An Army of Normal Folks - Nancy Carbone: The Best Friend of Firefighters (Pt 2)

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

After black snow rained down on her on 9/11, Nancy knocked on the door of local firehouses to see how she could help. When several firefighters told her that they’d need counseling, this non-therapist and normal mom got to work. 24 years later, Friends of Firefighters has provided over 1,000 firefighters and their families with mental health and wellness services at no cost to them!   Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an Army of Normal Folks, and we continue now with part two of our conversation with Nancy Carbone, right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Kelly Harnett spent over a decade in prison for a murder she says she didn't commit. I'm 100% innocent. While behind bars, she learned the law from scratch. She goes, oh God, Harnett, jailhouse lawyer. And as she fought for herself, she also became a lifeline for the women locked up alongside

her. You're supposed to have faith in God, but I had nothing but faith in her. So many of these women had lived the same stories. I said, were you a victim of domestic violence? And she was like, yeah. But maybe Kelly could change the ending. I said, how many people have gotten other incarcerated individuals out of here? I'm going to be the first one to do that. This is the story of Kelly Harnett,

a woman who spent 12 years fighting not just for her own freedom, but her girlfriends too. — I think I have a mission from God to save souls by getting people out of prison. — The girlfriends, Jailhouse Lawyer. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. American history is full of wise people. Well, women said something like, you know, 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is glory. Those founding fathers were gossipy AF and they loved to cut each other down. I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions about American history and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer. Hamilton pauses and then he says, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar.

And Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption. My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said. It would have been harder to fake it than to do it. Listen to American history hotline on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When I became a journalist, I was the first Latina in the newsrooms where I worked. I'm Maria Hinojosa.

I dreamt of having a place where voices that have been historically sidelined would instead be centered. For over 30 years now, Latino USA has been that place. This is Latino USA, the radio journal of news and cultura. As the longest running Latino news and culture show in the United States, Latino USA delivers the stories that truly matter to all of us. From sharp and deep analysis of the most pressing news. They're creating this narrative that immigrants are criminals.

This is about everyone's freedom of speech. Nobody expected to hope from the American continent to stories about our cultures and our identities. When you do get a trans character like Ymir Repérez, the trans community is going to push back on that. Colorism, all of these things that exist in Mexican culture and Latino culture. You'll hear from people like Congresswoman AOC. I don't want to give them my fear.

I'm not going to give them my fear. Listen to Latino USA as part of the MyCultura podcast network, available on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2020, a group of young women in a tidy suburb of New York City found themselves in an AI-fuelled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts on my body parts that looked exactly like my own.

I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream. It happened in Levittown, New York. But reporting this series took us through the darkest corners of the internet and to the front lines of a global battle against deepfake pornography. This should be illegal, but what is this? This is a story about a technology that's moving faster than the law and about vigilantes trying to stem the tide. I'm Margie Murphy.

And I'm Olivia Carville. This is Levittown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg, and Kaleidoscope. Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Liz went from being interested in true crime to living true crime. My husband comes back outside and he's shaking and he just looks like he's seen a ghost

and he's just in shock. And he said, your dad's been killed. This is Hands Tied, a true crime podcast exploring the murder of Jim Milgar. Liz's mom had just been found shut in a closet, her hands and feet tied up, shouting for help. I was just completely in shock. Her dad had been stabbed to death. It didn't feel real at all. For more than a decade, Liz has been trying to figure out what happened.

There's a lot of guilt, I think, pushing me. And I just, I want answers. Listen to Hands Tied starting on August 6th on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, you know, the bunting in the bugler, the bugler was interesting because... The bugler makes me cheer up almost. That he thought enough about that guy. John continued to amaze me at his ability to project what the needs would be as opposed to the other houses that I did go to.

They would say, we need boots, we need socks, we need things for the site. So how did you present yourself? Hi, my husband's a art professor and I'm here to help the firemen. I can't imagine that went over. Oh, I didn't say that. That wouldn't even come naturally to me. That's what I'm saying. What I did say.

Why would he open up and tell you what he needed? To this day, both of us don't know why. It just, it worked. To this day, I don't think he knew he was looking outside for help and I didn't know that I would be doing what I am now. I just thought everybody wanted to help. I did say I don't have money and if I cook the rest of you are going to die. My husband's a chef.

Right. No, I didn't offer that up yet. I said, what do you need? And I think that's the big thing is that that's really been the cornerstone that Friends of Firefighters is built on is ask them what they need. They may not know. And at this point, you know, this so many years later, there's more clarity for me, of course, but I'm not going to tell somebody what they need. And so I asked him what he needed and those are the three things he said. So did you go to work? Hell yes. So I found the bunting was easy easy. They had a set of three for bunting for the entire firehouse, fire department rather, and they lost 343 men. So you can imagine that, you know,

they needed bunting. I have to shout out to the pipes and drums. They were amazing. The fire department, Emerald Society pipes and drums, they didn't miss a funeral. Sometimes it was only one or two pipe or out of our drum. I talked to a guy who was a pipe guy and he did almost 200 funerals and he had one day. Like out of 201 days, 200 days, that guy was blowing his back pipes and he admittedly said it had a devastating effect on a psyche and he needed help. So you're saying he had one day off? What a slacker.

He took a day? Geez. I don't know. Maybe he had corns. They were extraordinary. But what I'm saying is those guys suffered. I mean, how much pain and sorrow and watered eyes can you take part in and look at before it affects you? And keep in mind that they were also going to the pile in the pit.

So they weren't just doing the funerals. There was a day in New York where I think we had five simultaneously going on and they had to split up, you know, and they split up anyway, you know, because there were just too many funerals and there were only a hundred, which was always plenty, you know, and they would usually show up as a hundred for a fatal fire where there was a line of duty death. But this was, this was seeing them like super supermen, you know, they really, really were amazing. But back to the beginning of it, the counseling part I stepped back from. And I think the reason why is I met one or two counselors

after 9-11 that came to the firehouse that I had, I disagreed with their approach. One of them wanted to write a book and that kind of made me sick. That's disgusting. Yeah. So I was upset about that. And the other one I thought had some wacky ideas. There was one woman I met and I really liked her and I would have sat down with her and that became my, later on, that became, during the interview, is this somebody

I would want to sit down with? Your barometer was, would this New York gal sit down and hang out and tell my feelings to this person? I would never put it that way, but I mean, I don't refer to myself as a New York gal What do you prefer to yourself as what I refer to myself as I don't I just I just know bullshit I have a bullshit meter Okay, if I sit down with somebody who I think is full of and a lot of counselors

I did not agree with their approach so they could be very good counselors in another area But I didn't think it would gel for the firefighters if they came in with all their degrees up and down their arms and a clipboard and asked them how they're feeling, which I did see in a kitchen when the guys were completely covered with ground zero. And they're in a kitchen, they got glass in their eyes, they're trying to get it, and she came in

and she didn't know enough. And she's not terrible, she's probably a great counselor today, but she burst into tears and left because they just said, we're having a prayer meeting right now, which was clearly not the case, but they didn't know how to get her out of the kitchen.

