn't even know. See, you're smaller than your thought, and
the federal government is more than stuff than you think. It shows you how
how thorough they are really. Yeah, so I made you jumping real quick.
Cool story. So Deputy Chief by Zanti swung by my office the other
day. I told him that, you know, we were going to have
you on and he said, you know that you said the Center District was
the nuttiest place that you ever worked, and fair assumption. You know.
I enjoy working there myself. And around that time, you had a lot
of characters, some of which I still work with, including him. But
Wiggi Johnson was the chief at the time, and I work for his son
now. Paul Rappano was there. He's still there now, is our business
manager. So thinking about Wigi, who was listen to a guy that really
took the Center District to the next level. What was it like working for
him. So that's very personal. He was like a dad to me,
and I'm play yeah when he when I was struggling or whatever, I needed
twenty bucks or I needed this or that or anything. He was always there
for me. And I love that man and his family, young young Billy
Johnson, Chief Johnson now, uh is like my brother, and uh,
you know he he was another one that I credit with my my incredible career
path and and uh, you know, I I was sorry that he passed
away during COVID H but he felt like hell, like a marine would for
a long long time. And I did get to say goodbye to him.
Uh, and and actually put a New York City Fire Department patch next to
his heart inside his uniform jacket in his casket. So I hope to always
be with him. Yeah, he's always with you too, can you you?
So you probably deserve you deserve good friends. And you had to thank
you. I didn't expect that question. So but it's good. It's good.
No, No, donpe be sorry. It's good. I love that
man with all my heart and uh, he was a big influence in my
life. Well he was the chief when you were there, what'd you say?
He was like he was the chief department. He was their longest serving
chief of department. He was there from nineteen eighty one until he retired in
two thousand and seven. And currently his son is the deputy chief and I
have the honor of working for him. Good man. That's pretty cool,
great family. Right, So you take the paid where'd you take the paid
job? Now? In New Britain? New Britain that busy to Bolland,
right, think they over a lot of wives, right, We we had,
I know when I was there, they were we were pretty busy,
you know, I mean not not South Bronx busy, but we were you
know, we did our fair share of work like residential commercial makes you know,
yeah, you know it's like Providence. It's like frames, you know,
two and a half frames with with porches and uh you know, in
periodically commercial stuff. They were Stanley were Is based there, so they had
a lot of commercial space. But I was only there a year and a
half, you know, obviously just there a short time. When did you
take the test for the for THEFT? I think it was end of eighty
one beginning of eighty two. I took the written which I got one hundred
on because I worked hard, because I was focused and I wanted to do
very well. And then the same thing with the physical tests. I got
one hundred with that out of forty thousand. I wind up with being number
sixty on the list. And I say that. I don't say that to
be a bragger. I'd say that because if you're a young person who wants
to be a firefighter, whether it's New York City or anywhere else, don't
just go take a test to try and pass. Go take a test to
get a hundred. Go take a physical test to get a hundred. There's
no excuse not working that hard for the greatest job in the world. What
what led you to the fd M Y when you were in Connecticut? You
have friends there who pushed it to us that way exactly. J Walsh,
Timmy Klett, Paul Walsh, Tommy RONALDA who became a Chief Department of New
Britain. We all came down and took the test. Well, look,
we were buffs for years. You know. We would drive down from Connecticut
and uh run around to fires and take pictures and stuff. And uh,
you know, once once I was bit by that bug. There was no
there was no stopping me. It's it's what I wanted in my life.
And uh and it's it is even with all that has happened, in all
that we went through, and it's still the greatest job in the world.
Yep. I mean I tell my kids that in anything you do, I
don't care. If you're sweeping up outside, you do one hundred percent.
And whatever it is that you do, whatever job, whatever task you have,
one hundred percent, I don't care what it is. And if you
want something like you said, you wanted to fight apart and bad enough that
there is no complaining, there is no making excuses, go get. It
was to go get and make your dreams of reality. I didn't listen to
my dad the first time. I was fucking around, and like you,
I was being a bad boy, doing my thing. You know, my
dad told me to run. I'd be out fucking smoking weed, you to
doing whatever. My mother's probably listening, and I didn't get a hundred,
so didn't know that. Yeah, so I didn't get a hundred. And
sad to say, the only thing that little fire under my ass was my
dad passed away. And then I you know, I went out and I
got a hundred and one hundred too, and I think I was number one
hundred and something on the list. I don't remember it, not sixty's that's
awesome. The only thing that I regret was that, Yeah, I took
my dad passed it away, so I never got to share. He was
on the job, my two brothers on the job. I never got that.
Yeah, he'd be great for the show. I tell you that before.
Can you imagine something to say about you? What? What have a
gifts? Yeah? That passion runs in the family. I ask people all
the time. Do you think finding a born like that? Or is that
something that you learn that's something that's ready. I think it's the individual,
what he wants, what you want to do. You know, it has
to be a person wants to give and and we'll take whatever whatever the job
grows at them. Yeah, but you it's like nature or nurture. Is
that something that you learn or you're born to be a findman? I think
you're born to be a finding. What do you think, tim, I
couldn't see doing anything else. I'll yea with my life, so you know,
with with what happened to us and we'll get into it later. And
you don't think it's changed for me. But I still would not change those
years in Connecticut and then the twenty years in the New York City Fire Department.
I would never change that for one second, Right, Oh would you?
I mean? Uh? So you go to Proby class, you get
called and I have it somewhere here eighty four right, seven eleven eighty four?
You got on the job, right? Seven eleven eighty four? Yeah?
Man? Are you right? Like an elephant memory? I take notes.
You said you were in a split class, so some of the guys
will be on the test before you, and then the guys in your test,
right, Yes, so fifty from the old list and one hundred from
the new list. And I was lucky enough to make that. And our
Proby school then was six weeks long, and so that went pretty quickly,
and I wound up being assigned to La Cosa Kaka seventy three engine and Hunts
Point in the South Bronx by the leaf the truck forty La Alefante? Right,
what was got? Luck of the drug? You got? How that
happened? Tim Well? I thought I was going somewhere else, but but
that's where I wound up. And I couldn't be happier. Well, where
did you Where did you have the contract it for? I had in for
seventy five engine, all right, but you know, you know, I
didn't know much about seventy three back then. In the end, I'm very
happy with where I went. We did quite a lot of work. I
learned an awful lot. We were tested. I learned how to be you
know, I learned how to be a good nozzleman. I mean, that's
the truth. And we we did a lot of fire fire duty, and
it was the beginning of the EMS stuff. So we started doing a little
EMS stuff, not too much, but we did a little bit. And
in the first year, we'll just after the first year, we had a
fire in the building across the creek from us which wound up killing the captain
of forty two truck, James McDonald. It was a fully occupied five story
old lall tenement at right at Chief Change at nine o'clock in the morning,
and it was loaded with kids. All the kids on out of the firehouse.
We knew all the kids, and so everybody just went and dove in
the building and Cat McDonald wound up trapped in the fire apartment Pete Beefelt got
burned, God rest his soul. He was killed on nine to eleven.
