Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Episode 202 - Niels Jorgensen

Episode Date: October 11, 2021

Niels Jorgensen served as an FDNY firefighter for nearly 22 years until a forced medical retirement because of the Leukemia he contracted from cleaning up Ground Zero. In order to save his life, he was administered 2.5 years' worth of chemotherapy in 7 days. To honor and commemorate the 20th anniversary of September 11th, Niels created the "20 for 20" podcast series, each episode focusing on a heroic tale from 9/11 with the goal of ensuring our country does not forget that fateful day and its meaning. https://superbeets.com/clearedhot https://feals.com/clearedhot https://tenthousand.cc https://athleticgreens.com/clearedhot  

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us. And his story is absolutely fascinating to me. My guest, Nells Jorgensen, served as an FDNY firefighter for almost 22 years until he had to take a forced medical retirement because of the leukemia he contracted from cleaning up ground zero. He has done a little bit of work on the Emmy nominated Rescue Me with Dennis Leary. He has started a 20 for 20 podcast series telling the stories of around the 9-11 time period. All of those things are fascinating. He does an amazing job of describing who he is, where he comes from, and what he wants to do moving forward. So I'm going to shut my mouth and let you guys enjoy episode number 202 with Nell's Jorgensen. I'm looking at danger close now. Listen how good that sounds.

Oh, yeah. Especially for an old guy, death from fire horns. Excellent. They make things called ear pro. Yes, I think I'll be buying those. It's like guys who go to the gun range all the time. Like, I can't hear anything. Foamy earplugs are like 62 cents.

You can go ahead. Yeah, they work. They help. Actually, I hadn't ever thought about that. My brother-in-law is a San Diego City fire captain. Oh, is that right? And you guys don't wear it. Well, you wear the big headphones in the truck, right?

The ones with the... In New York, we don't. Really? I just saw Calispell going by wearing them. I said, swing this thing right in front of your face. Keep it there. Smart. I said, they were wearing them.

I was like, smart. My dad's an old fireman. He's deaf. We all go deaf. Why would you guys not wear them in New York? I feel like it would be the easiest way to communicate. Money? I feel like that fire trucks are very expensive.

Yeah. And adding a set of ear protection or headset for each person in right? Riding wouldn't be too much of an expense. Well, we had a former mayor to keep the diesel cost down who removed the air conditioner. So it took $5,000 per truck to take the unit out so he could save $10,000 in fuel over the life of the truck. What does that call this stepping over a quarter to pick up a dime, I believe? Or also bureaucracy. Not giving a shit about your people, basically.

Well, just roll down the windows. It doesn't ever get hot or muggy in the Northeast. Never, ever. And they firebombie occasionally. It happened back in the mid-late 90s. They tossed them all tough cocktail into an engine that was going by and burned two guys up. Who did that? Ended their careers.

Incarriageable, angry people in the tenement just launched it in. Guys had the window out of the frame to keep cool because there was no AC. And they were caught in a flash fire. Basically, one of the guys had to stop grabbing an extinguisher and put them out. So they were inside of a fire truck while the inside of a fire truck was on fire with liquid gasoline. And they ended their careers, yeah, with bad burns. surprised they didn't get killed, but well, the turnout's probably... It was close.

Yeah. One of them was close, yeah. Yeah, I take a, to be honest, I'll take a hard pass on your occupation. Yeah. And I base my knowledge of your occupation off of backdraft for clarity. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So... Well, times that by 100 without being able to see anything. That's what it was to come down here, right? You know, they ran like it was just a high school 50-yard dash, but you can't see this, you know, in front of you. It also seemed like wearing their... What do you guys call the breathing apparatus you use? Self-contained breathing apparatus, depending on the company. We use Scott air packs, which are kind of...

An air pack. Yes, sir, yeah. Seems like those were optional and also buttoning up your turnout jacket was optional. Bull, was Kurt Russell. It was bull. Correct. Yeah. Human, he's made of asbestos. Yeah, bull.

Well, I feel like the white dress shirts that he were making were slightly far retardant. Yeah. It would seem that way, at least based on the movie. And they never got charred up in black. I don't understand that. It was amazing. It's almost so like they had a prop department that would switch out shirts every single take. Yes.

Yeah. Well, I'm glad you made the trip out, man. And thank you, Alex, for reaching out on his behalf. Your name is spelled like it should be Niels. The fact that it's Nels. Yeah, it's Denmark. My granddad was Grandpa Nils. And, yeah, it's one of those up for interpretation names.

I go by Niels, Niles, Nils. Correct is Nels, though. So we'll just call it a silent eye. Yes, that's fine. That's it. All right. That's it. Most people who get it right, that's how they say it. All right. So how long have you lived in New York?

I know you just moved. I'm not going to say where you've got to protect your privacy, but how long did you live in you? Well, I fled communism a year ago. I feel like you might not be the only one. Yeah. I was born and raised New York City guy, Brooklyn, then Staten Island. And some years back, moved to mid-New Jersey, south we call it the shore, halfway between New York City, Atlantic City, brick township. and then got tired of the taxes, the congestion, the insanity. So just moved south. And, yeah, but I was, except for one year in high school when we moved to Ireland,

my Irish mother wanted to move back because my father, who was also a city firefighter, he was real sick with cancer at one point, got into remission, and she felt that going back to her safety net in Ireland was the best bet. And after about 10 and a half months of that, my father said, nope, we're out of here. It's not America. We're going back, and we came back. that was sophomore year of high school. Thank God. Love Ireland. Love my cousins. My family there, but not America. It's a rough time to make a move as well in the middle of your high school.

Horrible. When we moved up here to Montana, one of the discussion points between myself and my ex-wife was where our kids were in school. I wanted to make the move before our oldest even got into high school because I, my parents, you know, the best of intentions put me into a private school for gifted children, which full disclosure is not me. Okay, not me whatsoever. What I think happened is my grandfather essentially paid the tuition there and they said, welcome aboard. Come on a. Yeah.

Yeah. So I went private junior high to public high school. Okay. And even that, living in the same town, but going from the group, the cohort that I had in that private school to a public school, I didn't know anybody the first day. Yeah. It's hard enough as it is to be a 14, 15 year old young man. Yes. I didn't need to apply that to my kids.

Like, let's just rip you out of state in between 8th and 9th grade. So we got them up here exactly to avoid what happened to you. Not that it would have been catastrophic, but I was trying to at least align things in their favor. Yeah, you did them adjust to say the double whammy was, came back in sophomore year, you know, torn out to another country, came back and then failed out of the Catholic All-Boy's High School that I was in and ended up in the public school in my senior year. and it was brutal because they were football rivals. Ooh, that's rough.

It was rough. But I feel like, and having never gone to Catholic school, I feel like you might have had more fun at the public school. Yeah, it was a little loose. Less rules. Yeah. You know, you can have an earring and a mustache. Less judgment and shame and, you know, just weight.

Christian brothers beating the crap out of you. Yeah, pretty much. It was different. It was different. What got your dad into the fire service? My dad. Interesting guy, his dad from Denmark, hardworking guy, you know, one of those immigrant success stories arrived with $22 bucks in his pocket and ended up owning his own bakery at one point, his own little apartment building. So my dad, you know, there was...