They're not gonna share something with a young girl just out of college, especially what they're seeing. They're not going to hurt her psychologically like that. So a lot of people jumped and it was all from really good intention, except for the ones that wanted to write books. They are on my shit list. But the other people, you know, they meant well. They meant well. They did. And so I left

that till last and I... Where'd you get the bugler? Oh that was amazing. I was in Greenwood Cemetery at one of the funerals and there was a bugler. I went, oh, it's a bugler. So I waited till he was done and I actually, I kind of ambushed him behind a tree and I wrote his name in a magic marker on my forearm because I didn't have paper. So I wrote it on my arm and I went straight over to the firehouse at 118205 and I just said, I got it, I got it. And they used him but much later because they didn't find the guys. And then they had, they found parts and then they used him but much later because they didn't find the guys. And then they

found parts and then they would have another funeral for the guy that they found another part and there was one guy that had three and then finally the house said, we can't do this. In addition to the 343 funerals, they would find another body part. And it's gruesome, but the humor that is attached to the fire department for survival reasons, it's not to be crass, it's not to be disrespectful. And there is a line that you don't cross. But the humor in the firehouse keeps them, I can't say sane. Well, like half is a big stretch. It keeps them bonded, right? It's currency, right? Humor is really important. It gets them through, right? It's currency, right?

Humor is really important. It gets them through the really bad times. Okay. I got to ask. I can't hear what you said and just gloss past it. These guys that we saw on TV and we still see during the anniversary, everybody has an anniversary special and you see them crawling around on the pile or in the pit and I've seen countless photos, we all have.

But they're not up close and personal. So you just see a panoramic view of the pile or the pit and men working in it. You just said parts. Are you telling me these firefighters are like, I guess somebody has to collect limbs and things? Yeah. They had a... That have been out there for months? They had a bucket brigade and they were collecting everything they could. And then it went to the morgue, and they hoped to get identification. And they had families meeting them on the pier so that they could give the DNA.

It was very gruesome, and it wasn't months, it was years. It was for years. And they finally moved the morgue over to Staten Island, to Freshkill, where they moved a lot of the debris. And then those firefighters and police officers and other agencies sat and there's a conveyor belt of debris and they had to go through it. And yeah, they found body parts and private,

you know, personal belongings and things like that. So psychologically, I think Freshkill was a very, it was a f*** up duty to have to be there, to be there and finding parts and finding people's personal effects and breathing. You're looking through a conveyor belt of crap for human body parts and personal items. That's horrific. It's horrific, but I think it was their honor to try to bring everybody home. And I mean everybody.

I'm not just talking about the firefighters. So there was a respect there. But it was a hell of a gig. And a lot of those firefighters got sick and died. The ones that were fresh. And that means you might find three or four different parts at different times that belong to the same body at once. And the morgue was then having to match all this up.

Yes. For the ones that had to go through, and this includes the morticians and I apologize, I can't remember, the medical examiner. Crime scene folks, all those guys. They're getting sick too. It's not just firefighters. They're getting sick too. Civilians, a lot of civilians have died.

And I know of a woman, I'm close to her kids because we sort of kind of took them in a little bit when she passed away. She was on the promenade and stayed there watching when the buildings came down. So the New Yorkers are so affected by it. I think that when jets go overhead, I still get a little, I don't like the sound of the F-15s. I don't like the sound and I don't think I'm alone with that. But the firefighters themselves, they were extraordinary. They were just extraordinary and they didn't quit. I mean, they just, I think that the last funeral for the firefighter was Michael Ragusa out of 131. out of 131. I think he was 131, not 279. They didn't have a body. They had some blood that he had donated prior to 9-11 in hopes all of them, just about all of them, give blood

and then they will give platelets so they get on the list. They buried the violet blood in a full coffin. That was, I think, either three or five years out. It's a little bit of a blur, but it was a long time after 9-11, a couple of years, when they realized they weren't going to find him. So right around August, our numbers start to go up in phone calls because they start showing the coming attractions of this year's 9-11

coverage. And it's... I can't imagine watching your loved one die over and over and over again. I just can't. And that's really what these families and firefighters and police officers are... You mean annually when they do the anniversary shows and stuff? Yeah. So our phone starts to ring in August and, you know, it's pretty much quiet over the summer. But August, and interestingly, right before Easter, our numbers starts to ring in August and it's pretty much quiet over the summer. But August and interestingly, right before Easter, our numbers start to spike. We'll be right back.

Kelly Harnett spent over a decade in prison for a murder she says she didn't commit. I'm 100% innocent. While behind bars, she learned the law from scratch. Because, oh, God, her and that jailhouse lawyer. And as she fought for herself, she also became a lifeline for the women locked up alongside her. You're supposed to have faith in God, but I had nothing but faith in her. So many of these women had lived the same stories.

I said, were you a victim of domestic violence? And she was like, yeah. But maybe Kelly could change the ending. I said, how many people have gotten other incarcerated individuals out of here? I'm going to be the first one to do that. This is the story of Kelly Harnett, a woman who spent 12 years fighting not just for her

own freedom, but her girlfriends too. I think I have a mission from God to save souls by getting people out of prison. The Girlfriends, Jailhouse Lawyer. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. American history is full of wise people. Well, women said something like, no, 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is glory. Those founding fathers were gossipy AF and they loved to cut each other down.

I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions about American history and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer. Hamilton pauses and then he says, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar. And Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption. My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said, it would have been harder to fake it than to do it.

Listen to American history hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When I became a journalist, I was the first Latina in the newsrooms where I worked. I dreamt of having a place where voices that have been historically sidelined would instead be centered. For over 30 years now, Latino USA has been that place. As the longest running Latino news and culture show in the United States, Latino USA delivers the stories that truly

matter to all of us. From sharp and deep analysis of the most pressing news, they're creating this narrative that immigrants are criminals. This is about everyone's freedom of speech. Nobody expected to hopes from the American continent to stories about our cultures and our identities. When you do get a trans character like Ymir Aperez, the trans community is going to push back on that. Colorism, all of these things that exist in Mexican culture and Latino culture.

You'll hear from people like Congresswoman AOC. I don't want to give them my fear. I'm not going to give them my fear. I'm not going to give them my fear. Listen to Latino USA as part of the MyCultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2020, a group of young women in a tidy suburb of New York City found themselves in an AI-fueled nightmare. Someone was posting photos.

It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts on my body parts that looked exactly like my own. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream. It happened in Levittown, New York. But reporting the series took us through the darkest corners of the internet and to the front lines of a global battle against deepfake pornography. This should be illegal, but what is this?

This is a story about a technology that's moving faster than the law and about vigilantes trying to stem the tide. I'm Margie Murphy. And I'm Olivia Carville. This is Levertown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg, and Kaleidoscope. Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Liz went from being interested in true crime to living true crime. My husband comes back outside and he's shaking and he just looks like he's seen a ghost and he's just in shock. And he said, your dad's been killed. This is Hands Tied, a true crime podcast exploring the murder of Jim Melgar. Liz's mom had just been found shut in a closet, her hands and feet tied up, shouting for help. I was just completely in shock. Her dad had been stabbed to death. It didn't feel real at all.

For more than a decade, Liz has been trying to figure out what happened. There's a lot of guilt, I think, pushing me and I just I want answers. Listen to Hands Tied starting on August 6 on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so before we get to the phone calls, let's go to why you even get phone calls, because this cat under the beginning of the Brooklyn Bridge, what was this? John Sorrentino. Yeah.

He said a mouthful. Yes. Bugles and what are the things? Bugles, bunting. Bunting. And counselors. that's one thing. But the counselors. Yeah, that was almost prophetic. It absolutely was. So tell me, I know you didn't, you dismissed the young ones, but no, I didn't dismiss them. I felt for them. They were put in impossible situations. They were, but you still, they were not appropriate. They were not an appropriate fit. So you, in your very highly trained psychological background, decided...

