.......
just wanted to share my (slightly inebriated) thoughts about the day.

its the 7th anniversary of a tragic day.
some want to forget, some want to move on , and some want it firmly planted into our brains.
for me its firmly planted...........

I cried that day .
not because there was someone I knew there but because of the brave men and women who ran in while others ran out.

I dont care be they police, fire , EMS, or any other public servant!
they ran in while others ran out... NOTHING else matters....the second the first tower fell my heart ached because I KNEW from my time on the job that they were dead....and the towers hadn't even hit the ground.......


I could write three pages on how as a firefighter the whole unfolding of events made me feel, and how I'm sure the familys felt. but I just want to acknowledge that this happened and it still hurts.

everyday I leave for work I KNOW theres a chance that I could never come back....thats a part of the job...
I remember a quote that said

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.

my wife knows it ....but I'm sure on some level she denies it could ever happen to us ( he works for a smaller Department......single family dwellings are nothing like a highrise) but it could happen...it HAS happened....I blong to an e-mail list that reports on the deaths of firefighters...not as a morbid thing but as a learn from their mistakes thing.
believe me when I was single it was a diffrent story, now I have two kids and a wife......things look different I promise you.
I ad this video not to make you sad, but to understand the sacrifice that EVERY firefighter makes for his family.
the first time I saw this video I balled my eyes out .
1 because of all the sacrifice of life FOR life.
2 because the voice sounds almost EXACTLY like my daughter....and the thought of her saying these things BREAKS my heart!


I am going to be involved with my first 9-11 ceromony this year as a fulltime 100% union firefighter...all the other times I felt an outsider because I was "part time"
I am piping, along with a piper from the Police Dept., and hopefully we will honor those who gave all....I ask that you do the same for no other reason then that they gave all..........no politics....not religion...no nothing....just the ultimate sacrifice to save others....




KFP