In New York? Brooklyn, New York, yeah. And Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, which is a big enclave of immigrants, different sex, so to speak. You have, you know, Scandinavian, Irish, Italian, Middle Eastern. and still's very similar melting pot. Less European now at this point, most of those folks have kind of migrated away. But my dad, the ups and downs of my granddad's life,

there was many, many years of struggle, you know, near poverty, and then all of a sudden some success and then lost a business back to near poverty. So my dad hated that up and down. So he joined the Air Force, and he was an air crash rescue guy, was intending to stay career Air Force, but the city at the time was paying better money. and he missed home, so he wanted to take the test, and he did,

and got on the city department. He was a young guy, probably like 23, and met my mom, got married, and just living in the American dream. He ended up doing 34 years, but in his 15th year with the department at 38 years old, he came down when an end stage, not Hodgkins lymphoma. They sent him home to die, and they said, get your affairs in order, but one doctor said, we'd like to make you a test pilot for this new drug, and he's like, hey, doc, I'm a fireman, not a pilot. So she goes, no, let's try this drug out. So he said,

okay, let's do it. And for every two weeks for four and a half years, he got the shit knocked out of him bad. I mean, he literally go to work, leave at noon, take a train and a ferry and another train, go to the infusion center, and then for the next four days, be violently, violently ill. And I just remember at 10 years old, wiping a vomit away from him, and he couldn't even drink and just praying over him. And he made it. He made it. He was my idol, because he just, he'd never complained. He just soldiered on through. And I still got him. He's 82 years old. No kidding. Still here. Still here. Multiple cancers, multiple heart issues, this, that. He's a rough guy with an extremely soft edge. He's a true gentleman. And I didn't say a lot. My

granddad was a troubled guy. He left home at 12 years old. We think he might have been a victim of abuse because he was with sponsor families. He was an apprentice baker. So he took out a lot of his, I guess, hurt and anxiety and rage or whatever it may have been on his own family. My grandma, my dad and his sisters. And my dad had a hatred for him for many, many years. And towards the end of my grandfather's life, he had this change. He became this gentle, kind, loving grandpa. I mean, the best, and I adored him. I was his namesake.

And he and my dad, they fixed up whatever it was. And they were okay when my granddad left and went home to the creator. My dad was okay with it. And strange thing about my dad, he could never tell me he loved me. And I got on the fire department at 22. I was a city cop at 20 for two years. And we'll get back to that. Okay, yeah, interesting.

It was good. A cop coming from a fire family. I'm sure there was some interesting Thanksgiving conversations. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yes, there was. But I had a little badges. But my dad just, one of those guys, he couldn't say, I love you.

And I got on the department, and I had my first ripping fire. And he says, hey, kid, how did it go? I said, oh, it's good, pop, it's good, you know, talking about the first couple days on the truck. And I said, I love you, pop. He said, oh, yeah, yeah, thanks, kid. And I said, you could say it. You could say it back, brother, because now you call him brother, because he's a brother of firefighters.

He says, I love you. So now every time after we've had a conversation, and one of the things in the fire service is keep low, keep low below the flames, sort of like in the military, you get down below things. She says, I love you, kid, keep low. I said, right, pop, you too. Now I call him old timer.

All right, old timer, because, you know, those were the sage guys in the top ranks in the job, and they, you know, always give you those good bits of advice. Did you ever hear your father telling his father that he loved him or vice versa? No. It's probably where it came from. Yeah. I'm glad that they were able to find closure in the end and repair that relationship.

And I'm also, I love hearing when people can break that cycle. Yes. Because it's not uncommon for somebody in your dad's position to repeat that cycle. And that sucks. It just passes on that generation. And my granddad had a bad problem in alcohol and I'm not embarrassed to say it. You know, it tore apart my dad's family. family and he'd be blinded with alcoholic rages, you know, didn't even remember the things he did.

And my father, if to see him have more than two beers, it's like, whoa, you know, he just, he put an end to it. Easy rager. Yes. You know, you know, guy that go through that mirror of some people, right? You know, we know. And the St. Patty's Day especially. Oh, shit.

I forgot about that. Is that a big deal in New York? Oh, yeah. That's the high, that's the high holy day. Yeah. Even Italian guys are Irish on St. Patty's Day. I believe I've seen some green colored water and some very impressive marching. Yes, and green colored vomit at the end of the day.

It's a shocker. Oh, yeah. No, I bet you, I bet your father grew up in an environment where he never heard that and he probably didn't want to say it to the person who was treating him poorly. But it's an important thing. Imagine being on your deathbed realizing you didn't tell people enough how you felt about them. Yeah. I think I irritate my kids.

Oh, yeah. All my kids. I hug them, love them, kiss them. I do that to my buddies. You know, they run when they see me because they're going to grab them. I mean, they're slightly gay. No, I'm in touch with it.

You know, I love to give him a big sloppy hug and a kiss on the cheek. You know, that's, and it gets sloppier with the more Guinness on St. Paddy's Day. You and I are going to get along just fine. It's the only beer that I actually like. It's a meal. That's not a beer.

That's a meal. Do they die green on St. Patty's? They die the Budweiser. The Guinness, that's like Sacrilege. I was going to say it. It would be cool if the foam was a little green. Yeah. But I don't know how you do that. I think you'd have to die the liquid.

Yeah. They make that some of the good bartenders make the shamrock literally out of the foam with the spoon. Yeah. But Budweiser is the one they usually die. And, yeah. Budweiser is what you drink when you want to get the taste of kissing your sister out of your mouth. That's who drinks Budweiser.

Swine. As my late dear friend Chuck Brockmeyer from New Orleans, God rest of him. He was an airborne ranger in a New Orleans fire captain. He called it foot wash. As a full watch. Oh, it's so cheap, I can buy so much. Yeah, there's a reason that it's that cheap. Yeah.

And you can buy so much. It's made in a bathtub. I have no idea where Budweiser is made. Sorry, Budweiser fans. But Guinness is superior in every way. And if you don't agree with that, you can go fuck yourself. That's right. Exactly.

Tell that to the boys in Ireland. They'll fight you. Okay. So you, did you grow up around the firehouse? And again, I'm ashamed to say my understanding of the geography of York, it sucks. Like I recognize the names, but I couldn't. Yeah, yeah. I've been to New York, I think four or five times, walk through Central Park. I've been to Times Square, the, probably the touristy thing. But understanding the boroughs and where everything is laid out. Sure, sure. I don't know

much about it. But in even talking with my brother-in-law, Jason, because I'm pretty sure, who, I don't want to misspeak, but I think he's done some trips out there just to visit the firehouses as a fellow firefighter. And it might have actually been around, fuck, I'd go around St. Patty's Day if I were him. Oh, yeah, that's the time most guys will. But everybody describes the NYFD, at least, as this will be the best description. Mafia? Family? Well, that's, you know, there was never any exclusionary policies.

Not mafia in the negative sense, meaning just a super tight-knit family. Well, we had the factions. We have the Italian mafia, the Irish mafia, the German mafia in the department, because years ago, immigrants came to the country, and they realized it was so. slow and steady. Like my dad took it for that reason, slow and steady to the end of the race. The pension was the goal.

You know, you didn't really make much money, but for the rest of your life, if you put in your time, you'd still get paid. And so what happened is immigrants were passing it on to their children. I was second generation. My son now was thinking law enforcement fire department, but he now wants to be a pilot. He switched gears because of all the turmoil in the last few years.

He's 21. You know, great young man. I've had quite a few people who reach out who were considering law enforcement in New York. Yeah. And a lot of them are asking me about military service instead. And again, I don't live there. I don't know much about it. But let's just say the environment that I have heard from a leadership and bureaucratic perspective,

mostly I'm hearing it on the law enforcement side of the house. I don't know how it affects it on the fire side of the house. But what I'm hearing from the law enforcement side, it's not great. It wouldn't surprise me if they, I'll put it this way. It wouldn't surprise me if they had issues with recruitment. Unless they start changing something. Well, Andy, I'll put it to you this way, right? It's probably next to San Francisco runs neck and neck is the most expensive city in the country, right?

It's, I think the average rent is $3,900 a month. What kind of square footage do you get for that? That's probably a 42 square foot studio apartment with the sink. Yeah. With the shared bathroom? Yeah, yeah, with 12 other apartments. I mean, it's literally, I'll put it to you this way. I started in 1989 as a rookie police officer.

and we were making 1245 an hour. And if we made at that time 1150 with two children, we were entitled to public assistance. So in today's times, in today's economics and numbers, the starting salary is about 40 grand. Now that sounds like decent money if you go somewhere into the heartland of America where it's affordable.