Yeah, I'm a mom. That's it. A mom decided, I want to do something better. Yeah. Tell me about it. I had no idea. I had no idea. The seat of my pants. Yeah, but you were passionate. Yes. You saw a need.

Yes. So, I asked a friend who owns a lot of property in Brooklyn if she had an empty storefront. And this was in February of 2002. And she had an old plastic flower shop that had almost as much dust in it as downtown. And the firefighters came from the site to turn it into a counseling center.

The firefighters helped you do it? Yeah, they helped build it. So that to me said, okay, then they, they, at the time, I think they just thought I was crazy. But John, John was like, we got to get the counseling out of the firehouse. People are coming, we get a run. Guys can't be crying their eyes out in the basement with a counselor. It's just that we don't want people in the house. It's we got to start getting back to normal. And so I found there's something else there too. Something Neal's taught me.

What's that? Two things. One, these are guys, guys, and there's a little bit of a stigma. And even when you know, you need help, oftentimes you're unwilling to seek it, especially when it's inside the fire department. Sure. Unless you figure where to get around. They might put a big scarlet letter on your file. Not might. They do. They don't now. Apparently they did. It was quite a difficult time for the fire department and counseling services unit to go from, I think they had 11 or 14 counselors to over a hundred overnight. Tough, tough place to be.

I don't criticize or judge them at all. It's just, it's just was the culture. But the other thing that I think is really important, something actually Alex said, you know, Bill, is really important, something actually Alex said, you know, Bill, don't forget, is that these guys, it's not only what they did for a living, it's part of who they are. And if you're going to counseling, you worried about, are you gonna fire me? Are they gonna reassign me?

So between the cultural stigma, especially in that environment, plus the fear of what that scarlet letter on your file may do for your long-term employment and something that you love that is your life, these guys knew they needed help, many of them, and wanted help but wouldn't seek it inside the department, which made your flower shop convert outside of the apartment. Less and less crazy as time went on. But in the beginning, it was crazy. Okay.

Tell me why. And it's even, you know, something I think that, yes, you hit the nail right there on the head when you talked about the job, right? They wanted separation from the job if there was going to be counseling, which I understood and still do to this day. But what was more difficult is not being trusted by your fellow firefighter because you have an anxiety attack. Not feeling comfortable going on the rig because you went on the rig and everybody's dead

and you were the chauffeur and you don't wanna drive anymore. So it was like right there on the job. It was in the firehouse. It was there. So to have people come, yeah, they didn't want to be seen for sure. But it was it was it was there were a lot of aspects to it. And I've heard firefighters in the very beginning. And the job has learned a lot of lessons and it was all really good intention. But in the very beginning, they were taking light duty guys, of which there were some.

Nobody wanted to do light duty. They wanted to be at the site. But the light duty ones would sometimes answer the phone at Counseling Services Unit in the very beginning because they were shorthanded. And so then it would get back to the firehouse right after the phone call. The guy would call the house and tell them, you know, who called? He's nuts. And it would get back to the firehouse. And that's part of their culture and I can't judge what was done. Today I would, today I would smack them. But back then, yeah, that's bulls**t. It's just bulls**t. You don't do that. But back then, nothing had been written. There was no protocol, really.

Absolutely none. And how could there be? They just lost 343 firefighters. How could there be? And then the suicide started. So that was the other thing. And that resonated with... Yes. Yes, and still are. And that... There's still... What? There are still suicides. This day?

To this day, there are suicides. From 9-11? Yeah, I will say yes, there are. How do you live with it for all this time and then succumb to it? You would think time and work would make it a little better over time? I mean, untrained? Not if you have lost your family because you didn't get help. This is not putting it on them.

It's a really tough thing to ask a first responder to sit down and be vulnerable. They're not wired to be vulnerable. So if your spouse has left and your children won't speak to you, and yeah, 20 years goes by and you can't see your grandchildren and all you do is drink or whatever, and sometimes it seems to be, and maybe they're dealing, most likely they're dealing with physical ailments as well. So yeah, that's- Or their friends have died from 9-11 related illnesses.

Countless friends have died. I had a guy say to me, the guy on my left died, the guy on my right is about to die any day now, when's it my turn? And they go through every day for years. I mean, that's a tremendous stressor that I don't think any of us can really fathom unless we were living that life. And it's a hard, hard row.

So again, there's no judgment there. It's plus my grandfather killed himself. So I'm like hypersensitive to how can we take that off the table as an option? How do we give the firefighters that number that they'll want to call? And that's where the peers come in, but I'm jumping ahead. So go ahead. You told me you'd keep me on track. I'm trying you're messing it up I'm trying and I'm kind of scared of you. So So the The flower shop flower shop. So what happened was I didn't I interviewed two or three people and and I said counselors meaning

You know who wanted to donate their time? I say and I said... Counselors meaning? Counselors who wanted to donate their time. I see. Limited. And I'm thinking you don't pull the lid off and then say sorry your time's up I can't help you again. That's like I don't think that's healthy.

I didn't know but I was right. You know I just didn't feel right. And so... Again the BS meter. Yeah. Yeah. By the way with you it's like dead zero so that's good. You got it.

Thank you. You're in. I'm feeling good about myself. You hear that, Cassius? Yeah. Well, it's early in this day, so let's see. So I partnered, hell if I know how, with Safe Horizon, which was a counseling service that had already been established, I think, 20 years prior for victims of crime in New York City. And I had heard of them because I was a victim of a crime in New York City. And I had heard of them because I was a victim of a crime in New York City and I was beaten up. And I think that was

in 1979 or 80. So I had heard of them and I said, I wonder if they're still around. And they were, and they were desperately trying to get first responders in because they got a chunk of money to do just that. You say things like that and then you don't even let me, were you mugged? Oh yeah, but that was like a lifetime ago Let's see. I wasn't mugged. No, I was just beaten up There was a there was an EDP who just went off and I have what I'm sorry there was an emotionally disturbed person that just went off because I made eye contact with him and

He beat me up. So but that was like Wow, yeah The point is I was offered counseling with Safe Horizon and... After that and Control Circle. After that as a victim. And I didn't take it at the time because I'm as thick as the firefighters. I didn't take it. I didn't think I needed it.

I did. I could have used it. But anyway, I thought of them after 9-11 and I thought, you know, maybe this is a fit. And they were so happy because they needed to because they needed to be able to counsel firefighters as part of their, that was restricted money that they accepted. They had to now get the numbers. They found that a lot of civilians came in, but not many first responders across all agencies. I will give a shout out to the steelworkers.

I'm sure you heard about how heroic they were and we would have lost a lot more than the ones we did on that day if it wasn't for the steel workers and they also suffer. So this was a crisis. Yeah, and you talk about people who really aren't trained for any of it and they're up there too. Well, they're skipping over these things like pickup sticks. I mean, they knew what they were doing and... No, I mean trained for the human carnage underneath.

Not in the least. No. And I think that having spoken to many of them, they were very honored to be there with fire department and the police department. Very honored. I get that. Yeah. Oh, so I. But you're still not trained for that. They were not trained for the carnage and the firefighters were not trained for the dismantling of that kind of a mess. So they leaned on each other with their skillset?

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And together they cleaned it up. We'll be right back. Kelly Harnett spent over a decade in prison for a murder she says she didn't commit. I'm 100% innocent. While behind bars, she learned the law from scratch. Because oh God, Harnett, jailhouse lawyer.