And Janny Sayita got burned. They both of them barely made it out of
the apartment. But Cat McDonald did not make it out. Wow. He
wound up in the burn center for a number of a week or two and
then he passed away. That would be pretty sobering for you, guys,
man, the only year on the job. Yeah, it's it's exactly the
right word. It will test your metal something like that, and questioning yourself
and your ability and your responsibility and did you do everything right? Were you
prepared? Did you do your job? Like all those things you question you
know, every every single move you made. And yeah, so a really
harsh reality for a new firefighter. Yeah. So now at work, coming
up to the South Bronx, everybody says the Warrior is like the mid seventies,
late seventies, But you know, for more people I've heard on the
show, you know, in that area of the Bronx, it was more
towards early eighties that they were really you know, rocking, rocking in the
early eighties. I would say we we the Warriors. I think we're a
little bit before me saying we did We did do a lot of work,
but they did certainly did so much more work than we did, and they
did a lot more occupied. We did a lot of vacant work because people
had already been burned out or chased out. But we did a ton of
vacant building fires daily. Uh. But you know, with that said,
we also did our share of of occupied stuff. Right. So I feel
like I learned how to be a really good engine man, a really good
nozzle men. Uh there, and you know you learn that when when when
ship is going wrong, the best thing you can do is put the freaking
fire out, put water on the fire, and then that's right, that's
right. So that who was some of the senior guys that you had when
you got there, Well, you know, I'll Phil Scota Zarella is one
of the guys I learned from in seventy three, Indre and Bobby Brudy,
Mike Covet Uh, you know, the officers Joe Berry and Ralph, Karen
Mattica who we had a lot of fun with, and John and uh yeah,
so we you know, I they had to hold me back. I
was. I was always in there down the hallway, and they had grabbed
me by the collar and slowed me down and and teach me. But they
did. And and I learned a lot from some guys who were there in
the real Warriors before, you know, right, who really taught me.
And they, you know, they had to slow me down, and they
understood that I was a young, gung hold guy. But they really did
teach me an awful lot. Wear a mask back then or not? Everybody
wear a mask? Uh? I always wore a mask. What about the
older guys not so much? Uh I. I also wore bunker pants back
then. And nobody was wearing bunker pants. They were wearing three quarter boots.
But I grew up in Connecticut. We had bunker pants. So I
had my own. I had three or four pairs, and and I was
like, you know, I value myself, and listen, you got to
keep those tools intact, you gotta, right, I don't know, these
guys got burnt up up there the wall, through floors and things like that.
I have no I had no interest in that. And and and they,
you know, I got made fun of a lot. Uh just got
it, oh, of course, of course relentlessly. But I didn't care
you know, I was, I was, I was wearing them. I
didn't care, and you know, eventually the job caught up. But a
decade later, yeah, yeah, about a decade. Yeah, that's right,
that's right. You know they would yell at you. Even maybe some
of the chiefs some time would yell at me that I wasn't in uniform,
I wasn't wearing the right gear whatever. You know. So, uh,
I had a I had an emergency back then that you know, we responded
on the you know, the pull boxes. So we were we went out
to Hunt's Point and we got out there. You know, there was no
voice contact or anything, so we didn't know what it was. And an
eight year old boy had was playing football with his dad in the street and
fell down a manhole. And so we got there. They're all around the
man hole screaming, pointing, and and we wound up. I wound up
going down the manhole. Mike McLaughlin from forty two truck came down and went
in front of me and searched the water, and I searched the water and
we couldn't find it. We wanted to find rescue. Wound up finding him.
Uh way down the pipeline and he was dead. So we So that
was another like really emotional events that I remember clearly from back then. And
you know a lot of times we go and we try to help and we
lose, and that's hard to take and hard to swallow, and it hardens
your heart and it hardens your soul and and uh, you know, yes,
but you got to find a place to file that man to be okay,
you know, I mean, as you can tell now, I still
you know, I still feel guilty that we couldn't get it. Yeah,
I think that's a a good thing. That shows how humanity even though a
lot of the things that we we wanted to do we can't do. It's
not off fall to get there after the fact, do you think want you?
And if it doesn't want you, you're you're diminished. There's something lacking.
Yeah, I'll always and everyone losing Captain McDonald, losing this young boy.
Uh and you know, and there's right, there's one hundred of those
things that happened to us did build up. And we'll we'll talk about this
maybe a little bit later in a segment. But in the in the early
years, I was getting tested emotionally and mentally tested. So so anyhow,
that's that's who experience is, right, good in bed makes how you learn,
learn to do better. Yeah, make sure who you are really,
you know, if you think, if you learn from those experiences and you
know, file them away somewhere instead of have them scattered all over the place
and move forward. Right, Adversity is a great teacher, right, Mikey
exactly. So that was that was seventy three engine, right, Lakasa Kaka,
which I love. It's the greatest name of any fireouts in the Ere
city. Oh, definitely, definitely. Yeah. And where the name come
from it came. It came from the warriors where they were so busy that
they never cleaned the firehouse and you know the truck next door of La Cosa
Elefante in the engine. The firehouses were separate. They were adjoining each other,
but they were separate. There were a lot of those around. I
think there was like one seventeen and two sixty three was one of the separate
but equal. Yeah, maybe like one twenty four. Back of these they
didn't usually they want to. Yeah, back then they didn't get along very
well. And seventy three was out the door. I mean they were rarely
in the firehouse, so they didn't clean the firehouse. So it became known
as Lacasa Coca and created what was the patch what it looked like. So
it's earning the ground in the garbage can. Oh I forgot we find it.
Yeah. I worked a LaCosta to Elephanta one time on a detail.
Yeah yeah, I remember they had a fire pit in the back. Oh
yeah, yeah, so all they hadn't back. But yeah, I didn't
want to say yeah that was that was then? Yeah, that was that.
Yeah, you got absolutely grudge man. Yeah, so funny. So
you did what day you did like six or seven years then? Yeah,
yeah, yeah, you must have go to how a lot of work any
any really you know, good jobs and you're like, holy ship, you
know, it's come to mind. I mean yeah, I mean there were
a lot of them, but but the biggest one was the the explosion over
on one hundred and thirty second in Locusts where the backo operator hit the high
pressure gas pipe that's right, Queens and it burned down like five or six
buildings and killed I don't know how many killed like seven people, I think,
and that I I would have to say that. That is the biggest
fire ever worked at. And I mean my friend Ray Graywin from Rescue three,
who's also was the chief of the volley's out on an Island calls a
fire like that and no impact fire. It didn't matter if the fire department
responded or not. It was going to do what it's going to do.
There's nothing to do about it. No impact fire. It is. There
is the patch, There is Ernie the Grouch nice in the garbage can.
That six fifty five is six to fifty five Prospect Avenue. I was going
to ask you what, Yeah, yeah, those my friend Patty Angler drew
that patch for us, so they were already named that by the time he
got there. Yeah, they were that before. And what was the truck?
Same thing, Lacasa Elephante. Oh that right, that was the same
Sorry, Yeah, and yeah, we tried to get along better than they
had in the past. Right, Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.
A lot of the old time it flopped that. Yeah, they you know,
you know, guys don't might change, right. So who's this young
whipper snapper kid with all this energy from Connecticut, you know, with his
own bucket pants. Yeah, with his bunker pants, yeah, yeah,
And and I wore and I wore a hood, you know, a no
max hood. Oh man. They called me, they called me all kinds
of little little white riding hood and stuff, and they had that was an
easy target. Yeah. I made it easy for them, I guess,
you know. But that's what builds the fixed skin, right man, right?
Right? Oh? I know, yeah, you know maybe yeah.
Did you work any details of the truck, are you guys? Oh?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I worked in the truck, worked up in
eighty two and thirty one, worked out at eighty three and twenty nine,
a little bit here and there in forty one. Before it was a squad,
it was enhanced engine in hand the right, it was right for a
little bit enhanced engine. But then I, you know, I got to
know because I was a buff, I got to know a lot of people
in the job. And I actually ran the fire Department's soccer team back then,
and two lieutenants from Rescue three played on the soccer team with me,
Pete Land and Mike Cogan, And they asked me, actually Pete Land asked
me if I would if I wanted to go to Rescue three. And of
course that's like a dream for me. And so he was like to go
to a truck for a while and then come up to Rescue three and come
work with us. Wow. Ok, yeah, yeah, no, who
gets who gets that offer? Right from him? From Pete? You know,
he was one of my one of my best friends back then, and
he loves the life time you juggled your bulls played soccer. I mean you
couldn't wait for that one. Yeah. So we we had a lot of
fun together traveling around and playing soccer and and uh and all that. And
so I went to four truck for a year and a half. I lived
in Midtown, so I walked to work. So that was kind of sweet.