Yeah. But when you take the average rent being 37, 38, 3,900, you're on 40 grand. Oh, in one bridge alone from Staten Island to Brooklyn where I grew up, the Verrazano was $20.50 just to take the round trip on that one bridge. Now, if you're assigned to Manhattan, you have the tunnel, which is $10.25 each passage each way. Now, the thing is, if you want to wait for the free Brooklyn Bridge, you'll sit for an extra hour and a half. Or if you want to get to work on time, you spend the extra $10.50 to go through the tunnel.

So now you're already out $30 just to get to the city. Yeah, you're already in the hole. Yeah. So that 40 grand is literally just about diced and sliced and gone away before you even paid anything. So who the hell is going to take that job? I mean, but there's still people signing up. That's what I love about it. You know, the warrior class, you know, the subculture of military responders, nurses, you know, that kind of folks.

Medics, they just do it because that's what they do. But it sucks because you can't survive. You can't afford to take your girlfriend to a Broadway theater show, but yet you, you, you're guarding it on your routine patrol, but you can't afford to go in there on your day off. Or, you know, look, everyone cries the blues to a certain level, but it kind of sucks when you look at what they're paying the people to protect the citizenry.

And it's like, and then they wonder why guys want to move away or guys will get their cursory three, four, five years, and then leave for suburban department for way more money. Can't blame them. Can't blame anybody for leaving, you know. So did you go up around the firehouse? I did. Yeah.

My dad, I was a Brooklyn kid until I was about five, and my dad's firehouse was about three miles from our home. But there was a firehouse that was 12 doors up from the building I was born in. And occasionally my dad would get sent down there to fill in because they call it a detail. So sometimes if you're the extra man on the tour, a tour of duty, which is a day or a night, they'd send you where they needed a fill in. So if my dad would fill in, I'd ride my little big wheel up there. You know, my mom would be watching it. and he'd meet me on the corner, go in the firehouse, hang out. And then occasionally, you know, when he was off duty,

he would drive down to get his paycheck. And I'd say, you know, can I go with you? I was, you know, four or five years old. And I just remember getting out of the car, a big huge garage door. You'd walk in. It was all these giants with moustaches, and they were laughing and having the best time. And you smelled the truck and, you know, the grease from the engine

and the diesel fumes and the smoke and the residue. from their coats and their helmets and their boots and there'd be a dog running around a firehouse chasing the firehouse cat and then all these giants with mustache is just laughing and then feeding your ice cream and cake and cookies and don't tell your mother when you get home you know and like it was just I was like wow

this is this is so cool you know not realizing the danger and the yeah but I was like five years old and I'm like I am man I'm sold this is it and I was obsessed from that point on it was like live die breathe I'm going to be a New York City fireman yeah So how'd you break it to your dad that you were going to be a cop first? Well, he, believe it or not, see, this is the confliction of him. The city time and the city pension is all continuous.

So if you get on, say, sanitation department and do five years and wait it out to get on the fire department, you're in the system. So my dad's whole plan was, look, get the first job in the system and get the time going. Get the clock going. Yeah. So I went to swear in for the jail guard job, the corrections officers, and God bless them. but I walked in and I was supposed to swear in that afternoon and I said, sir, I'm going to pass on this one and I walked out because I just like, woo, this isn't for me. and my police investigator six months later he says why why did you turn down corrections you would have been in the system i said sir no disrespect i said i didn't know how long i'd have to wait

out pd and then eventually fire i said i'd rather go back to my construction job so i just i i just sprinted out of that jail and that was it but uh yeah so my dad told me take the police test and i loved being a cop because i was out helping people getting paid not not much but i just loved it i mean I, I, if the fire department didn't come around, that would have been somewhat heartbroken, but I would have been fine. You know, I liked being a cop. I mean, and back then, you were a beat cop. You were in the neighborhood.

You were in the hood. And unfortunately for us, it was the crack wars. And a young officer of class before my rookie class, in order to keep us off the blocks, there was these six-story tenements, and they would drop large things off those buildings to scare you. And this young gentleman, he was struck in the back. a head with a bucket of cement. Oh, you're done. And sheared as, well, by the grace of God, unfortunately, strange to say this, but he lived.

But he's a vegetable 33 years later in a rehab institute, and you'll never hear his name. The press will never, ever do a story on him because it doesn't fit their narrative, their story, their whatever. And that was the cruelty of being a cop. You know, I would walk the old ladies to the market and make sure they got there safe. And I literally had a gangbanger come up on me one day. And, you know, initially you're like, okay, what the for existence? guy want and he goes yo man you just walked this old lady to the market I said yes sir I did

he goes that's my mom man I said okay he says I'll be watching out for you man I said I said well that's what I do for all the old ladies in the neighborhood I said but do me a favor watch out for all of us I said because we're not here to mess with you so we're just here to protect the people and you know even though the guy was a bad dude and he was a drug dealer he got that concept we were protecting his mother and as strange as that sounds there was a little bit of a respect, which is now gone. There's no more reaching across the aisle, so to speak, or looking someone in the eyes and having a conversation. It's just gone. It's evaporated. You know, I'm 53, and I feel like I feel like I used to live on Earth and now I'm on Mars, you know, not to sound

negative and whatever. But I get what you're saying. It's very jarring. The last few years are the direction that we are heading or the difference that I have seen. Yeah. I used to hear my dad say this all the time, you know, the changes that I've seen in my life, I'm like, shut up, old man. No, I do say anything to my father. And it's, and now I'm sitting here thinking, well, shit, the changes that I've seen, just the last few years have been. Scary. Pretty shocking, actually. The course is, I will say, changing. I was going to say correcting, but the course is changing at a pace that is more rapid than I thought it was actually capable of. Andy, it's on, it's on a collision course with itself. It's, you know, if you drive a car too fast

on a curvy road, you're running off the road eventually. I don't care how good of a driver. are, you know. It's just what used to be say there was parameters and it was like limits and it was you didn't cross this line. It's all been erased. And, you know, I don't want to be melodramatic and sad, you know, because part of my mission now is I'm trying to reverse that, right? I'm trying to get these good messages out about responders and, you know, break people down and show the human side of what military, what police, what fire, what medics, what. but our nurses do, but dialogue has been eradicated. You know, now if you say something to offend someone,

they're looking to hurt you and cancel you and hurt your family and your life and your livelihood. Whereas, you know, back, you know, I'm a little bit older than you, and, you know, but we're pretty much from that same generation, so to speak. You know, you didn't do that stuff. I mean, you know, if you had it out with someone, you go smack the crap out of each other, or you go have an argument, and you just finish it,

and you walked away. Well, I was not raised with the expectation that I was not going to be offended in my life. Yeah. I was never, I never was told or taught that, you know, the world has to have round edges and you should avoid difficult things. Yeah. And that if somebody says something to you that you don't like, what you should do is try to shut them down as opposed to just engage with them in a conversation. To me, it's shocking that people feel that they are going to go through their life without encountering something that is offensive. Oh, yeah.

My question is, well, if you're offended by something that I may say, and I say some dumb shit, I'll be the first person to admit. Oh, me too. But how about this for the person who's offended by what I say? I'm offended by how easily offended you are. Oh, yeah. So now we're going to bypass. Exactly. Because if I'm supposed to respect you being offended, where are you going to show me the respect for me being offended?

Their answer is no. And it's like, well, I guess we're fucked then. Right. We can't erase being, we can't erase offending each other. So now, you know. I'm offended by your offensive and easily offended personality. Absolutely. And I know some people are offended when the barista at the coffee barrens out of oat milk and they throw a shit fit.

And I'm going, just get milk. Don't worry about it. Like, move on. Move on and go on with your day. Some people cannot. Yeah, well, I think some people are out there looking for it, right? It's like people, I remember folks who used to walk the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn looking for nickels and quarters and pennies because you'd find them. You'd probably make a couple bucks a day if you just kept looking down.