And as she fought for herself, she also became a lifeline for the women locked up alongside her. You're supposed to have faith in God, but I had nothing but faith in her. So many of these women had lived the same stories. I said, were you a victim of domestic violence? And she was like, yeah. But maybe Kelly could change the ending. I said, how many people have gotten

other incarcerated individuals out of here? I'm going to be the first one to do that. This is the story of Kelly Harnett, a woman who spent 12 years fighting not just for her own freedom, but her girlfriends too. I think I have a mission from God to save souls by getting people out of prison. The Girlfriends, Jailhouse Lawyer.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. American history is full of wise people. Well, women said something like, you know, 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is gory. Those founding fathers were gossipy AF and they love to cut each other down. I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions about American history and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer.

Hamilton pauses and then he says, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar and Jefferson writes in his diary this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said it would have been harder to fake it than to do it Listen to American history hotline on the I heart Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When I became a journalist, I was the first Latina in the newsrooms where I worked. I'm Maria Hinojosa. I dreamt of having a place where voices that have been historically sidelined would instead be centered. For over 30 years now, Latino USA has been that place. This is Latino USA, the radio journal of news and cultura.

As the longest running Latino news and culture show in the United States, Latino USA delivers the stories that truly matter to all of us. From sharp and deep analysis of the most pressing news. They're creating this narrative that immigrants are criminals. This is about everyone's freedom of speech. Nobody expected to pokes from the American continent

to stories about our cultures and our identities. When you do get a trans character like Ymir Aperez, the trans community is going to push back on that. Colorism, all of these things that exist in Mexican culture and Latino culture. You'll hear from people like Congresswoman AOC. I don't want to give them my fear. I'm not going to give them my fear. Listen to Latino USA as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In 2020, a group of young women in a tidy suburb of New York City found themselves in an AI-fuelled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts on my body parts that looked exactly like my own. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream. It happened in Levittown, New York.

But reporting this series took us through the darkest corners of the internet and to the front lines of a global battle against deepfake pornography. This should be illegal, but what is this? This is a story about a technology that's moving faster than the law and about vigilantes trying to stem

the tide. I'm Margie Murphy. And I'm Olivia Carville. This is LeverTown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope. Listen to LeverTown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Liz went from being interested in true crime to living true crime. My husband comes back outside and he's shaking and he just looks like he's seen a ghost and he's just in shock. And he said, your dad's been killed. This is Hands Tied, a true crime podcast exploring the murder of Jim Melgar. Liz's mom had just been found shut in a closet,

her hands and feet tied up, shouting for help. I was just completely in shock. Her dad had been stabbed to death. I didn't feel real at all. For more than a decade, Liz has been trying to figure out what happened. There's a lot of guilt, I think, pushing me. And I just, I want answers. Listen to Hands Tied starting on August 6th on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Getting back to the Safe Horizon, you know, I went through, I think, five or six interviews with their counselors and here I am, who the hell am I? And I'm just saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not going to sit down with these people. And my name is on this now and I'm not going to let the wrong person come in. All good people. But maybe would have been good with children or maybe the elderly or maybe whatever, but they would not go to- But not a big burly fire. No, because some of them would be judgmental. You can't judge these guys.

You just, I mean, look, their families can't, but if you want them to talk, you have to shut the f*** up and let them talk. And they will. They'll talk. But if you judge anybody, we all shut down if we're judged. But if you're judging a first responder because he's sharing a story or her story, a lot of times they throw things out there to test you to see if you can take it. And some of it is really raw stuff. If you're not able to take it and understand that this is possibly a test and not judge what they're saying, you don't belong there. Will they tell you mediocre bad stories to see if you can handle the real ones? I've seen that happen.

Wow. And sometimes they would tell bullshit stories, but sometimes they weren't. Sometimes they went right into something horrible and then the council would cry. You know, it's like, you know, that's not going to help because their DNA is to help others, right? So now they've allowed themselves to be vulnerable, which is really hard. And now they've upset somebody and they didn't mean to. If they mean to upset somebody at something different, they'll clam up and you really don't get too many chances. So I'll give you a great example. I was in a kitchen, tough house, really tough house, and they were known for not letting outsiders in. And I'm an outsider at this point, like totally.

And the guy goes, what are you here for? What are you, one of those counselors? And I said, well, actually, no. And then one guy said, oh, she's, she's got counseling that's outside of the job. He said, counseling is bulls**t. And I started to, I was on my way out and I turned around and I go, tell me why it's bulls**t. I really want to hear it. Yeah. They told me I had to go to counseling in Staten Island and I drove around for almost a half an hour and I couldn't find the room. F**k them. I thought that was great. It was great because he never got in the room. F*** them. I thought that was great. It was great because he never got in the room. Do you know what I do for a real living?

Football. No. Coaching. No. No. That's a side gig. What I do for a real living is own a lumber company. Oh, that's awesome. And we manufacture hardwood lumber.

Okay. Big saws. Anybody in my business that has all 10 digits. Yeah. They're not doing their job. It's not a true lumberman. All right, big ass forklifts, 55 acres, dust, metal buildings, loud, I mean, all of it, right? Very cool, yeah. What you just said is how pretty much everybody in my employee communicates.

So I get those guys, I actually think they're hilarious. They're hilarious. And I love dudes like that because you feel like, well, if I get stuck in a foxhole, I want to be stuck in a hole with that guy. Exactly. And I love those guys, but it's the absolute truth. They would just as soon cut off a finger

and hurt you accidentally. Now, they may tear your ass up if they do it on purpose, but I completely get what you're saying about these guys. Not everybody is respected enough to have their ass torn up. And if you understand where I'm going with this, if they don't make fun of you, they don't like you. Right, that's right.

But what happened out of that was the kitchen fell out. They just fell out. Here's the senior guy they all respect. He's a meathead, but it's hilarious. It's hilarious. But it sort of set the tone for, you know, the guys were like, well, you didn't even go. So how can you say it sucks? And, you know, they weren't saying we're going to go, but they were saying, you know, You're freaking imbecile. How do you know if it sucks? You couldn't even find the parking light, you jackass. Maybe you don't need counseling, but you certainly need GPS, you jackass.

Nobody had GPS then. But you know what I mean. I do know. We all had our maps, right? Yeah, we had our paper maps. But what it was and in his defense, because I had to save him a little bit from himself, they didn't put signs up to say where the counselor was. So I had to say, you know, I heard that they don't have proper signage, you know, I had to give them a bone, you know, you can't just

like leave the guy. But actually you could. But it taught me a lot right then because the perception, their perception is reality. And it might be wacky, but it's their perception. So when you want to match them up with counselors, you have to make sure you have counselors that aren't easily ruffled, that understand that this is not your normal civilian. And geography matters. Geography and science matter too. But this is a tribe. It's a tribe. And the different departments throughout the country, throughout the world, they're tribes. But they all come under this heading and they're a subset of our society. And they are just crazy enough to come in and get us out of the stupid things we

get ourselves into and the things that we don't deliberately, but disasters happen. And they're the first ones there. So what's there for them when they need help on their terms, right? So that means not banging them in the wallet. So our services are free to the members and their families and active and retired firefighters. Making it possible to park, they don't take, generally speaking, they don't like mass transit. They go to too many subway incidents. They don't want to go in the subway. And the parking spots need to be wide because they're driving trucks. They do drive trucks, but it doesn't have to be wide because they go on our sidewalk.