And I will tell you that I I went there with six or seven
years of experienced South Bronx firefighter experience. It was like, I do nothing
about firefighting because it is a completely different job. In the Midtown high rise
Manhattan Truck Company, we had a high pressure steam leak in the sub basement
of a high rise building with a worker trapped. We were first new truck
captain, Dave Woolley god Rest his soul was the captain and I went,
of course, as we do in South Bronx you go charging in and you
find the guy, you bring him out. You know that's your job,
right, So I go charge, I put up it. I'm completely turtled
up, collar up, everything flaps down, ready to go. As soon
as I jumped off the truck, go down there, go running into the
steam, Get on my hands and knees, start crawling. It was so
loud that it was like it was like a freight traine and you couldn't see.
It wasn't too hot in the beginning, but I felt from behind me.
Someone grabbed my collar and yanked me back, and it was Captain Woolley,
and he put a wooden hook in my hand, and he said,
keep this in front of you. If it disappears, stop where you stopped
in your tracks. And I did that, and I kept it out in
front of me as I was searching, and all of a sudden, the
hook disappears out of my hands and I have just like the end of the
hook. The steam cut the hook in half, the high pressure steam.
And if I if I if he had not done that, if he had
died, He said, if it were chopped, it would have chopped my
head right off. That high pressure steam. And uh, and I had
no idea. So you know, I say that with humility because I you
know, I had more confidence than I should have had going to a midtown
truck where they have these very different emergencies that happened, And so I kind
of became a proby again in a lot of cases, and I had to
learn. I remember taking window out of a commercial twelve story commercial high rise
that had carpet in the carpet was all smoldering and on fire, and it
was hot and very very thick smoke. And so here's the dope South Brons
fireman with the halligan smashing the windows out of the tent or twelve floor and
the chief is yelling, who was breaking them? Stop breaking the window?
Stop because they're getting showered with this glass ten stories down in the front of
them, you know. And I and I go down and there's a there's
a shard of glass right through the the engine compartment cover of the chiefe car.
Wow. Yeah, I'm very lucky to kill anybody. But that's what
I knew, right, And and I made my I made my mistakes,
and I learned more from them. But and I I I give respect to
the guys at work in the high rise places, much different job. Yeah,
high rise sub sellers, double triple sub sellers, right, Louis loves
those favor love something I don't know, striple sub sellers, man ship,
shipboard, fires, subway in so so many things that can go wrong,
like, for instance, a crane laps, right that just that just happened,
right, yeah, happening. Yeah, So I have I have great
respect for these guys in midtown. Did that increase your design to go to
a rescue seeing all these crazy you know things that you know the rescue was
going to be going to, right, Yeah, I was. I was
happy to go back to the Bronx hall On Fire department, Yeah, right,
where I felt pretty comfortable. You know. So how long did you
stayed at For just a year and a half and then you you called uncle
Pete up and You're like, I'm ready. Well it was you know,
it was you know, it was up to when they had a spot open
and everything like that. And who was the captain There wasn't, no,
no, it was long before him. It was a Jack Calderone at the
time. Okay, the great guy another rescue for fly fighter. Yeah,
he's the guy does all the books about the Riggs, right, that's right.
Yeah, Avid photo guy, Ye, Avid buff like me and or
I like him really and yeah, so we we had some good years up
there together with Jack as captain and Peter his mind lieutenant, and we were
we were located one hundred and eighty first week for the first six months in
Washington Heights and then we moved over to our own firehouse in in uh on
East Tremont In Park Avenue, UH in the Bronx we actually had the firehouse
had been it was a vacant firehouse and it was condemned by the building department.
Uh. And we didn't pay any attention to that. We we went
in and we shored up the apparatus floor with our with our jacks so the
break wouldn't fall into the basement, okay, because we really wanted to be
in our own spot. So so in the end it was a good move.
Yeah. Who are so many guys that we talked about hockey before,
Johnny Hopkins Johnny Hopkins of course. Uh. But you know the guy's Mickey
Convoy who's still there today radio the other day unbelievable and you had you know,
well, we we to mister Tinny. Conrad Tinney was like the senior
man, probably the most respected guy and rescue three at the time. Yeah,
he was a buyman and rest before when I got on the job in
eighty one. In eighty one, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we I
don't call him Connie, I'll call him mister Timmy. Yeah, Marshal too,
wasn't he Yeah yeah, fire Markle Yeah, so you know he was
probably for me. He was the senior man, a to fear and to
learn from. H. And then we had Ray Gray Wyn and we had
Stam Malisi and Pete Romeo, Uh, Danny McDonough, Chris Blackwell, God
rest his soul, who I saw in this in this in the North Tower
on September eleventh before he perished, who was really like like like he was
really like a real brother to me, like a blood brother. H loved
Chris with all my heart. Uh yeah, John. We we had we
had Matt fun Ray Ray Maisenheimer another one that God rest soul. We had
so much fun with him. He's he is the man with the largest head
I've ever seen in my life. We called it, we called him buffalo
head. Was completely appropriate. M We had the we had the collapse rig.
We had the we were the only collapse unit in the city back to
him. So we had first an old rescue truck that was loaded with wood
and shoring. Uh. And then we had attractor trailer truck. U.
There was really a rolling lumberyard. And so we would respond city wide.
If we had something that Staten Island, we would drive down the New Jersey
Turnpike with our lights and sirens on, which was kind of fun to do.
Yeah, was Johnny Collapse day yet? Oh? Yeah, Johnny Collapse
is singing man, one of the more senior than me. I'll say,
Johnny and I got along very well. I learned a lot from him,
and and yeah, we we were kind of the f troops, you know.
We we didn't, I don't know, we were just different. But
we we got the job done when the job needed to get done, and
otherwise we had fun. You know. So how did the other companies work
with Rescue three? Was it? Because? Yeah, so we were the
opposite of rescue too, right, we were. We were known as the
gentleman's rescue, right, and so we would even even if we got in
like twenty seven trucks right around the corner and you know, even if we
got in, you know, a little bit in front of them or whatever,
we always gave them the first new job or whatever. You know.
We I remember a fire in the hole that that was. It was very
difficult, and the sixty nine engine was having a very hard time. And
they never have a hard time. They are they are the very best engine
company in the world, like they're one of those just those great engines.
And uh, they were just having a real hard time. And I wound
up getting up near the nozzle and there was a young guy in the nozzle
and I told him to shut it, shut it down, let me figure
this out. And I went out in front of him and I can feel
the fire, you know, just brushing me on the right hand side.
And I'm like, where's this coming from? And I crawled in a little
further and I froll back and I grabbed him and I said, Okay,
this is what we're going to do. We're going to move to the right.
There's a there's a door. We're going to go in the door together.
I'm not leaving you, but you're going to do this. And it
was a drug it was a drug den, and they had broken through one
closet, the back of a closet into the back of the closet of the
adjoining apartment, and the actual apartment that was on fire was the adjoining apartment.
But it was coming through that opening through the closets, and it was
hard to figure out, right, But I took the young guy and we
went through, and he took the nozzle all the way through into a closet,
through the wall, into the back closet of the adjoining apartment, and
then through the whole next apartment and he put the whole fire out. Wow.
And I would never be a guy that took the nozzle from him and
did it without him what I wanted to do, figure it out and help
him learn right, and uh, and that's what we did. It was
it was one of one of my proudest moments in being in the Gentleman's Rescue.
Uh, that that we we weren't like that with other companies. You
know, we didn't jump in front of him or try and hurt him,
or or try and upshine them or anything like that. It was always try
to help each other. I mean, as far as I knew, right,
filling the gaps. I've heard that before. The gentleman's rescue. I've
heard that if I may real quick. You know, the thing about any
rescue company is that you're not just going to the fires. Excuse me.
It's the main thing, of course, and that's the passion of any firemen.