And now you just got people looking around for, oh, that offended me, that offended me, that offended me. It's like you really have too much time in your hands. You know, go get a job, go get a hobby, stop being offended. Well, it's almost as if we've created an environment where being offended is, I don't know if this is the right term, but rewarded. Oh, yeah. So therefore, you are enticing people to actually look for those things because when they find that, the spotlighted magnifying glass is thrown onto them and they're rewarded for it. And I just, to me, that's the opposite of what it should be. Oh, absolutely.

you heard something that you don't agree with, cool. Maybe go engage with that person to get an understanding of where they're coming from. Or here's another thought. If you see it on social media and you're super offended, turn it off. Or do nothing. Or be like me. Don't have social media. Yeah.

Just don't have social media. Or a concept that a lot of people struggle with is that it's okay to not have an opinion on something. True. So if somebody is very vocal about something that they're passionate about, it's 100% okay for you to go, I don't know anything about that, moving on with my life. That's it. It's like, fuck.

You know, my Irish mother, God bless her. She's a good woman. And she used to have this goofy expression I never understood as a kid. And she used to say, I know who I am, but you know who you are. And I used to be like, Mom, that doesn't make any sense. Now I'm going, crystal clear now.

Some profound shit, mom, right? I told you back then I knew what I was talking about. You know, but like, she's right. And, you know, I... It's 100% accurate. Yeah, you know, like, I just... You know, maybe just we need to start rapping people in bubble wrap and let them just hang out in the corner, right?

Because they're scared to, like, I don't know, walk in the room and something happened. I don't know if that solves anything, though. No, it just puts more plastic in the ocean in the garbage dumps. You know what I mean? But, like, I just, but, you know, back in the fire department, the proving ground was the firehouse kitchen. Because you'd walk in the first day in your dress uniform,

and, you know, the tradition was you brought a cake. And, you know, we had one guy in the academy. He's like, excuse me, sir, we being a cheesecake the first day, and you're considered a probie. So one guy from the military made up a son. song, I'm a pro bee. You might say, don't bring cheesecake. Your first day. And the instructor's like, no asshole. Bring a chocolate cake. Bring a pie. It doesn't have to be cheesecake. But you'd walk in and, you know, sir, if I'm a drunk, it's reporting for duty, and they're like,

where are you from, scumbag? Stand around, sir. They open up the cake. They take it and they fire it into the fucking garbage and you just spent, you know, $15 you didn't have. And you're like, the captain's upstairs, scumbag, welcome to the truck. And you're like, oh, whoa, this is going to be a long 20 years, right? And they just, the second they laid eyes on you, they were testing you out. Yeah. Same in the military, right? And they saw what you can take and what would make you break. Because if you broke easily in the firehouse kitchen, you were not making them on a fireground. You were going to fuck up and kill someone else. So they would try to weed you out quickly and do

you a favor and say, look, get yourself a job in training somewhere or get yourself a job where it's not so busy, you're a liability. And it was nothing against anyone personally. But when you're in a life and death profession, if you don't have guys who can cut it, it don't matter, black, white, green, brown, yellow, purple, this, that, whatever. If you can't cut it, you're getting a guy next to you dead. And there's no do-overs in the dead businesses, right? I mean, that's it. You know, and that's, now there's guys who've gone to court, to state Supreme Court because someone flowered their bunk. And he was- Seriously? Oh, I swear to God. They were offended. It's like, you gotta be, can I say the F word?

You already did. Yeah, I did. You're right. Are you fucking kidding me, right? I mean, I'm sorry. But you're a, what? Okay, yeah, the guy was testing you out and now you went to court. So you just had the whole unit broken up and everyone's been transferred away from their command because you have soft skin and you don't have, your feelings got hurt. So now we call it the Department of Feelings because of all these new little snowflakes. I'm sorry this is going to get me in trouble. Sorry, but I'm just saying reality. It's life and death jobs. And I'm not saying that some of the hazing might have been a little rough. Some of it was. I got the shit hazed out of me, but I handled it. I took it.

I also know somebody who got the shit hazed out of them. Yeah. Looks a lot like me. I think I wrote most of those checks. Yeah. Yeah. Well, but I'm sure there's just a tad of hazing in the seals, right? But I mean, but it's necessary.

It's part of the function of the, organization. But it's expressly prohibited by doctrine. Yeah. And that's where, you know, I think about when you're talking about it ending up in the state Supreme Court. That's not, if you're going to the state Supreme Court because somebody flowered your bed, which I'm assuming is just put flour all over your bed. Yeah, that's it. You're embarrassed. That's not what the, that's not what the court should exist for. No. I, so you're, you're misusing a system that is supposed to be there in my understanding, you know, the justice system, like get the fuck over it. Yeah. However, in the SEAL community, what I can tell you is,

that hazing, and I don't know what term they would use now. I'll talk about my experience and only my experience, because I'm detached from the military at this point. Sure. It was an invaluable tool. And to be honest, when they were hazing people, if you weren't getting hazed and your peers were, it almost made you feel out of place.

Like you wanted to be a part of that group. There's a reason why they, and I look back now, the people that you didn't haze were the ones that you think, thought we're going to, you know, basically report it and go down that path. Not that they would go in the military to the Supreme Court. Sure. Or people that you didn't like. The ones that, like my best friends were the ones that hazed the shit out of me.

Oh, yeah. And I'm not advocating hazing because it's, I don't know how, I don't have the vocabulary to describe the role that it filled in the community. But what I will say is that it was critical that it brought us together and it can absolutely be taken too far. I think the intent, I think the intent behind. it absolutely matters. Yes. And yeah, in the military, guess what? It's expressly prohibited by doctrine. Yeah. And it still happens. And the chain of command knows about it for all those people

out. They're like, oh, I didn't know that my men were doing that. Fuck you. Like Jack Nicholson and a few good men. Yeah. Yeah. It's like really, you were never a new guy, sir? Right. Shut up. But, but you know, we never, Andy, we never went to a vicious level. Like we say, that's the intent. Right. Right. Right. We always called it, you know, teasing was a sign of love. We call it grab-assing. The more we teased, the more we loved. But the guys who couldn't take it just couldn't get that we were trying to embrace them and teach them and say, hey, we want you to be one of us. We weren't exclusionary or elitist, but we were just, we had certain base standards that just had to be lived up to. Yeah. And now it's just, my God, you jeopardizing your entire

career for just little nonsense. And now if you're the supervisor, I ended up as a lieutenant before I had to retire. And the constant complaints, because you're like, you're shitting me, right? Like, you want to file charges for this? Come on. And yeah, they did. And I just, I shook my head. I cursed the day I ever studied.

I said, I just want to be back driving the Shamrock battleship. Ladder 114, time of my life, not a worry in the world. Just get that truck there, set it up, get in the window, go search, whatever. Now you're a lieutenant. You're still going in with the men. but now you have all the bullshit that comes with it. And in the better units, you didn't have that. You didn't deal with that.

But some of the units that weren't as busy or whatever, there was more time in their hands. It just happens. It's human nature. And just the crybaby stuff, I'm not, you know, I'm going to get hate mail out of this one because I'm not saying that all guys are like that.

But the ones who are crybabies know exactly who they are. Yeah. Cause the, you know, and it's funny because the ones with the biggest gripes at the table, at the kitchen table, were the ones that did the least. And it seems like that. society, right? The ones making the biggest noise nowadays have done the least for America.

And isn't, but yet they get, they get recognized. They're the ones who get in. Like I said, I feel like we've created this reward system. Oh, yeah, yeah. Where people are actually seeking out that recognition and largely seems like they'll do whatever they can do to get it. Oh, yeah. I remember, I remember, you know, I was an Army Reserve guy for eight years, but I remember in basic training, we had these brutal drill sergeants. And whatever task it was, they'd scream at you, substander, do it again. And you just do something a hundred times and you're going, I thought I was doing it perfect. You were, but they weren't going to tell you that.