I know, but no, it isn't a joke. It's true. They do. Most of them. The guy that pulls up in a Mercedes, please give me a break. But we are in an old firehouse now. So we moved out of the flower shop in 2009. That was awesome. The woman that owns the flower shop, I heard through a source, rumors that they had a firehouse, the old firehouse in

Red Hook that was 101 quarters that the tenant was going to skip out on the next day. So, I waited till he cleared town and then I called the landlord who I've known for years and said, we want to move in. Oh, we have a tenant there. And no, you don't. He skipped out and he owed a lot of back rent, but he left things. So he had a metal fabrication shop and the whole thing was machinery.

And our guys had to make it a firehouse again. This time over 400 firefighters showed up over a span of three years to turn it back into a firehouse, which is what it looks like today. But it's actually friends of firefighters for counseling. Well, not just counseling. So downstairs, so I designed it so that when you walk in... Before we get there, because this is the reveal. When did it go from looking for a bugler to an actual organization called Friends of Firefighters at the flower shop?

No, the flower shop came weeks after I got incorporated as Friends of Firefighters. What happened was my daughter is hearing impaired and she was in a school that is a very expensive private school because she was on scholarship. That's not here nor there, but I always feel bad. That's cool. They should bring her home. She'll listen to it. Yeah.

Well, with her hearing aids, yes, she will. She'll listen to it. But where are we? Why Packer? Oh, because there were wealthy families there and they were very generous and they wanted to help. So we decided to form a group that would help the firefighters and I was the contact to the houses. And there was a nurse in there and she had a friend who wanted to take over

the whole thing. She was a counselor. And we didn't agree because I thought this woman was a little batty to be honest. The nurse was lovely. She was really lovely. But this other woman had a degree and I didn't in counseling. So she hedged her bets and said, I'm going to go with the woman with the degree. No hard feelings. I really don't feel bad. And they took that organization. But once I removed myself because I didn't like the way she was moving forward, it was

not going to work for the firefighters. The whole thing fell apart for them. And I went on with a couple of the, like the woman that owned the property and another woman whose husband was Silicon Valley guy. And they helped me to get incorporated and then start this thing. And she came up with the name Friends of Firefighters. And the first time I heard it, I said, oh, for God's sake, I hate that name. That's so stupid. The firefighters are not going to go to Friends of Firefighters. It sounds like, you know, and we're women and we're like, no, what wife is going to say? Yeah, it's cool.

Barney music in the background. Dumb, dumb, dumb. But I couldn't come up with anything else. And then the lawyer needed a name by the morning. I go, I'm going to choose this name. So I said, can we do F.O.F.? And I'll tell you later when we're not being taped, what I started calling it. I can only imagine. I can't say. But I said, I'll screw it. You know, screw it. I'll tell you later when we're not being taped, what I started calling it. I can only imagine.

I can't say. But I said, I'll screw it. You know, screw it. I'll do it. And I actually believe that some firefighters didn't come because of the name. Really? But at this point, you know, it's different. So then you moved to this thing that the sky leaves, metal fabrication, 400 firefighters

donate their time to turn it back into a firehouse. Yes. But that was eight years after I started the organization. I started in this flower shop and it got too small real fast. It just got small. So it had a small counseling room and a little kitchen in the back and a waiting room in the front and it just wasn't working. Whoever was there would see the other one leave and it just wasn't working. So when I open- Which lends to the same stigma as to why they're not going to the fire department help in the first place.

Part of it, yeah. Yeah, for sure. So when we did get the new place, which is a firehouse, it was built in 1874, I think. Really? That's cool. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. It's pretty awesome. So the guys came and they did the work and I learned more about construction than I ever wanted and I could have used you then. We were getting little grants here and there but the American Red Cross ended up giving us like a four to five year grant of 9-11 money and that really helped launch it. That's when I went to school and I learned about nonprofit management and all of that.

So- How old were you when you went back to school? Forty-five? See, that's awesome. Yeah. That at 45, this meant enough to you that you went back to school. Yeah, but to me, it wasn't a sacrifice. It was really, it was a gift. I didn't say sacrifice. I was so lucky. Yeah, it was cool. I get that's not a sacrifice. I get that's

part of the deal, but yeah, it speaks to your commitment to it all. I never thought of it that way. But okay. It does. Okay. And Villa Cool Memphis tie in who also helped was Robin Hood Foundation. I was just about to say I was just about to say, you know, go they rob. So before Robin Hood Foundation Foundation was the first organization, the very first was the German-American Solidarity Foundation. The German-American Solidarity Foundation. Everybody's heard of that. They were actually very sweet.

But I had no clue. Like this is when everybody, the money was just like showering down on New York. And I was really more interested in building the trust because that was to me more important at the time. By the time I built the trust, the money was pretty much gone. But one of the widows, Marion Fontana, who's a friend of mine, her husband Dave was killed on that day. That was their anniversary, 9-11. She recommended us to the Robin Hood Foundation. and when that grant went away they recommended us to the American Red Cross. Paul Tudor Jones, Robin Hood Foundation,

this guy who facade it, you know where he's from? Memphis? Right here. Well you see you led me into that I'm not gonna say Coneack, Long Island. He's a Memphis guy. Oh, all right. Cool. That's cool. All right. So you make the firehouse. The firefighters built the firehouse back into a firehouse and we did this thing where when you walk in, I wanted them to be able to go straight upstairs. So the guys in the back with the doors closing, we had, we did things. So we changed it so that the doors closed and there was a kitchen downstairs.

And if they went upstairs, the guys with the doors closed would never see who was coming in and out. And so- So they had privacy. Also what I do is stagger the rooms. So one room was counseling, one room was acupuncture, the other one was biofeedback. So nobody knew who was where, when,

but they started telling each other. And now, like, they'll come in and they go, yeah, I'm here to see my therapist. And it's a world away from what it was. What do you mean come in or is this the, is there like a hangout area for farming? Downstairs there, there are two big tables, which, and there's a kitchen. So we have a breakfast every month, the second Wednesday of every month.

And we used to, and we'll get back to it. The last Wednesday of every month. And the evening we'd have something called kitchen talk and we would get at the request of a chief of department Ed Kilduff he asked me to do something to bring the young new firefighters because a lot of the 9-11 firefighters were retiring in huge numbers and bring them into the culture a little more by having the older ones give presentations and seminars and whatnot. So that's what we did. And we had giants. And Vigiano came.

He lost his two sons, one police officer, one firefighter. Vinny Dunn still comes in. Vinny is now working on his 13th book, I think now, about firefighting. So these greats would come in and show the younger firefighters. And what was really wonderful is when we'd have people come in and other people in the audience were at that job and they would tell a different perspective about it. So there was engagement.

We'll be right back. Kelly Harnett spent over a decade in prison for a murder she says she didn't commit. I'm 100% innocent. While behind bars, she learned the law from scratch. Because oh God, Harnett, jailhouse lawyer. And as she fought for herself, she also became a lifeline for the women locked up alongside her. You're supposed to have faith in God, but I had nothing but faith in her.

So many of these women had lived the same stories. I said, were you a victim of domestic violence? And she was like, yeah. But maybe Kelly could change the ending. I said, how many people have gotten other incarcerated individuals out of here? I'm going to be the first one to do that. This is the story of Kelly Harnett,

a woman who spent 12 years fighting not just for her own freedom, but her girlfriends too. I think I have a mission from God to save souls by getting people out of prison. The Girlfriends, Jailhouse Lawyer. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. American history is full of wise people. Well women said something like, you know, 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is glory.