But around this time in the nineties, when you get there in nineteen
ninety two, you're seeing fire duty go down from what it was. Needy's
still a lot of work, but going down from what it was, and
you're seeing more of an emphasis on the technical side of things. There's MBAs
to go to, there's collapses to go to. So as far as that
aspect and being a citywide unit, even though you still love going to fires,
what were some of your favorite not that you're happy it's happening, non
fire emergencies to respond to where you could put those technical skills to excuse me,
technical skills to good use. It's a good question. I didn't really
like all the technical stuff so much. I liked I did like the fires,
but we had, you know, we had different collapses. I remember
fire, fire and collapse, right. I remember one of the guys I
neglected to mention was David Dangerfield. Yeah, I'm sorry. He went to
seventy. Yeah, he was seventy. One of one of the best fire
men I ever worked with in my career, a great friend of mine.
I loved him, so I had Yeah, God rest his soul. Also,
uh, we had too. We had David Drury and David Dangerfield,
right, that's yeah, another great guy. We called them Salt and Pepper
because they were both d d so Dad. So Drury was Salt, Dingerfield
was Pepper. So that's what was their nicknames. And I remember having this
fire not too far from the firehouse, and I was I think I was
on the first floor and David Dangerfield Pepper went up to the second floor doing
the search, and the second floor collapsed into the first floor, and all
of a sudden, I see Dangerfield. Pepper is right in front of me.
The collapse leaned to it missed me, and all of a sudden he
slid down the floor and he was standing in front of me, and I
was like, Pepper, what are you doing here? He's like, I
don't know, floor collapsed. I'm okay, okay, yeah, and we
just kept doing our thing, right, so we did. I'm trying to
think of some major collapse stuff. We did. We were involved in a
lot of stuff. I never really did a lot of like tunneling stuff myself,
just because it never I was never in that position. I guess,
yeah, I didn't. I didn't. I didn't know about it. Tech
work we did. We did a lot of fires, and uh, I'm
not bringing it. You know, were you guys all Roco trained by then?
We you guys trained? Yeah, we had all you know and all
that and and and we we know we did do that. I probably I
would say I did more of that in training than the real life. All
right, now it's night. We had we had Johnny collapse, So just
send Johnny. He's the man, the man collapse. Nobody do collapse like
him. Dope, that's for sure. Man. So rescue three. So
you guys had the Bronx and you would come down hall and rescue one would
go up to what like one one two oh or one fourteen? How far
would rest of one book one one? What was it? One two five
on the east side on the east side and one two o on the west
side. It was around the hundred twenty fifth, right, So yeah,
So we did a lot of work in Harlem, in Washington, heights.
And then, you know, back then it was work. The fires were
around the firehouse in that kind of mid Bronx, i'd say, around Tree
Mount Avenue and over towards seventy five and thirty three and forty fifty sixty two
engine like over that way. We did a lot of work. And and
then we you know, we you know, we we you know, we
always tease rescue too, right, they called us out themselves. You know,
Brooklyn's the borough of fire. And my retort to that is, yeah,
it's the land of of short buildings and tall stories. I've had a
lot of bronze guys tell me that about. Yeah, but we did,
you know, we did our we did our share back then. We you
know, back then it was not the north bron it's like it is now.
It was more you know, more south, more west. Yeah,
that works all going up north now right a lot sixty two thirty two and
up there. And that's all after my time. I mean I left there
in ninety eight as a fireman, so I've been going a long time.
You've been out there for a long time, that's for sure. Many eight.
You look pretty good, though, man, you do keep yourself full
up until young. Look at you. I drank wine, I smoked cigars,
good Man good Man, BLUs America. So I got to know how
you get into the and ninety eight you go to OEM. How did that
whole thing come about? How do they you have a background in it?
They call looking for you, guys. Nah, it's it's again. It's
it's who you're friends with, right, So I was. I became best
friends with Captain Tayrry Hatton when he was he was my lieutenant for truck for
a little bit before he got promoted to captain, and he became my best
friend, and we were boys for a few years. And then he met
the love of his life, bet Patrol, who he been married. Yeah's
secretary, Yeah, he was. She was the mayor's personal assistant. She
was actually a US marshall while he was a US attorney. That's how they
knew each other. And then when he became mayor, she went with him
to the mayor's office, and and myself and Terry and Beth became best friends
and we hung out all the time together. And so you know, I
kind of knew I was in that crowd. I knew all those folks and
the mayor appointed Jerry Howard as the first director of the Mayor's Office of Emergency
Management, and and Jerry had been after me for a few years to go
to make the move from rescue, but I wasn't ready. I was enjoying
rescue and all that, and and I really didn't want to go. So
I resisted for a couple of years, and then in nine finally I finally
went. And you know, it is what it is. I made the
move. And you know, looking back on it now, if I had
stayed in Rescue three, there was a fair chance that I wouldn't been killed
on nine to eleven. So you know, Terry was killed, and as
you know, almost of the on duty Special Operations command of getting Fire Department
was killed. So we'll we'll get into that later. But I went to
OEM. I was a field responder for them for you know, represent the
mayor and major emergencies. And within that group, I got promoted to supervisor
Field Operations. And so from ninety eighty two thousand and one, that's what
happened. We did a lot of events. One of my first big events
citywide events was the West Nile virus, which we discovered in a park of
queens that started to kill. We noticed the pattern. It was starting to
kill elderly folks out there in the hospitals, and so we knew something was
wrong. So I wind up loading helicopters with fifty five gallon drums of malathion
to spray on the parks to kill the mosquitos. And you know, malathion
is probably not a very good thing to be pouring out of the fifty five
So I was doing that back then. We did all we skipped over the
whole FEMA Urban Search and Rescue thing right when I was still in Rescue three.
I forgot about that. I don't have that on the list here,
fellow. Yeah we didn't. Yeah, we didn't talk about it, all
right, Yeah, all right, we'll come back. Well, you know,
so you know, Ray Downey was my friend, and you know,
our friend a lot of us. And I was working in rescue two in
what years it maybe five? Right, So the first bombing of the World
Trade Center in ninety three, I had just got gotten off of work at
rescue three in the morning, and I came home and I was we were
up at my dirty bit busy night, and so I came home, I
jumped in the shower, and when I came out of the shower, like
the sirens were going crazy and radios were screaming. And I took the subway
down to the well the First World Trade Center bombing, and I went to
the chief and I said, I'm a rescue fireman, Rescue three. Can
I help? I'm off duty, but can I help? And he said,
yeah, one of your guys is trapped in the basement, fell and
fell in the crater, right, Kevin Chet, my proby school buddy,
and he's like, get some gear and get in there and see help.
And so by the time I got the gear and got in there, they
were already getting them out. And I wound up fiving one hundred floors one
hundred and ten floors in that really heavy car. I call it car fire,
black car fire smoke, searching the floors for the stair one force for
people. So I did that one and then and then I was working in
rescue two the day the Oklahoma City bombing happened, and they were asking around
and who can get on a plane tonight. We'll get on play tonight.
So I told him I could, and I wound up on the plane going
with Chief Downey and Terry Hatton going out to Oklahoma City. We spent seven
nights on the pile there searching the rubble to no avail. We never found
anyone alive, but we tried, and then with the Urban Search and Rescue
Team. I also was embedded at the Olympics in Atlanta in ninety six.
The bottom off there and we jumped on the black Hawks and they slung all
our gear and we were flying to the scene of the bombing when they turned
us around and said the local responders are going to handle it. So we
wound up not actually getting to the scene of the bombing there, but we
were ready to go. So anyhow, I left that whole part out by
experiments, I guess briefly. I know this was around the time you went
to o EM But when you get Hurricane George in nineteen ninety eight and FEMA
was sent down at that at least Urban Search and Rescue Task Force one.