Yeah. Because they wanted you to perfect it. And it was all part of that process to break you down to the lowest level. So you would then be built up to the highest because that's how you had to perform. And now, you know, you're not allowed to do that, right? In the Fire Academy now, the instructors, the drill instructors, they give each cadet a pile of yellow cards to wear in a uniform shirt. And if they feel you as their instructor is stepping out of line, they hand you a timeout card.

And you need to stand over in the corner and leave them alone for a few minutes. The service will be worse off because of that. Absolutely. Absolutely. And everyone's being put out of this service for that. Do they get to hand that to a fire when the fire is making them feel uncomfortable? Last I checked, it'll probably burst into flames in two seconds. But yeah, but right.

Interesting. Right. Or, you know, you're a cop and, you know, excuse me, Mr. Fleming felon. before you hurt my feelings and shoot me to death, I'm going to give you a time out. No, there's no time for that. And that's the, that's what pisses us off as old timers,

right? Because I'm not doubting the young folks that are doing the jobs now. I mean, I just went back home for 9-11 services. And I saw 24-year-old new firefighters and cops from around the country. And I said, hey, how old were your brother the morning 9-11? Well, sir, I was four. And I said, what are you doing here? And I said, because of the brotherhood, I went, that's it, outstanding.

I just wanted to hear the answer. And then I realized, okay, these young guys are getting it. They're getting the concept. But a lot of people outside of that subculture are not. You know, at least when we get these young people in and they get trained, they're getting it. But these other people, they're just, they have no clue. Just, you know, they have no clue with loyalty and what sacrifice. and, you know, putting yourself in front of a bullet for your friend, right?

It's all about the guy right next to you and nothing else matters. Most of the society has no idea what that concept means. I do. Sorry. You're going to sound better without a gun. I got it. I got it. I mean, you can take it out.

If you want to take it up the recording. It's gone. Sorry about that. Yeah, no worries, man. You know what it is? I'm so tired. I'm just using it to stay awake, but don't worry about. Yeah, so.

So what was life like as a firefighter before 9-11? It was great. I mean, obviously you guys spent a lot of time focusing on your mustache game. Yeah, yeah, that's a big thing. I have one too. I have this little spot. I can't. It's always like a bald spot.

It kisses me all for years. My dad's got this big, badass Tom Selleck mustache. I could never get that rock. It is one of the stereotypes that holds so incredibly true. Well, you know what it is. It makes up for the waving hair dude, the waving by-bye, you know. But, no, but yeah, it's just a tradition. Believe it or not, they say years and years ago, it was guys would wet it and they would

put it in their mouth and they would breathe and that would sort of filter someone to smoke out. I don't know how true that is and I have no nothing to back that up. I feel like that's just not true at all. Yeah, it's probably bullshit but I heard it. Some old carmer told me it and I believed them. But yeah, just the job was great. You know, I loved every minute of it. I couldn't wait to get on and you know, I tell some people I said I spent 22 years thinking I got paid to laugh, right? I mean, we just had, oh my God, the ball bustling. It was just, especially I spent about eight years in this lateral company 114. That was my command on the morning 9-11. And just, God, it was in heaven. It was my lightning in a bottle of my life. I know exactly what you're talking about.

If I go back, those guys, I just met with them on 9-11. Some of the guys are 75 years old. And we go back 30 years, and it's like the story just happened yesterday, right? And you laugh just as hard. And it's just like, God, it was so great. You know, in 1993, I was at the first bombing. And I was in a different command at the time, ladder 105, which was. a wonderful, wonderful place. And my first lieutenant who taught me firefighting and a lot about being a man, second dad to me, he just died of COVID. And I was just about to reach out to him to thank him. And I wrote him a letter when I made lieutenant. And he thanked me. And he was a John Wayne-esque type guy, you know, not much for emotion and not much. And when he was leaving,

his last day, hug me, he said, I love you, kid, I'm proud of you. I molded you and you listened. And that was as highest compliment, Lieutenant William T. Muddry, my. my idol and I was just about to call him to say hey boss thank you and I found out from one of the guys he just died but this other gentleman in 1993 I was at the first bombing which tower was that oh gosh you know shame on me it was in a parking structure well it was in it was in tower itself but it was in the garage of the trade center that's what I mean oh yeah yeah yeah it was in the bill it was south tower I'm thinking but god you know shame on me for not remembering at that time but I'm thinking south and uh

Was it vehicle-borne? Yeah, it was a U-Haul truck. And actually one of my buddies, his dad was a retired detective working in the private world, and he found the VIN number that helped track back to these dirtbags who did it. But in that afternoon, this gentleman, Henry Miller, wonderful guy. And when you're young, they always assign an older sage guy to keep you under their wing so you don't get hurt. And he's looking around and he goes, Ah, Nels, you know what? They did it wrong.

They did it here in the middle. If they come back and they got a column in the corner, they would have dropped this thing in Canal Street. He goes, but don't worry, they'll be back. He says, in your career, you'll be back here. No shit. Swear to God. And two years later, they had a train manual with the Trade Center on it, with a bullseye. And he said, not a matter of if, a matter of when.

Train and train right. They knew something was coming. Yeah. And the cruel irony was on the morning of 9-11, Henry Miller was in 105 truck again, working. And my beloved lieutenant in 114 truck, Dennis Oberg, his rookie, or as we say, Roby's son was under Henry's wing that morning, and they died together, 50 yards from my childhood best friend, John Schart.

Fuck. And John Schart was unbeknownst to him. He was going to have his third child. And I got home four days later, and my wife gave me the great news of we're having our third child. And I said, well, John's having a baby too, but he's dead. We knew at that point he was gone. And so the job was great in the 90s. You know, I was having a time of my life. I was younger. I was fitter. I was just, you know, you never stopped learning in that profession. So the day you could do 34, 35, 40 years. You're still learning something.

What are you doing it? You said your dad did 34 years, 35? Yeah, 30. What job do you have at the end? Like 35 years in, I can't even imagine the experience that you have. What position are you generally holding? Well, it depends. I mean, if you study up, you know, it's not,

promotions are based on merit exam, what they're trying to do away with that. And there's a stack of manuals as high as this table. And it's all about five, five, five, and procedures and you need to know how to fight a fire in a subway and a loft apartment building and a high-rise office building and a factory and a sub-basement that's four floors below the sidewalk. I mean, there's just massive amounts of stuff you need to know. And the test, I studied for four years to be a lieutenant. It was brutal. I mean, it was a hard, hard test. So some guys decide to study up and then they go lieutenant, the captain of battalion chief,

deputy chiefs, then staff chiefs, and then the top five of the command. And other guys like that I decided they call it the back step. They just want to be a grunt for those 20, 30, 40 years. And they're damn good at it. And you've got some of the grunts that know more than some of the books marked. Oh, hell yeah. It's cool they let them do that because in the military, it's this forced ascension. Yes.

It's, you know, your rank and your pay is based off an Excel spreadsheet. Yeah. How long have you been in for and what's your rank? And it comes across. And they'll hire tenure. Well, they were doing this at least when I was in. You make this rank by a certain amount of time or higher tenure. starts coming around. So it's this forced dissension. Yeah. And the higher you get into the rank

structure, both off faster on the officer side, but on the enlisted side, the farther you would get away from the fire to use your guys. Yeah, no. Terminology. It's similar. But it's cool, though, that guys have the choice. Yes. That they can say. Oh, no, you could stay, you could stay, like we had guys, we call say it in the latter company, the can man. Some guys, that's the, that's the junior position under the lieutenant. But sometimes the saltiest old guy wants to be right there with the lieutenant because he knows it's a brand new lieutenant. and he might not know a lot. He's keeping all you guys.

Right. So he's there. Look, it's a really unique process. And then you have the guys that drive. They become, in a ladder company, you know, you're setting up the truck and you're still kind of setting up this big metal ladder or the tower ladder bucket, as we call a cherry picker, some people say. You're getting up in it and you're blasting in a window and you're going to look for people. Or then you've got the guys in the engine who are operating the pumps. But these guys that drive for 30 years in a district.