Those founding fathers were gossipy AF, and they loved to cut each other down. I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions about American history, and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer. Hamilton pauses, and then he says, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar.

And Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption. My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said, it would have been harder to fake it than to do it. Listen to American History Hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When I became a journalist, I was the first Latina in the newsrooms where I worked. I'm Maria Hinojosa. I dreamt of having a place where voices that have been historically sidelined would instead

be centered. For over 30 years now, Latino USA has been that place. This is Latino USA, the radio journal of news and cultura. As the longest running Latino news and culture show in the United States, Latino USA delivers the stories that truly matter to all of us. From sharp and deep analysis of the most pressing news, They're creating this narrative that immigrants are criminals. This is about everyone's freedom of speech.

Nobody expected to hopes from the American continent to stories about our cultures and our identities. When you do get a trans character like Imidaperez, the trans community is going to push back on that. Colorism, all of these things exist in Mexican culture and Latino culture. You'll hear from people like Congresswoman AOC. I don't want to give them my fear.

I'm not going to give them my fear. Listen to Latino USA as part of the MyCultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2020, a group of young women in a tidy suburb of New York City found themselves in an AI-fuelled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts on my body parts that looked exactly like my own. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream. It happened in Levittown, New York.

But reporting this series took us through the darkest corners of the internet and to the front lines of a global battle against deepfake pornography. This should be illegal, but what is this? This is a story about a technology that's moving faster than the law and about vigilantes trying to stem the tide. I'm Margie Murphy. And I'm Olivia Carville. This is Levertown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope. Listen to Levertown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your

podcasts. Liz went from being interested in true crime to living true crime. My husband comes back outside and he's shaking and he just looks like he's seen a ghost and he's just in shock. And he said, your dad's been killed. This is Hands Tied, a true crime podcast exploring the murder of Jim Milgar. Liz's mom had just

been found shut in a closet, her hands and feet tied up, shouting for help. I was just completely in shock. Her dad had been stabbed to death. It didn't feel real at all. For more than a decade, Liz has been trying to figure out what happened. There's a lot of guilt, I think, pushing me. And I just, I want answers.

Listen to Hands Tied starting on August 6 on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. or wherever you get your podcasts. I got a question. Just a reality check and I'm grasping here. So this may be a terrible question for this. We can edit it out. I can't wait.

Go. Well, I've run my business everything, but I've coached in the city school system for 33 years and the way I coach is much different than most. I have a different approach. Okay. To the way I believe kids should be nurtured, and accountable, coached, taught, all of that. And oftentimes the bureaucracy of a government run organization doesn't like people like me at first at least. And I'm just curious, you're setting up a council center for city employees outside of the counseling center provided for city employees because you thought the counseling center provided for city employees is

quote bulls**t. I just wonder how you received. That's fascinating that that's what you got from me. I'm just wondering how you were received. Totally no. I did not think they were bulls**t at all. Oh no no no. That their approach I said the approach was being no, no, no, no, no, your approach. No, I thought it was clear. So I'll be even more clear.

They had 14 counselors on staff prior to 911. They had to hire over 100. They lost 343. They had to send them out to the firehouses. It was unprecedented. There is no criticism as to how they did it. This is what I did. There was no judgment there at all.

There really wasn't? The fire, none whatsoever. The city was fine with it. I wasn't part of that. I'm not there to say, oh, this person could do a better job unless they wanted to work for us, and that was different. But they were CSU you you know for me counseling services unit was an option for some of the firefighters and it

wasn't for others so rather than have anybody fall through the cracks let them have another option that doesn't cost them money I candidly think that's awesome I just it I guess you're saying I had balls to say that the job had their, their set up already and who am I to come in, I like this question now. So who am I to come in and do this? I didn't ask for permission. I just followed what the firefighters were asking for. See, that's what I find interesting. And candidly, you know, people who think out of the box and don't say, well, this is the way things are done or whatever are often ones that find

all kinds of cool solutions, right? But oftentimes those type of people also scare the folks that like to play within the lines and they will try to shut them out. And I just wondered if you had any problems with that. But I guess it does speak to the fact that New York as a whole was bombed Everybody and it felt it and so any positive momentum probably people convalesced around that Maybe you wouldn't get and other circumstances

I guess I think that and that's also true. So so but the then head of CSU And that's also true. So, but the then head of CSU did not like, made it very clear he did not want me to have an organization that was helping the chiropractor. Well, that's what I'm saying. No, it was very clear. And I got a lot of pushback over the years. Okay, well, then I'm out that far off.

And there were a lot of rumors out there. No, you're not far off. I love your question. I think it's great. I just take issue with you thinking that I thought that they weren't doing enough because that's not it. No, I know, but... Yeah. No, that wasn't a judgment on my part.

It was just, you know, I know some guys are not going for help. Where will they go? They trusted me over time. And then the firehouse helped a lot because when they came to work on it and everything, that said a lot that they wanted to come and work on it that told me that they saw that there was a need because nobody charged. I mean, they came and did it. Well, the fact that you say firemen now come in and say, I'm going to see my therapist, you talk about a...

24 years later. Well, I get it. But what a shift. All right. So when did you, when did the firehouse become the place? After Sandy, 2012, 13, after Sandy. Okay. So 13 years ago. After Sandy. 2012, 13. After Sandy. Because what happened with Sandy. 13 years ago. But Sandy took out so many houses and so many firefighters. So there was over 700 active firefighters and over 1200 retirees either lost their houses entirely or had such significant damage they had to move out. And my team and I were on boots on the ground. So our firehouse

took on four feet of water. So we lost the kitchen we had just put in. And two cars. I'm a car buff. I like to work on cars. And I had two cars. Luckily. How come that unsurprised me at all? Luckily, they were two newer cars,

because I now have a 442 on the floor, and I have a 57 Chevy. If I hear this rain coming, they're out. Right? They're out. 57 Chevy, whatever. But the 442 is the floor and I have a 57 Chevy. If I hear this rain coming, they're out. Right? They're out. I don't own the 442. I don't own that. It's a firefighter's sister owns that and she doesn't know how to drive it so I have it right now.

I can't even. And she doesn't want to learn because it scares her. It's got a HERS shifter and everything. It's a power, you know, convertible. Really, I'll show you pictures later. But anyway, for now, we were flooded. And so, what we did was I was... We hit the ground running. We had clipboards. We went out. Those are clipboards that are okay. We went out into the affected area, mostly in the Rockaways. Staten Island had 30 feet squalls. Different areas that were Garretson Beach. And because

of my connection with Steve Buscemi, he was then doing Boardwalk Empire and working with HBO. HBO gave us some trailers that we could work out of. And so Sandy, we were so present and we were going to people's homes and Steve Buscemi was in my car and we were going to homes and Steve would get out and he'd help us like rip down walls and pump and so our name became like you need something called friends of firefighters and that built the trust. It was amazing and everybody came together and the firefighters, there's one in particular who just astounded me. He is, he's a wonderful guy. And he was helping people

for almost three weeks before we all found out that his house was in terrible shape, but he wasn't doing anything there. He was helping his family and he moved them upstairs. But we found out about it and then Liam Flaherty from Rescue 2 went over and that's Bobby Formanee. He's the one that was out there helping everybody else. And that's who they are. So it makes my job so much easier, because when there's an opportunity to help, and no, he and Liam both didn't accept help.