Did you have a hand in going down to the DR No, that was
I didn't go. I think that. I think they actually took guys who
spoke Spanish, which which made some sense, and I forget there was something
else going on then that I didn't. I didn't. I didn't. I
don't think I even got invited to be a part of that. In fact,
I don't know if it was. I think it might have just been
in New York City Fire Department itself sent people down. I'm not sure if
it was, like ohem, I don't actually remember what was in that.
I think that was a main Dickens thing. If I recall, right,
this is ninety eight, so it's Juliani. But yeah, anyhow, I
know I was not involved in that at all, and so okay, so
now, oh we am ninety eight. I'm working there. A few different
things happened where I would say we were very successful in the experiment of having
a Mayor's Office of Emergency Management. It was very effective in changing the way
interagency cooperation occurred. I would say it helped foster a better relationship between p
D and FD, between KANID and the city. I think it was a
really good program the mayor started, and you know, now over twenty years
later, you can see, you know, there's two hundred and fifty employees
at the Department of Emergency Management, and so that I think that kind of
tells you that it was indeeded entity to create and I was honored to be
there at the beginning, to be a part of it. And you know,
all of that leads to September eleventh. Office was seven World Trade Center
and twenty third floor. Let us step there for you unless you want to
talk more you get there. No, I mean, I just wanted to
ask you a few questions about oh EM, like how many people you know
you said that you were there, and how what are they call agents?
What were they calling them or field responders? Responded? How many were there
at the time that you went there? So, oh, I don't know,
a dozen or twenty somewhere in there. So did you still work for
the fire department or are you now working for OHEM? You're still getting paid
by the fire department, still still a firefighter, h getting reimbursed. You
know, the city was whatever was it was all city, so that was
then. You know, they detailed uh, firefighters, police officers, sanitation
police, people from the health department, you know, all all a mix
of people who could contribute to whatever kind of emergency disaster. But you know
New York City's infrastructures underground, our electric our steam, our gas, our
subways, our communications. It's all buried underground. And when you have a
water main break, it destroys everything. And so just for a simple water
main break, you might have twenty five different entities that are involved in fixing
the problem, right Dot, I mean, it's just endless. And so
having an OEM, especially in the complexity of New York City, I think
is is is a huge benefit negatary, right, just somebody to juggle all
those things to make them work with them. Yeah, I mean, you're
you're trying to your customers, your customers, the citizens of New York,
and you know, if they're losing their subway or their gas or their electric
or whatever it is, it's your job to get that back to them as
quickly as possible. So having a coordinating agency like OHEM in a city like
New York is tremendously beneficial, beneficial I think you know we we not not
me. I won't take credit for this, but h our office, you
know, worked with the Health Department to identify the West Nile virus through statistics
from the hospitals on who is getting sick. You know it would without the
leadership of our It was actually the guys from fd M y e MS that
came up with the idea to statistically measure the hospitalizations in emergency room traffic every
morning. So they do that every morning, and you see a trend a
week before you would have noticed it. Otherwise you start to see a trend
so obscure things like that. OHEM is pretty good at we've got I think
to this date, I got much better at it. Were you the only
guy from the fire side, No, there were there were all around.
There were probably ten or fifteen of us that were there, and the group
I worked with, there were about fifteen fireman, cops, sanitation cop,
health department guys that were kind of the responders who went out in the field
with the jacket on the mayor's office and you know, represented the banner at
the scene of these bigger emergencies. And we were almost never the incident commander.
We were always trying to help the incident commander, whoever that was.
If I might ask real quick as well, and I don't mean to catch
up Card with this question, but he bears mentioning I had the chance to
talk with Steve Curro a while ago, who you worked with an OEM who
was a long time the MS guy. Great guy, and you mentioned Jerry
Howard, who passed away recently after a battle with illness. There was a
visionary and there was somebody. If there was ever the right guy to start
up OEM in ninety six, it was him. When you look back on
your time working with the guy like Jerry, what are your fondest memories of
him? And what do you say were the biggest lessons you learn from him?
That guy's brain was in a different place. Man he was he understood,
he understood what it could be. Right. He understood that in twenty
years there would be two hundred and fifty employees in the Department of Emergency Management
in New York City. And he understood that it was so important. It
was something that New York City was missing so badly. And he understood that
he understood what it could be. So to call Jerry a visionary is exactly
right. I learned. I didn't know how to build the command center,
you know, I didn't know a lot of this stuff, but he certainly
taught us. I want to He's the reason I went to Washington to work
for the Defense is because I followed him, and so I guess I would
say I was a quick learner, but I was ignorant of it when I
first went there, and he taught me and some other guys taught me about
what emergency management was and how important it was to coordinate, and I feel
like I picked up on it pretty quickly, but I never would have known
this stuff without a cherry. I was gonna ask you too. So you
guys were your office was located at the Trade Center, right, That's where
the main office was. Yeah, you know, as controversial as it is,
it was on the twenty third floor of a high rise near City Hall,
which is one of the reasons that it was chosen. It was also
in a building that housed other federal agencies that we had relationships with, so
it was a good place for that reason, and then it was a bad
place for other reasons. It was you know, obviously we don't now that
was destroyed on nine to eleven. So we built a bunker on the twenty
third floor of a high rise building and it was state of the art.
It was Star Wars. There were kind of no expenses spared. It was
our office, and uh, you know, we were we were really good
at what he did. I think because of Jerry and Steve, like Steve
Kerr like, there were guys that really understood emergency management. It's quite a
learning curve in too. There was a lot to learn. Mistakes could be
made, yeah, for sure, for sure. And you know when when
it came to the health department, what the heck did Tim fireman Tim Brown
know about you know about that stuff? Like I didn't know. I had
to try to be smart and learn quickly from that stuff. So you know,
I tried to. I tried to just help and if I didn't know
anything, to stay out of the way, pass a long information the chain,
h make sure. In the end, it was our job to make
sure that mayor was correctly and properly informed of what was happening. And when
you have a mayor like Rudy, you don't want to screw that up.
You want you want it to be accurate. So guys would lead from the
front like, oh yeah, you know this, not at that would lead
like he. I don't I don't know any mayor that has led like him
ever since him. Uh. He he was involved. He loved being you
know, he loved the fire department, He loved the Police Department. A.
He he he supported us. You know, other guys I have a
different opinion. But he was my friend. He's my friend to this day.
And and I think that he's the one that had the vision. And
I think he encouraged and allowed Jerry Howard to run with that. And and
we did do that, and we did it very successfully for a number of
years until politics got and that. Yeah. Well, one thing about Rudy
though, anytime something happened in the paper is about finding or cops or anything,
he always gave them the benefit of the doubt. He always said,
let's see how this works out, Let's get all the facts, you know.
Always give the guys the benefit of the doubt, no matter how bad
it looked on the news or whatever was going on. You know, I
am, I am a fan of his. I will say that loudly and
proudly anytime. And and he did. He did a lot for New York
before eleven, right we you know, we call him America's mayor after I
live in But he did a lot for New York before now. Cleaned up
a lot of crime. Man. Yeah, he took the hand. He
made the city going entity again. Yeah, you know, the place that
you could do business at and visit. Yeah, a lot safer and working.
Let police do police work, bros. But he did you know yeah
yeah, so yeah, so I did that for a while and then uh,
you know, September eleventh happened and it changed everything, and yeah,
it broke my heart and continues to break my heart to this day. I
miss I know I'm not the only one, but I miss a lot of
my friends every day that they're not here, and I've tried to So I've
only learned this in the last couple of years, or I guess realized that.