They can, in their sleep with their eyes closed, get you to those locations because they've just done it hundreds of thousands of times. It's incredible, actually, to watch them. And it almost is like an art form. And then some guys that become really, really good at breaking down doors. You know, it's not just a sledgehammer, you know, it's a Halligan bar, which is like a big crowbar. One of my favorite tools. It's all, oh, God, burglars love to steal them off the fire truck.

Oh, do they really? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I had a thought about that. Oh, in a burglar community, that's a lot of money. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, a thousand. That's hotter than a handgun in New York City if you steal a halogen of a fire truck.

If you know how to use one, it'll do more for you than a handgun. Oh, yeah. And it's a good backup weapon. Spike will probably get done. Yeah, it'll do it. But, yeah, so you watch some of these guys. They were almost like artists the way they took a door within a couple seconds. And, you know, I ran into a guy this old-timer who worked with my dad.

And the sad thing for my dad is he's the last of his crew that's alive. He says, I'm the last of Mohicans kid, and it breaks my heart. And I ran into an old-timer. My dad doesn't say much, you know. And he says, oh, my God, you're Georgie's kid because Jorgensen, Jorgie's the nickname. I said, oh, yes, sir. He goes, holy shit, that guy could blow a door off of hinges in like two seconds. I saw him take 20 doors down the hallway one night.

I go, my dad? Oh, yeah, what are you? He never told me. He was one of those guys scored touchdown. Look for the ref, hand on the ball, walk off the field. class act. And when you saw some of those old timers, they literally floated on the fireground.

They didn't even walk. They just, they just incredible, incredible. And I learned so much from them, so much. You got to get underneath those people's wings and shut the fuck up and take notes. Yep. And you will learn a PhD worth of firefight knowledge

in a couple few years. Yeah, by just be quiet, keep your eyes and your ears open and follow them. Incredible. When you find an old man in a young man's profession, pay attention. They're damn good.

Oh, yeah. I just had a gentleman. who, you know, building a house, and he's a master cabinet maker. He costs a little more, but to watch the work that this man does. Wow, an artist. And I love that. I love craftsmen. I love people that are passionate about what they do and damn good at it.

Agreed. Yeah. So 9-11, were you on shift? I feel like everybody towards the end of the day was on shift, but. Yeah, I was moonlighting, which we do up there, you know, two, three jobs. Meaning working outside of the finals. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, I was a truck driver and a security guy and a roofer.

And, you know, you did what you had to do, you know, to hustle to keep your wife home with the kids or keep them in Catholic school. And I was driving an oil truck on that morning in the north end of Staten Island, which kind of looks over the harbor. You see the ferry leaving from Staten Island. You see Lady Liberty out to the left. Ellis Island just passed it. And the tower is right down the middle. And you just, it's a five, six mile shot, but you just could look right. at him and it was driving an oil truck and I was leaving on the route and I heard on the news

radio which I'm still obsessed with just all was listening and they said a plane just struck the towers so initially you know being cynical being jaded I'm like ah some learjet pilot you know you know your pilot I'm a student pilot I figured he got caught when just kind of pulled him off you know his route and he just couldn't pull it back and he hit the tower that was the initial report yeah I truly thought it was a lear jet It's just a guy he's getting his client to get a closer shot and, oh shit. It was like that Yankee, Corey Lidell, God rest him.

He was coming down the river. And he got caught and he got buffeted into a high-rise building to his death, right? And those winds down there are vicious. I forgot he did a building. Yeah, and I mean, that could happen. You know, the corridor down there is very strict. It's very now, and because it has to be

because the winds come whipping down from the buildings along the rivers on either side. And it's like a funnel just shooting you somewhere. So I thought exactly that. I'm like, oh boy, some guy messed up. Long story. You know, they don't want you running in off duty on your own time because of accountability. As you know, you're assigned to a unit.

You have a unit commander. If you just show up off duty with no assignment, no one's looking for you. Now you're lost. They don't know you're even there. So second plane hits. I said, okay, this is bad. Through the truck, got my car with that. They gave what's called a recall.

In New York City, police fire EMS. If it's given, you're obligated. to go to your command to be deployed to an assignment. So I raced into my firehouse. I called command. Our on-duty shift, 114 was gone. They were dispatched to the scene. I saw the response ticket.

Oh boy, they're there. And our command said get a city bus. When you get 12 members or firefighters, take the city bus, get there. So we did. Our platoon commander at the time, Brian Gorman, he took command. He says, all right, go outside, get me a bus.

We threw the people off. being jaded New Yorkers. They didn't want to get off the bus. They really didn't know what was going on. So we said, look, get the fuck off the bus. Or you're coming with us. Get the fuck off. Or you're coming to a terrorist attack.

And they were like, what? Terrorist attack? Yeah. And they got off the bus. And this guy, John, we just found his name out recently. He said, I'm sorry, I can't give you the bus, but I will take you there. And we said, sir, we do not want to put you in harm's way. He said, I'm sorry.

My dispatch said, do not relinquish the bus. Went to two other firehouses, picked up the off-duty platoons. So you guys are all decked out in your turnouts, though? You probably are your breathing apparatus? Yeah, well, everything you guys can carry. We didn't have any extra breathing apparatus. That's, again, too expensive. They don't give you extras.

We just got whatever we could. We fielded it together, whatever tools, equipment we could. And we got on a boss, yeah, with our personal bunker gear, helmets, gloves. And as we were coming over to Brooklyn Bridge, the second tower came down. So in my mind, I let my guys down. I didn't get there on time. And initially we thought we lost 500 firefighters. In the end, 343 New York City firefighters,

37 Port Authority Police, which is the airports, the Trade Center Police Force themselves, 23 New York City Police Department, about 12 emergency medical technicians, paramedics, a couple of court officers from state courts, and a couple of FBI agents, and they all perished trying to help someone. And we basically went on,

we waited for assignment, we got deployed on recomm missions, on rescue missions, on search, whatever we could do. Initially, we thought it was going to be a rescue mission, and very quickly after the last two survivors, which were Port Authority police officers well into that night, were retrieved, it was quite obvious, it was becoming a recovery operation, and I believe after about four days it was officially deemed one. So that morning, we were at about four in the morning, and we couldn't breathe. We couldn't see the lieutenant. It was literally like we swallowed a box of razor blades.

And he said, guys, look, we're useless right now. We were trying to, we were shuttling in equipment. We were trying to, you know, once those cops were gotten out, we were just trying to go in other areas. And I remember going off of the side with one older fireman. And it was just like dust coming down. It was almost like a pile of sand and a dune. And you could kind of hear it.

And you hear some hissing and just, and he goes, kid, what do you hear? I hear the dust. I hear, you know, because everything was pulver. into dust. And I said, I hear some hissing like gas lines water. He goes, yeah, but what else? And I looked over and it was a lady's high heel shoe and it was a lady's handbag. I said, what do you mean? He said, what else do you hear? I said, nothing. He goes, yeah, where's all the people? And I went, and he goes, they're dead kid. No one's coming out. And at first I was like, no, no, we always get everybody out. You know, even if they're burned, God, burn beyond recognition,

we still find someone. We weren't finding anyone. We weren't finding anyone. And as the days went on, you know, second day there, I remember there was a Fed dog handler and he said, you got something. There's a hit. And we dug furiously probably half the size of this table, caught and rebar. I was going to say by Doug, I mean, you're going through structural steel. Oh, hours. Yeah.

I mean, for a square is half the size of this, this deep. It took about five, six hours to get two feet down through the rebar, the cue decking. I mean, pulling out little pile. It was just so frustratingly slow. And then the dog started barking. He goes, you got it. And I said, sir, what do you mean? And there was what didn't appear to us initially to be a remains.

He goes, that's it. Bag it, you have it. So we put it into a hazmat bag, labeled it kind of where we were, roughly. Yeah. I said, sir, you fucking with us? And he said, what are you talking about? I said, we just dug for six hours. What did we just find?