But when there's an opportunity to help, I'm going to help. You speak with reverence when you speak about firefighters. Your eyes change. Oh, that's weird. I mean, that's just a weird thing you brighten up I brighten up you really do and not that you're not bright, but you You can just tell the reverence you hold these people and in the way that they

Will go completely off the hook to help someone else Yeah, and then won't even get out of the street for themselves sometimes. Yeah, absolutely. Did you ever see a firefighter run in when everybody's running out? That's a little crazy, right? But when they say they need help,

I think it's incumbent upon all of us to make sure they have it in a way that's comfortable for them. But I think that reverence and empathy for them is why they come to you. I think they feel that. Some of them don't know me. Some of them just know their counselor. They just know we have a good reputation.

Maybe originally. I'm going to catch heat for that when I get home. Maybe originally, there was a little bit of that, but really I think Sandy is like... You're going to catch it for that when you get home? I don't care. Oh, I don't either. I'm just glad I can help the gods. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Sure, no problem.

Because I don't get enough shit. Right. What happened, though, is after our place was deconed, I went out to Ikea, which was in Red Hook, and I bought 14 bunk beds because I knew they were going to come. It's like that movie, Field of Dreams. I knew they were going to come, and they did. So they came from all over the place and New Orleans sent 36 firefighters and we did shifts.

Oh my gosh, Michigan were the first ones to pull up. They had an RV. We didn't have power till December, so we kind of froze our asses off. But they came and then they would go out at five in the morning and they work all day. New Orleans is a tough group, boy. They don't turn it off. They work all day, drink all night, work all day, six days running. Oh, you guys are going to die. And our guys couldn't even keep up with them. And our guys are pretty tough, but they couldn't keep up with New Orleans. I'm so curious, 12 years later,

this girl who hung behind a woman... Thank you, I'm not a girl anymore. ...who hid behind a tree... Well, that was just to ambush somebody. That was not like... You hid behind a tree to find a burglar. I needed the timing to be right before I ambushed him. I get it, but you did it.

I did. Well, yeah, I did. Now has a degree in what? timing to be right before I ambushed it. I get it, but you did it. I did. Well, yeah, I did. Now has a degree in what? Nonprofit management. Nonprofit management. And how many therapists are part of it? We actually need more. We were up to 14 and now we're down to nine.

So I need to hire more. Unbelievable. If I had 20 therapists right now, they would all have full schedules. How many firefighters have you served? Firefighters, active retired and their families well over a thousand. Over a thousand. And their families? And their families. Oh yeah you have to include families. You have to. You know when you're helping somebody and these families you know they get beaten up by the schedule. The schedule is brutal and you know the parent who is the first responder can't be at every game, sometimes can't be at a graduation, although they help each other and they cover

each other's shifts. It's not always, it's not always possible. So there's a, you know, they get a great vacation, but otherwise they're like back to back working crazy hours. But that's the thing is, honestly, the truth truth is you showed up and said, what can I get you? And it was some purple and black ribbon of bugler and look for some counselors for my guys. And you became what they looked for. Okay, but your organization became what they needed the most.

The organization became what they dictated it should over time. Well, now that's interesting because you listened to what they needed rather than what people told them. Right. And the approach is the same, but the needs change, right? So there are different things, whole different world from 9-11 to Sandy to COVID. Every single time they needed different things, different ways, but by the time COVID hit,

we were fairly established and we had gone to online for guys that couldn't make it in. We went to online counseling the year before. So when COVID hit, we were like ready to run. And you're ready for the next one, whatever it is, God forbid. Oh geez. Well, there were like ready to run. So. And you're ready for the next one, whatever it is, God forbid. Oh, geez. Well, there will be a next one.

There will be, and we are ready to help the firefighters in any way that they say they need. If someone said, friends of firefighters is, how would you complete that sentence? Man, you didn't give me any cliff notes before I came in or any cheat sheet. I'm sorry. Yeah. I just, I thought you'd be able to answer because you just are never at a loss for words.

I know. So let me gather mine and I'll spit it right back out. This is editable. This is a show, for God's show. Friends of firefighters. I want to know from you, you created it. Friends of firefighters is? Think that we could be considered to be, not the catcher in the ride, but maybe.

We want to get the firefighters that are not comfortable. So that's not comfortable. So that's not telling you who we are. No, but keep going with that. I think what we are is what the firefighters envisioned and molded over the years to the point where we're an extension of, we started out really, really simple.

It's bunting. It's, you know, bugler. Bugles. And counseling was a tough one. I thought it would last a year or two. Friends of Firefighters is a highly respected organization today and I want to see it national. I want to see it go national because there are fire departments. We were in Biloxi and we set up a program down there.

And there are so many departments throughout the country that have no help. They have no counseling services unit. Sometimes they don't have a full department. They have a volley group and then they do the best they can. I think when people put their lives on the line, they deserve to have a place to go that speaks their language, that understands them and doesn't profit off of it. So it just comes down to trust. Does anybody ever pay anything for counseling and Friends of Life, right? No. And that kind of shoots me in the foot because I'm always looking to raise money. And that's been a really tough thing. I was, I was in the trenches while people were bringing

in the money that they absolutely used and there are some other organizations that are excellent and they have like a hundred people on their development team raising money. That's not us yet. I hope it will be someday, but my goal right now is not just to keep the doors open, but right now my short term is keep the doors open. Long term, make this a national organization. Maybe one in every state, which would be really awesome. But right now, I wanna keep the doors open. We have a wait list.

We were up to 77, and I thank God just heard we're down to 34. That's 77 May days as far as I'm concerned. If a firefighter's calling for help, it's already a problem. I was gonna say it was an SOS. Same thing. But that's 77. Well, we'll take the ones that need to be seen. And our counselors have been amazing in stepping up and going over their limit to accommodate them. And we check in with

those who haven't been seen to make sure that they're okay. You know, but they are, some of them say, no, I'll go to CSU. Great, no problem. But CSU doesn't take retirees or they might take retirees now, but they don't take families. And so we have a children's program, it's called the Bravest Children. We have a peer program, which we've expanded, so in order to meet the need and that's been really helpful. So your kid went off to some real highfalutin school? She did in first grade. Highfalutin. Highfalut some real highfalutin school? She did in first grade.

Highfalutin. Highfalutin. Highfalutin. That's impressive. And I know you're proud of her. I am proud of her. How did you know that? How did you know I wasn't like embarrassed of my daughter?

Oh, I just, you know, I listen. I have another one, too. Much like you. What's the other daughter do? Oh, my son. I have another child. Sunday. My son's a musician. Yep. Not far from the tree then? Not far, no.

I just wondered if they were equally proud of their mom. Are they impacted by all of this? They're proud of me. They should be. Well, I appreciate that. You know, it took a lot out of the family too, you know. All of it does. Yeah.

I mean, I was in firehouses at two in the morning helping them write eulogies. So the early years were particularly tough. I get it. I do. I seriously do get it. And it does have to have buy-in from the people in your sphere to help you to be successful at what your endeavors are. But like I said at the beginning, we'd love to talk to tell stories of where passion meets opportunity and amazing things happen.

Where normal folks who aren't rich or part of some big 501c3 or tapped on the shoulder from a politician simply use that passion, see an area in need, fill it, and change people's lives. And holy crap, Nancy, that's exactly what your story is. We are a 501c3. Now you are, but you created it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I'm saying.