On September eleventh, I ceased being in New York City fireman and I
began being a nine to eleven fire because I got stuck in nine to eleven
and necessarily, the New York City Fire Department had to move forward because they
still the New York City still needs a fire department, and so I kind
of got stuck in nine to eleven and the mantra of never forget, And
so that's where I've been for the last twenty two years, is speaking the
names of my friends, making sure that those who are responsible for keeping us
safe don't let this shit happen again, and and so I'm so now I'm
still to this day, Tim the nine Living Fire, and that's how I
will go to my brain and I'm I'm humbled and proud that I have a
voice throughout America to be able to talk about the passion, the courage,
the bravery and heroism, the selflessness and the love that was demonstrated that day
by three and forty three American heroes, thirty seven Port Authority Police officer heroes,
at twenty three NYP Heroes, State Court Officer heroes, and the list
goes on. And I will continue to live that mantra. It's my last
friend, Tim. Do you find traveling the country, because I know you
travel the country now, right, do you find that people still are engaged
with it or do you think that, you know, because it's been twenty
two years, a lot of it is. I know, every September eleventh
it's never forget. People come out again. But do you find that for
the most day in and day out, people kind of forget, like you
know, it falls to the side A couple of things there. The groups
I speak to are mostly almost exclusively are our protectors. So it's military,
police, fire intelligence community, that group of uniformed people, so they are
a group that knows more than regular society. Right about nine to eleven.
I just spoke last Tuesday, almost a week ago now out in Los Angeles
to the FBI field office, one thousand FBI employees because they have a they're
having a hard time out there, so I wanted to talk with them about
that, the hard subjects, you know, the darness, suicide, stuff
like that. But I had a thousand FBI employees very engaged in the stories
of the heroes of nine to eleven, yeah, you know, and then
talking with them about my dark years where if I were a different person,
maybe suicide was crossed by path. But I talked that the title of my
speech is truth in History. Then what that means is the whole truth.
You don't just talk about the heroes. You talk about talk about the maiden
suffering of people who had to make the choice to jump out of the floor,
or the people who are trapped in the elevator burning to death, or
also the whole truth means you talk about the people that did and why they
did it. The Islamists that hold this off that murdered nearly three thousand innocent
human beings on that day and who they are and why they did so we
have to be able to talk about all of those things. That's called truth
in history. The second part of it is patience and grief. And patience
and grief. I wasn't being patient for a month or two, patience and
grief beings being patient for five or ten years and being hopeful and positive that
at some point the light will shine in the darkness again. And I am
living proof of that. And it took a long time for me to come
back to where I can look back on my life now and say, thank
God I didn't commit suicide because I have this amazing, tremendous, wonderful life
and I never would have met these amazing people and had these great loves in
my life and being able to, you know, spend twenty more years with
my family and all that. If if I had killed myself, none of
that would happen. It would have happened. So anyhow I go around the
country, I talk about those things I talked about. For example, Chris
Blackwell, who I saw in the North Tower and we kissed on the lips
because that's what we always did, and he said, I love you.
You know. He said, Tommy, this is really bad. And I
said, I know, Chris, do your best to be careful. And
he said I love you, and I said I love you. And then
Chris turned around and then went to the stairwell and he went up right.
He said to me those words, He said to me, this is really
bad. And and after he said that, he made the decision to go
in the stairwell and go up and save the lives of people he didn't know.
Right, he made that choice. He could have turned around and walked
out the door and go home to his children and his wife and his family.
But he didn't do it. Why Well, because he had taken an
oath for fifteen minutes earlier or fifteen years I heard of sorry. And in
that oath it said I'm willing to give my life for people I don't know.
But in that moment, he had to fulfill that oath. Indeed,
in action, he had to make that decision whether he really meant those words
or not. And Chris Blackwell, like all of them, turned around.
He went that stairwell, and he went up to save the lives of people
he didn't know. Because he had taken that oath, and he was fulfilling
that oath in this minute, in this moment. And what does that remind
you of? Right, I've read this in a book somewhere before, about
giving up your life as someone you don't know. It's called the greatest love,
right, and it's in the Bible. And that's what every one of
the three forty three, the thirty seven to twenty three, that eight and
the rest of them. That's what all of them did. That did no
greater love, no greater love. That's exactly right. So I got often
a look because I'm passionate about this. That's important. So you know,
I tell this story about them to the audience, and all right, I
started. Sorry, I started out with the patients and grief stuff, but
I was God left me here to be able to tell these stories about the
heroes of fact and the important lessons that we can learn from them and the
examples they set for us for humanity. And I inspire these audiences who are
our protectors, to make sure they do their job very well, because if
they don't, my niece Taylor and all the other firefighters and police officers and
EMT paramedics in America. Some of them will pay for it if we don't
protect the Americans. You know, we just got I've been reading some breaking
news and a base on an American base in a rack just got bombed tonight.
And these are our folks. We have two Navy seals missing over there.
These are our heroes every day, but are on these uniforms and take
the oath and the young I'm ranting sorry, but the young people. You
know, I hear from people, adults, kids, these days. It's
just not the same anymore as it was. Well, you know what,
that's what people said about us too, That's what they said about us.
The young people I meet in the fire service and law enforcement in the FBI,
and the intelligence community in the military, and the seal teams in Delta.
The people I meet are some of the greatest Americans I've ever met in
my life. And I am so proud of them, and I'm so hopeful
for America's future. And again the example is found today in Iraq because it's
an American base and I don't know the casualties, but we have young people
over there. We have young American heroes over there. We have two young
American hero Navy seals who are lost at sea ring who we should pray for.
These young people are out there protecting America every day, and I'm so
proud of the new generations are coming after us, and we need to let
them know that we love them when we support them and we appreciate it.
Okay, stop, don't stop, don't thank you. Do you feel that
you're still like you said, you were a product of nine to eleven,
like you was stuck there? Yeah, with the work that you're doing now,
do you feel you're still like that? Do you feel like you've moved
past and you've turned into something else, You've you've become something else? Well,
I'm still the nine to eleven firemen, right, I don't I shouldn't
say stuck because it means it's that I don't embrace it. And I do
embrace it. But I am. I am like a nine eleven fireman,
and I actually believe that God left me here to have this voice and to
talk about you know, the Patty Browns and the Terry Hatton's, that Billy
Burke's and Chris Blackwalls and the mc clinches and the Chief Burns and like all
these all these people that I saw in the towers, first in the North
Tower and then in the South Tower, all these heroes. You know.
After I got out of the South Tower collapse, I'm running up the West
Side Highway and I see I see Commissioner A. Feehan and and Chief Downey
on the West Side Highway. They're both my very good friends, right,
And I wave to them and they wave to me, and they're both yelling
to me to me be careful, and within ten minutes they'd both be dead
and I would be alive. You know, God left me here to tell
these stories to inspire young people, and you know, just to tell the
truth about what happened. M I feel very blessed to be here. You
know, we're insist. Now where are we for time? I don't worry
about it no matter. So, you know, I'll get into some other
stuff. You know, we haven't talked about the post nine to eleven deaths
yet, right we The New York City Fire Department surpassed the number three forty
three that passed year or just just within the last couple of months. So
we've lost over three hundred and forty three heroes from nine to eleven illness.
Right, So that means we're somewhere around seven hundred firefighters who were killed by
these Islamus terraces. And and that's that's the that's the truth, truth in
history. And you know, the police department, we don't hear so much
about, but I hear their numbers bigger than the three forty three and the
construction workers. I don't even know what you know what their numbers are.
So there's a lot, a lot more than that. So h I've developed
programs with the nine to eleven Museum, the Professional Program. Every newbm FBI
employee is required to go through the professional training program at the nine to eleven
Museum. The Department Homeland Security, Intel and Analysis Group is required to go
through the program. Not only that, but I talked about oath like I
did before the importance of oath and uh After I tell that story, they
take them down into uh A Foundation Hall and they swear them in at the
nine to eleven Museum into their jobs. They take their oath right there in
the museum. And those are some programs we've helped to develop. I'm very
proud of them. I've been going around the country with the FBI to their
field offices, talking to their workforce about how important their job is and keeping
us safe, keeping the persp responders of event safe. I talked to the
you know, to the different military groups, and I talked a lot to
the intelligence community, because they work in the shadows and uh in some ways
there are biggest protectors and we have There are a lot of them, a
lot of young people there who are I don't remember nine eleven now, and
so I go talk with them about nine to eleven and how important their job
is to prevent it from having part American soil again. For all of those
reasons, I feel blessed. I feel like I have a mission, an
important mission, and I'm so happy that I saw through the darkness back then
and that I made it through to the other side, even though it took
a long time. I had the patience, I had the support for my
family and my friends to make it through, and I have this amazing life.