He goes, human remains. And he says, let me explain something to you. He says, you guys are used to recovering a full human being. It's not happening here. He says, these human beings have been pulverized out of anatomy. He goes, there's just going to be parts. He goes, there may be a few of them intact. And there ended up being at, you know, 2977 souls, about 200.

80, 190 people that were found somewhat intact. Half the people were never even found, not even any remains. Yeah. Which doesn't surprise me. Yeah. Oh, the energy involved was massive. It was massive. I mean, it pulverized steel.

You know, this huge iconic structure, world known was now, from 110 stories, was less than a 10-story pile of just rubble. And it was hard to comprehend, like, where the frig did everything go? And where is everybody? Right? It was almost like when you're playing Manhunt as a kid, you know, there's 12 of you, and then a sudden they're gone. Where'd the frig they go?

And they're underneath or some of them were just literally pulverized away. For the bodies that were relatively intact, did they find them on the higher floors? Or was there something consistent about where they were when the buildings fell? No consistency. Just sometimes pockets created in the debris? Exactly. Yeah.

Some pockets just. just it was almost luck of to draw if you were in a stairwell and there was a you know lean to collapse around you you might have been found underneath that pocket but then we have a gentleman we interviewed his son and this gentleman al braka who's this lovely soul who was on a hundred fourth floor knew they weren't getting out and there was people jumping from those floors and he was a devout Christian and he gathered the people around and he held their hands and there's there's cell phone accounts of this folks called their families and said look I'm not getting out, but I'm with Al.

They called him the Rev, and we're praying, and we're hoping for the best. And he just said to them, who's going home to see Jesus with me today? And strange enough, Al, I believe they're on about the 102nd second floor. His body was found atop the pile, just about fully intact, his wedding ring on. He was identifiable. His son, it was within about five or six days, I believe. Now, people without faith might say that's bullshit, right? Me, devout faith, that's somewhat miraculous because here's this guy who prayed with 50 people as they perished.

And they found him, one of the only ones. And people were literally jumping out of those upper floors. And they were burning to death. And in their desperate attempt to live, they were taking garbage bags on umbrellas and sweatshirts. And whatever they could find to try to break their fall someone, right? Maybe they thought it was like a mini parachute. I don't blame them. And the first firefighter that was killed on the scene, Daniel Sir was hit by a jumper.

I did not know that. Yeah. And he was the first fatality. The second fatality officially recorded as far as rescuers was our beloved, beautiful fire chaplain, Father Michael Judge. He was given last rights to victims inside the lobby, and he was struck by debris in the head from a partial collapse, and he was killed. And they have that historic photo of him being led away out of respect and dignity to, you know, to, give to him and they brought him up to St. Peter's Church to just lay him out temporarily.

And Daniel Sir, one of my dear friends is crushed with guilt over this because there's a photo of a ladder truck that's proceeding over the Brooklyn Bridge with the towers burning in the distance, ladder 118. And every guy in that truck died.

And the engine company just the front of them, which you don't see, engine 205, well their initial assignment was to carry Daniel Sir's body, get him 50 yards across the street to the firehouse so he can be given some bit of dignity and basically as my friend said it was very difficult to pick up that crushed body yeah someone hits him at 120 miles now from 104 floors so it took 30 40 minutes to physically manually carry him over get him up into the bunk

house cover him up and put a sign please deceased member treat with dignity and respect we will come back and you know and in the interim ladder company went up to do another assignment normally the engine and the ladder would go together, but because they were broken apart, by the time the engine got back and got other orders, the building just came down on them. They were just on the periphery, but their colleagues were killed. And my friend still lives with that. He said, if we weren't carrying Danny, we're dead. And I said, I know, but it's easier for me to say this, but I said, you did your job, you followed your orders, and your fate didn't have it that you was supposed to be. But he can't, he can't get past that. It's really hard to make sense of things

like that. I know people who, you know, Survivor's guilt is a real thing. Even in the community that I come from. Brutal. Why did the bullet go there? I was standing right next to this person. It's a real thing.

And I don't have any answers for it. Other than it's incredibly difficult to explain. And for some people, it's impossible to get past. I agree. Andy, you know, it's how you manage it. You know, it's like,

if you use alcohol as an analogy, right? You could be at a function with 12 guys. and a couple guys can have two beers and be out of their minds. And a couple guys could have 20 beers and be looking at you like, no big deal. And I think it's just how we humanly process things. And it has nothing to do with, you know, strength or courage. It's just how we react, you know. Like a friend of mine calls them significant emotional events.

And it's how we as humans process them and get rid of them, you know. and when you have multiple significant emotional events, it just sort of builds up. It's like that how much can you take before you push below the water? Some people, damn good swimmers, can tread a hell out of water, me. Not so much.

I find that to be true in the profession of combat arms as well. You could have six people to make up a number. Experience exactly the same thing. Obviously, each experience would be different through the eyes or the lens of that person, but largely the same experience with six very different reactions. Five of them could be fine.

One of them could be crushed. Five of them could be, and by crushed, I mean, have substantial issues that they're working through. Yeah. Five could be crushed.

One could be fine. Three and three. It's, human beings are interesting creatures. We really are. We're all unique. We all react. We all behave.

We're all different, you know, and that's the sad outfall now for our people in our class, you know, our protector, warrior class, you know, responders,

military. is it's 20 years on now. And you know with multiple deployments, the human body and the brain cannot properly process that. You can't. You can't filter that out. And, you know, you're maxing people out, and then they break. And then the human wreckage is just cast to the side

because it's no longer contributing or it's no longer valuable. And it's sad because now you have these men and these women in the height of their life. and they feel useless and they feel like they don't matter anymore and it hurts because you know this last few weeks some of the phone calls are heartbreaking

and you don't know what to say to these guys except I love you I'm sorry I know what you're feeling yeah I think that sometimes that's all you can say so you can say man and you know they know it's real and they know you mean it and you know

the prevailing sentiment in the last few months is and a bunch of my I served no combat. I was only a weekend warrior for eight years. It was close during the first Gulf war but didn't go. Some of my warrior buddies that have been there and they've been combat wounded, they said, I feel so betrayed. I feel so let down. I feel like no one gives a shit about me anymore. And that hurts and I'll say, but brother, I give a shit about you. And they said, I know you do, but what about society? And if I said they definitely do, maybe I'm lying to them, right? At this point,

I think they definitely don't because it's no longer front and center. Yeah. I don't think they intend not to. Yeah. I think that we are constantly bombarded with shit. Yes. It doesn't matter. But we're a willing participant in that system.

Oh, yeah. Because God forbid, we put our device down and turn the fucking TV off. I agree. So it's not like there's this intent for them to be swept aside. But I think if you tell them, hey, people do actually care what you did does matter to a lot of people. It may be untrue. But it will always matter to the people that serve them to the left and to the right. Yes.

And that's the thing. Like sometimes people feel we're an exclusionary class, but we're not. You know, we're not like, oh, you're shit because you didn't serve. We don't feel that way at all. But in a certain way, and I would never even compare what you and your fellow SEALs did. You know, you guys are just the top of the top, right? Trust me, we're not. We're basically monkeys with machines.

Well, you know, we all have dysfunction in no matter what the organization, right? I mean, it's just, it's human nature. But you and I can look across at each other and say, if we were in a venue right now, you know, there was a mass shooting in Tennessee yesterday. At a Kroger. At Kroger, where I shop, not this specific one. But I know that if you and I were there, we would have charged that guy to prevent those 12 other people from being shot. Most people would just take off for the exits.

And you know what? Can I blame them? I don't know. But I think in today's society, it's hard for young people, especially to be self-less because they're not being taught that. They're being taught it's all about them. And just like you said, and I'm not going to lie, you know, I'm somewhat married to my device because, you know, there's just a lot of things on there, connections, family, communication. But I say to my kids, look up and look up. Look at the person you're talking with or in a relationship with and look up to your creator. You might not have a deep faith and I don't preach.