No, that was February of 02. Are you gonna ask me about the Ireland bike ride? I was gonna say one thing first. Go ahead. How do people find out more about you? And is there a website or whatever? Well, forget me. The organization is friendsoffirefighters.org. Can people reach out to you if they're interested in supporting you or maybe mimicking your

thing in their neighborhoods? Yeah, when they talk about mimicking things or having like a... Scaling. Yeah, but I would be real interested in how they go about it, you know, and especially if they want to use our name. Well, they can't use our name. But if we're going to grow like that, that would be great. I love partnering with how do they find Nancy?

They call the office or Nancy at friends of firefighters dot or Nancy. Yeah, friends of firefighters dot plural. Yes, it's not one guy. I got it. Friends of the Firemen. Friends of the Firemen. Can you tell us that story? Oh my gosh. So at some point. No, apparently not. At some point, and now we're gonna do it then, I'm supposed to ask you about a bicycle in Ireland? What am I supposed to do? Oh my god, that's just as bad as one fireman. It's not one bicycle in Ireland. It was not one fireman. First we're gonna talk about friends of the fireman. We have a board member who I love dearly and he came on right when we started, Danny Prince. Danny Prince is the Prince of Princes. He's an awesome guy. He was Coast Guard Fire Department for over 40 years.

He calls it to this day, the friend of the fireman. He just calls it that. He's on the board. And he's on the board. That's okay. I say stuff all the time that absolutely drives Alex absolutely baddie. I had noticed. And to be perfectly candid I say it wrong on purpose now. I don't think Danny says it wrong on purpose. Oh, it's just, he's just friends of our apartment. That's what it is. And he calls our place, he doesn't call it the firehouse, he calls it the store. We don't sell stuff. I love it.

But Danny is Danny. And so, you know, I accept that. And I'm glad he's on board. Not surprising at all. Yeah. You know, yeah. Bicycle ride or something. There's a bicycle ride. Yes. So last year, two years ago, a chief came in, Danny Sheridan. And Danny, Danny is the pain in my ass that Alex is in yours. Got it.

But he gets things done like Alex does. He picked me up. He was on time and everything. That's why you put up with the pain in the ass. Danny had an idea that he had been batting around with his best friend 30 years ago, that they were going to ride for some charity starting in Dublin going down to the lower, they didn't even know at the time, but they wanted to ride around Ireland and raise money. His friend was killed on 9-11.

He came to us a year and a half ago and said, I'd like to do this and you'd be the charity. So he and my daughter worked together on it and I was in the support vehicle. But they rode every day from Dublin to Kinsale, I think it was three days of riding, one of the days, the last day was 100 miles that they rode and these are Irish rose. Brutal, brutal. And this year, gorgeous. But this year, I've been told by the Irish that it's even more beautiful. We're going

from Newcastle West down to Kinsale. And in Kinsale, they have a 9-11 garden where they've planted 343 trees for firefighters and the equal amounts for Port Authority and police officers to honor. So we're going to land there on 9-11. And then next year, over 100 firefighters from Ireland are coming into us. We're going to meet in Boston, where we're picking up a ton of Boston firefighters.

I heard Chicago and I know Toronto are joining us, firefighters, and we're going to ride down from Boston to ground zero. Wow. Yeah. Pretty cool, right? How does that raise money? Well, we need sponsors. And it's funny you should say you have a big lumber company. I'm going to hit everybody up for sponsorships because they get to see it. We're going to have drones and we're going to have what we... Last year was a run through like, what can we do? What are we missing?

And this year, we're ready. We're really ready. Certainly to goodness, Alex, that's got to get some press of some sort and that would encourage big sponsors that could actually move the needle. You got a hundred Irish going on. Pretty cool. We'll laugh our asses off. I know that's a given and maybe drink a little bit. But just a little. A beer here and there.

Yeah. A wee bit. Yes. Just a wee. Right before, actually we had closed registration last year. There was a firefighter last year who almost died and it almost was a fatal fire. And we didn't think he was going to make it at first. It was that bad a flash over. He was a fatal fire. And we didn't think he was going to make it at first. It was that bad a flash over.

He was very badly burned. And we closed our registration for the ride and about a week and a half before the ride, we get a call from this guy. He wants to go on the trip. And I was stunned. And I just thought, yes, absolutely. But I don't know how it's going to be for him. I know that the fire was very impactful in his life,

in his family's life. And he decided he wanted to go. He went. It was life changing. And now he speaks about that. And he's on this ride too. He's actually on the committee this year. That's so cool. So cool. And I guess you'll put tons of stuff of this on your website, won't you? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there it is. There it is.

So friends are firemen. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there it is. There it is. So friends are firemen. You didn't deliver the line. Your response. What was your response to Danny Prince? Oh, that's a big budget for one guy. The friends of the fireman. Friends of the fireman. Right. Right. Yeah. So, yeah, Nancy Carbone all the way from New York City to Memphis to tell us about the Friends of Firemen. I'm kidding. The Friends of Firefighters. Plural, please.

Make sure you say that. Plural, please. You can look it up on our website and more importantly, I hope you've enjoyed the story because, my friend, you are exactly what we look for when we talk about an army of normal folks. I just, I can't thank you enough for telling your story. I can't thank you enough for opening with, although a little bit gut-wrenching, I think important perspective for people to understand why folks might be so moved to do work that they've done for so long in New York. And the truth is, 9-11 has not quit killing.

And there's still work to do. And soldiers like you that carry on that work change lives. And so it's been awesome to meet you and your stories are inspiring. I don't want to step on your last word, but I'm going to. Thank you for bringing me here and for recognizing the work that we do. I don't want to step on your last word, but I'm going to. Thank you for bringing me here and for recognizing the work that we do. But it's a little selfish what I do because I get a lot out of helping people. So I feel a little bit uncomfortable when you make it.

So thanks for calling me normal. My mom, we're alive, she'd get a chuckle out of that. This has been nothing short of an honor all these years. And to be accepted by them, by and large, has been amazing. I will say Counseling Services Unit and Friends of Firefighters are in very friendly terms now. We see each other's strengths, and while we don't share information,

we help each other where we can. It's fantastic. And I will tell you, almost to a person, everybody that we interview, and we do one of these a week, and we have for over two years now, so we're talking 700 people so far, almost to a person, all say,

they get more out of it than they put into it, and they are also hide away from the light because of their humility. And I just gotta tell you something I've learned from the collection of people I've talked to, that humility is one of the reasons you've been so successful. So carry on and well done, Nancy. And thanks for visiting with us.

Oh, thank you. Thank you. I'm really honored to be here. And thank you for joining us this week. If Nancy Carbone has inspired you in general or better yet to take action by donating to Friends of Firefighters, which she desperately needs, or wanting to do something like it in your community, which she would love to scale, or sharing with first responders that you know or something else entirely, would you please let me know? I want to hear about it.

You can write me anytime at bill at normal folks dot us and I will respond. And because of the lack of emails recently, I'm starting to have a little bit of an inferiority complex. So please reach out and say hi. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with friends on social subscribe to the podcast, rate and review it. Join the army at normalfolks.us. Consider becoming a premium member there. Any and all of these things that will help us grow.

An Army of Normal Folks, I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do what you can. The Girlfriends is back with a new season. and this time I'm telling you the story of Kelly Harnett. Kelly spent over a decade in prison for a murder she says she didn't commit. As she fought for her freedom, she taught herself the law. He goes, oh God, Harnett, jailhouse lawyer. And became a beacon of hope for the women locked up alongside her.

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