We want to thank you, Timms. We don't talk. We don't
talk, right, right, I guess I'd be saying so there's so many
things that you say. That a comment to all of us who were on
the job at nine eleven, loss of our friends, and you try to
go on and you remember them, maybe not daily, but when you do,
it's like another way for grief. It doesn't really go away. It
diminishes, but it's never gotten. So I think that's the thing that keeps
us focused in the now. He's remembering. Then. Yep, no,
like you were saying too, I was supposed to work that day. I
called it the night before because I had a side gig and somebody picked up
my tour and they wound up dying that day. And for years, tim,
I was pissed off at God for years, pissed off why why did
that have to happen that way? And then I remember one day at the
firehouse on a nine to eleven ceremony, I said, you know what,
I have four beautiful kids now, a beautiful wife, a family that loves
me, and friends that love me. And instead of saying why, I
said, thank you? Yeah, thank you God. I wouldn't have had
this, you know. So there is another reason I walked around for maybe
five six seventy years pissed off, yeah, you know, at God.
And then I don't know what it was that one day I'm like, you
know what, I wouldn't have my my wife did it. I wouldn't have
my kids today if it wasn't for that. So when it comes at turning
point where this like light switch flips on it, you know, and you
see things a little bit differently. So that's what I was thinking about when
you were talking, and just thank thank god, cool, thank god you
stay, thank God you stayed through it. You you you stayed the course
and uh and you came through to the other side where you found a new
life and love and you deserve it and your your your mission now, My
mission now is to speak of our friends. You know what. And we
I've been talking to say that, I'm talking to this god Michael who and
the show that we did last time on Patty Brown. We're going to do
a lot more shows like that because I want people to know about these I
want to get this stuff down for histories, you know, for generations to
come. So I want to talk about the guys we lost. I'm going
to do make it my business to get as much information as I can about
these guys and get their family members on so we see both sides, not
only the firemen, but the guy, the father, you know, the
son, the brother, whoever it is, So that's what we're going to
be working hard on the next Yeah, Mike Travala, I call it Michael.
He says Michael, only my mother calls me that when I'm in trouble.
I will give a shout out to Mike Travala because on his own,
he has been educating eighth grade history class in Maryland for more than ten years,
about nine eleven. And he he gives the kids a project, you
know, the name of a firefighter or police officer, and they study them
through the semester, and then Mike brings them up to New York and goes
to the firehouses and they meet the families, and Mike is, I will
say, an American hero, and is an American hero because he's he's never
forgetting nine to eleven and how important is to teach our kids. He's every
doing but he's just not saying tim he's doing it. You know, he's
doing it. Every age grade class history class in America should be doing what
Mike Travalle is doing with his class. I was speaking to them on the
phone. I said to him, you know, I feel like I know
you for like the last twenty years. And that's the weirdest thing. I'm
talking to the guy for maybe twenty minutes on the phone. I feel like
I know you for like twenty years. That kind of guy. He's that
kind of guy. He's a great guy. So we'll be doing bringing more
of that content. Man, because good, really good. Let's get back
your career so we can get to this. Where are we at the tim
Yeah, so so nine to eleven. So I stay around New York until
until like July. I take a detail to go work for the Secretary of
Health and Human Services in Washington because we had well, I needed to get
out of New York. My brother Chris, you know, had set this
up kind of without me knowing, to get me out of here for a
bit, and it was just too many funerals and wakes and too much sadness
here. So I went to Washington and built helped to build command and control
into the Department of Health and Human Services as a result of the anthrax attacks
and miscommunications and misinformation that was happening within their department that actually made it to
the President's speech and and so we knew we needed to help them. So
we built a command center in Washington for the Secretary we built one down in
at CDC, and then we built some mobile assets, so it was a
whole thing that went on for about a year. I was on some pretty
cool federal response teams. I learned a lot. I got my first National
security clearance back then. And then in what was it February twenty third,
was the Station nightclub fire in Rhode Island, and the governor there called Washington
and said I need help, and so they sent me up and I wound
up up there with Governor Kachiri for a year and a half, helping him
with the aftermath of the death of people and the identification of those folks bodies
and give them back to their families and do all those things in a mass
casualty incident that unfortunately, I was pretty good at it. And then I
helped to rebuild their emergency management, their homeland security group. And then in
two thousand and four, July was my twenty anniversary, and I walked into
headquarters very quietly and I submitted my retirement because I was done, and I
didn't know. I knew I was done with that part of my life.
What I didn't know was the darkness that I was about to face. In
those years two thousand and four or five into six were my dark years,
very very lonely, h really missing my friends because I moved back to New
York. Uh And I didn't have money, I didn't have guidance, I
didn't have friendships, I didn't have much of anything. And I tell when
I talk about this darkness, if ever I were going to do harm to
myself, those would have been the years that that would have happened. And
I'm grateful that I got through it and that I had patients and grief.
Ah, and I guess I stayed. I stayed there until kind of the
nine to eleven families right asked for my help, and that when they did
that, I had renewed purpose to take care of the nine eleven families,
and that kind of got me back on track. Marrior Giuliani was running for
president, so I got there, so that gave me some direction and hope,
and through those two things, I started coming back to life. But
it was good. It was good. It was probably a good two years
of darkness. And uh yeah, and now now I look back and I'm
so grateful that I held on and and that I didn't you know, I
didn't end it, Ah, because I have this amazing life. You know.
I use my friend maybe Seel Jason Redmond as an example. You know,
I never dreamed in my life that I would actually meet one of my
heroes. You know, I'd read his books and everything, and that not
only would I beat him, but we would become very close friends. He
was texting me today. Uh yeah, I'm so grateful that I held on.
And I have so many of these people in my life. And I'll
give credit to Conway, you know, Paul Conway. Give credit to my
family, my brother Mike, my brother Chris for getting me through it,
my niece Taylor for making me proud, and uh you know, the list
goes on. A lot of people came to my side and helped me get
out of it, and I am. I have this wonderful new life that
I never in my darkness, I never could have imagined. I never could
have dreamed that I would have this life. I know, I know the
people who found Oslon bin mine right, right. We all hear about Seal
Team six. No, I'm talking about the people who actually found it right
and these people who never forgotten, never forgot what happened to us for twenty
years. They kept working on it in the shadows. You know, I
know the people that took out I'm an al Zaa here a year and a
half ago, right, those folks are my friends. How That's why there's
there's so many things happening out there that we don't really realize. There are
so many people that also lived the mantra and never forget, but they just
can't talk about it, they can't show it. And you know, those
those two Davy Seals that are missing tonight, if you ask them or their
families, you would likely hear a story that they went in because of NYL.
They might even have an FDNY patch in up in there of the uniform.
There there are so many wonderful people out there, and I've been blessed
to meet them and and be able to say thank you on our band,
on our community's back. So I want to I want to get into some
other stuff. Is it okay? Yeah? Absolutely? So I want to
talk about this because it's not known and but and I want to talk about
it because it's important to talk about And as we talked about before, we
surpassed the number three and forty three right in post nine to eleven illness debts
many of our friends, right. So I have been watching my health very
carefully over the last over ten years, twelve or fifteen years. And I
found out two weeks ago that I have cancer. I have prostate cancer.
I bring this up and I will be fine. I bring this up because
I have been vigilant with my doctor, with my urologist. I have been
vigilant in watching for cancer in my body because it's happened to so many of
us. My number, my PSA numbers went up, my prostates enlarged,
and another number that I don't know went up, and my doctor got concerned,
and so we did a biopsy a month ago of my prostate and we
did find cancer inside my crustate. If I had waited till I had some
pain down there, or I wasn't feeling right or anything, if I had
waited for that, it would be too late. But the secrets to what's
going to be my success is that I went to the doctor, I went
to the urologists. We're doing all the tests, we're being vigilant, and
we're looking after it. And as soon as he saw that other number go
up, he sent me for the biopsy, and we found it. We
found it early, before it even got to the surface of the prostate.
And you know, I haven't decided exactly what I'm going to do about it
yet, and I have a couple of options. But in the next few
weeks we'll be taking care of this problem. And I am going to live
a long, healthy life unless I get hit by a bus. Certainly,
certainly, it's certainly not going to be this. And I bring this up.
It's a hard thing to talk about, right, but I bring it
up because I'm encouraging the men out there and the women. But the men
with the prostate, get checked, get your numbers done, watch it,
especially the fireman, especially if you were involved in nine to eleven. Don't
avoid it. Don't wait until something hurts. Don't avoid that finger. Don't
all of you. I do. I do the colonoscopy every year. That
sucks. It sucks. The drug come on, the prep sucks, right,
but sucks. But I found my cancer early. That's the whole that's
the whole game. I finished that on the show. Here early detection,
early detection, And there's plenty of it out there available to you. It's
outing. You gotta get it. You gotta get it early. You know,
it's so important. And I thought I thought about whether I wanted to,
you know, talk about this public, but it's you know, your
audience is the right audience to hear this this uh this story. And and
I hope that I I push. I mean, all it takes, really
in the beginning is getting your getting your blood done every six months, you
know, get your blood check, check your p S A and your blood.
And you know you had you had a you know the story of Patti
Brown on this your last episode and uh after after Patty uh passed away,
as as you can read in the book What Brothers Do by Michael Everett Brown,
Patty's blood brother. You know, Patty names in his in his will,
he names the people who were really his close friends, of which I'm
one of I'm the one of the people named. And uh, I then
become close friends with Michael Brown, doctor Michael Brown, like I was close
friends with Patty Brown. And wouldn't you know it, doctor Mike Brown just
a couple of years ago passes from frost date cancer. So and he's a
freaking doctor, right, So I'm saying, you know, I saw Patty
before he died. I held Mike's hand the day he died. We don't
need to be doing this, We don't need We know how to fix prost
day cancer if we find it early, and many other kinds of cancer if
we find them early. And there's no reason for not going to your doctor
and getting checked and trying to get it early. Okay again, I'm so
boxing, but I'm passionate about it, and I am going to beat this.
I'm going to live a long, healthy life and I am going to
be a pain and a lot of people's assets long. I hope you do.
You know what too. I want to say, it's not only the
cancers, your heart too. You need to go get yourself checked to make
sure you have no blockages. There's so many things that you can get done.
So get out there. Rob brown Off. Is something the job itself
office. I'm sure jobs all across the country offer it. Don't just do
it, man, it's one day out of your at your life, two
times a year, you know, just get it done. Responsibility to ourselves
and our families and care of us. You know, we we we got
to be here for each other as long as we can. Yeah, well,
you made three more friends tonight too. I want to be a pain
of your asses for a long time. I'm okay with that because we're gonna
keep pushing a lot down. We're gonna keep pushing the same content now,
Tim, we're going to get these guys names out there. I want to
do something on Terry Hatton. Uh, we'ren do something on Downy Uh yeah,
Billy Burke. We're gonna do something on good good Man Billy Burke.
Yeah. Man, he was I was in proby school. He was might
in charge down Man, because I live, I live twenty one engine is
first the first do with my home here, oh is it? Yeah?
So he was got to the twenty one engine. So I used to see
him all the time, uh at the firehouse and stuff here. Yeah.
So now that we got Michael, how do you say his last name against
shave Shruck's chat? He's a great chat s h s h r A shraw.
All right, Michael, we're gonna get on this and put on We
got a lot of good content and we're gonna, you know, normal lip
service. We're gonna actually keep the memories alive. Yeah. I think it
might be that time, Tim, Well, before we before we get to
that. I just did have one more question, and I want to interrupt
you earlier, Tim when you were talking about it. But as far as
generations go, one good thing that's come out of this is you see,
and we were talking about it with Chris Blackwell's son, right, so many
of these kids that lost their fathers that day are now on the job as
police officers, on the job as firefighters. Chief gancy sons are chiefs themselves
now. So when you look at that component, how does that make you
feel, considering the fact you had the honor of working with so many of
their fathers. I am so proud of these young folks. I said it
before. They carry on the tradition. They're not They're not afraid. They
are they are courageous and brave, and they want to carry on the legacy
and the name of their heroic fathers. This is why I'm so proud of
the next generations. I see this through throughout my travels around the country.
I see this everywhere. I see so many in the military who are the
children of nine to eleven, you know, or or other fire departments or
are gold star you know, uh police departments. You know, we are
families of service. You know, in my family, it's my my niece
I'm incredibly proud of and and my my nephew to Todd is out in is
out in California doing aramedic nurse helicopter work. You know, families of service.
This is who we are. And I hope that these young folks never
start stop talking about they're the low exparents. Thank you. Well, we're
not going to stop, that's for sure. Now, I think it's that
time of the show, right, Mike, are you ready, mister Brown?
You're ready for a spotlight? I got this, Let's see. I
think we kind of talked about it, but let's go again. Here we
go. You're ready, Mike, Let's start for the old school tip of
the day, day day, and yeah, quite a show. The old
school tip of the day is to go to your doctor get checked. The
old school tip of the day is that there's nothing wrong with seeing a therapist
or a shrink, because just like our physical health, we have to be
taking care of our mental and emotional help. My friend Ashley, she was
the tenth therapist I saw and the first one that connected with me. So
if you don't have the right therapist, if it's not working out, find
another one and keep going. Stay out of that darkness, stay positive,
love yourself, be patient in the darkness, and keep looking for the light.
Tim you stole what I was going to say, because I've been to
multiple therapists myself, and you may not fine on the first time, the
second time, the third time, but you will click with somebody eventually.
Don't go to one person that doesn't work out, like I'm not going to
that again, you know, And there's nothing wrong with it. You're not
less of a man if you're going to talk to somebody. This is not
the nineteen fifties, you know, so great job. Oh you know what,
you know what? That's brought to us by Mike. Oh, Yes,
here we go. The First Responder Center for Excellence is a not for
profit organization dedicated to protecting their lives and livelihoods of first responders. Their education
and research initiatives aim to bring greater awareness and understanding the challenges to the health,
safety, and well being of firefighters, EMS personnel, and other first
responders too. They are an affiliate of the National Fallen Firefighter Foundations, Excellent
and Tonight's Old School Health and Safety Tip is. Diesel is a known caust
synergen. Use exhaust capture systems in fire stations to reduce exposure to diesel exhaust.
Few grab the need and don't be lazy throw it on the rig.
The old days, you have to try to clean the diesel off the walls,
right, No more, come on, inspections coming up. It wouldn't
come off anyway. You couldn't get the diesel. We didn't really care,
so I didn't think you would baily clean the toilets. Why would you care
about Tim Dianks for coming on the show man? Maybe you guys. Thank
you, God, bless you, Thank you, God bless your audiences.
Keep pumping this out here. God bless America. Many great bless America in
the history of the world. You got me, roof. You'll be back
on what night is it? Thursday? I think we have what's his name?
What we got on Thursday? Van Johnson? I believe, oh Van
Johnson six? Yeah, I want twenty four, twenty four four. So
everybody have a good week. We'll see you Thursday night. Until then,
stay low and go right. Thank you care everybody, God bless you.
All right, I'll be af Kevin Coober, Ray Celi and Tim Brown on
Mike Clone. We'll see you next time. Stay salty, my friendsh