We came from somewhere, but just be thankful and stop letting this thing. You know, you watch people, it's ruling their life. You know, I saw a young lady walk into a manhole one day almost because she was so, and I'm not faulting her or whatever, but. I'm kind of faulting her and judging her right now. I guess, yeah, I am too. I'm bullshitting you, right? But, you know, and I feel bad because if it was my daughter, I'd say, what do you do it?

And, you know, and my kids, I love them, they're great kids, but they're like, ah, here's the old man again, here he goes, pencils and typewriters, and writing notes. I mean, I used to write letters to my grandma in Ireland. And two weeks later, it couldn't wait to get the response letter back. And there was. You call me Master Nils Jorgensen. I ripped that thing open. And, you know, she'd send me like an Irish, you know, note that, you know, like the pound they had.

They call it the pound. It's like a buck and a half year or whatever. And man, it was the greatest thing in the world to wait that two weeks and then sent her another one. And then two weeks later get another one. And now I could talk to my cousins in Ireland instantaneously, you know, and we go back and forth, they, you know, bust my chops, you brass yanks. And I'm like, listen, the next time someone storms your shores, just dial 911 and we'll show up. You know, and oh, I like to hammer the shit out of them, right? That's the beauty of those devices.

Oh, absolutely. I think the downside is there's so much negative information that comes through it that it really informs people's behavior. in view of the world. Well, there's vitriol, there's anger, this hatred. And again, we're trying to, we're trying to push that away with, you know, what we're doing. We're trying to get messages out there. We're involved in this charity tribute podcast.

But there was this tragic event a little while back in my alma mater in my high school, a 15-year-old girl, they spread this big rumor about her and she was, you know, I don't want anybody linking it, you know, in the names of the family and whatever I respect to them. But people started a vicious rumor that was untrue. the girl leapt in front of a train and ended her life at 15 because of bullshit that was on social media. Instead of people saying nice things, right? And that's what I say to people. It's so easy to be nice. When you smile, when you say hello, when you, it's actually contagious. It's harder to be a prick than it is to be nice, right? And yet people are just so good at being

pricks. And I don't get it. You know, like, you know, I had a girl yesterday, like, stopped to just pull off to the side to safely answer a text. She could have went around me. It was in a parking lot. She comes right up behind me blowing the horn. And I'm like, and I don't want to be harping on the negative. But I'm like, what did that just do for you? Like, did that make your day to be nasty?

And I don't understand it. You know, and it's, but if we could spread it, you know, acts of kindness get contagious. You do something nice. Someone else does something nice. But all of a sudden it spread to 50 people in an hour, you know. but yeah i'm going off i'm going off on a tangent andy that's right we could go trust me we could go there yeah back to uh 9-11 at ground zero what kind of radio traffic was coming back from the the firefighters that were going up into

the towers you know the radios didn't work right and that was another thing it was about money i'm going to get in trouble with this one too you know so i'm glad i'm retired but we we had issues of our radios for years in the subways we couldn't contact anyone you know you'd be down a thousand feet down a subway tunnel hoping the trains aren't going to come and run your ass over because you're fighting a fire in a storage room

and you couldn't hear command they couldn't hear you same thing you go up in a high-rise building and you got a fire ripping on the 60th floor and the chief's down there going what's going on and you just hear crickets nothing and unfortunately some of that happened on 9-11

but then some of the guys the transmissions were just so routine. It was like they were fighting another fire. You know, we had this legendary fire captain, Patrick Brown, who was a combat Marine in Vietnam, and he was the commander, a ladder three. And you hear him on the upper floors, just talking to dispatch. It was like a routine day at the races. Like, we got it. You know, we're going to need five more engines. We got, we need four more trucks for rescue and, you know, evacuation and this and that. And, you know, and it was like, oh, shit, they're going to get this. We're going to get this. And then tragedy.

But some of the units that were crying out for help, they were trapped, the partial collapses that started just before the massive collapse. No one even heard their cries. And it's kind of criminal in a way because nothing was done about it. They're still using the same radios? No, they finally did improve them, but it took about another year and a half. But the kicker is the money they saved closing eight firehouses in May of 2002 paid for the radios. they shut firehouses in New York City after 9-11. And on the morning of 9-11, we didn't have enough fire coverage.

For the first time in the history of New York City Fire Department, we had to be bailed out by New Jersey, Long Island, Connecticut. And God bless those guys for coming to bail us out. I got no grudge against that. But in the biggest fire department in the world, we didn't even have backup trucks. You'd think they'd have, you know, out of a fleet of 425 trucks, maybe 50, just kind of like for, you know, best.

said something happens? Nope. Didn't have them. Had to borrow trucks, had a, you know, manufacturers that were kind enough to just say, here, here's a quick 12 here. I'm sorry, it's incompetence. I'm going to have some old-time commanders, this and that. Fuck lit me over that one, but fuck them. Because after 93, we knew something was coming and they weren't prepared. And I had a big-time commander in December of 01 come down. I was filling in a firehouse. South Street Seaport because they were all killed 14 guys and they asked older guys to come down and just help out. And some big time commander won't name him, he came down to bust our balls about going back out on building inspections. And I said, sir, by the by, I said, and I'm just a first level firefighter at that point.

And he's probably the fourth in command of the whole fucking department. I said, sir, by the by, I understand your concern about the inspection duties happening. And I said, you know, we're going to absolutely do that. And I'm speaking, my lieutenant gave me like the, go ahead, because he knew I had the big mouth and I didn't care. I said, but you know, in the morning of 9-11, when we showed up off duty and we got handed 69-cent store hardware painters masks that basically stuck to our faces within 40 seconds because we were just sweating. And we didn't have the tools to effectively break into doors and the surrounding buildings. We had to go into hardware stores and ask them if we could steal their shit. I said, please tell me that there's pallet loads of Scott Airpacks and Halligan bars and sledgehammers and all of these stuff, all of these tools that we need.

Please tell me there's pallet loads of them right now deployed throughout the city at a standing ready point for the next attack that's probably going to come. And he went, oh, whoa, I said, sir, please tell me he got in his car and they drove away. And then I got reprimanded for speaking out of the chain of command. at that point we just like, fuck you. You didn't, you're not leading properly. And that hurt because so many of our guys were gone and all the politics was still going on. And I understand that there was a lot happening.

But my God, we have all these federal resources. We have all these departments around the country. We couldn't field a thousand halogens and a thousand scompacks and a thousand of whatever we needed within three, four months. To me, that's incompetence. I'm sorry. Yeah. How long did you end up working at Ground Zero?

I ended up down there. It lasted for nine months. The final symbolic last piece of steel was taken out on May 30, 2002. Were they continuing to look for human remains the entire time, or did at some point did it switch to just moving material? Well, the city actually wanted to. There was a war going on between a fire union and the city administration, because they wanted to speed up the process,

because of the commerce involved. They wanted those buildings up, you know, the insurance underwriters and whoever, they wanted that place frickin' cleared and a new foundation poured like next month. And we were like, no, we're going through this respectively and try to find these souls that are gone. So they kept speeding us up.

And what happened was in the Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island, which was a large garbage dump at the time, which was since closed, it was the city's garbage dump. They set up the, this hill, it was like this hill of death, and they'd bring truckload after truckload of 9-11 debris. And then there would be guys detailed to that unit for quite a some time, and they would just sift through this stuff with rakes, and then it would come up with remains, and then they'd process them. So for months, for months after the close down of the actual site, there was still that pile

that was being sorted through, and they were finding remains for months almost, year. And then now they just identified two people literally three weeks ago that were still in the medical examiners in vaults because they keep developing these new ways of identifying DNA. So literally 20 years after these people died, they were just identified three weeks ago. When did you start getting sick from your time at Ground Zero? I started feeling really shitty in like 08, 09. And what happened was, In 2006, the first official death of a responder was a detective James Adroga, who was one of those poor souls sifting through that pile of death out at the landfill.

And then he was at the medical examiner who was trying to put identifications on these souls. And Jimmy came down with really bad lung disease. And the city administration, Jimmy basically in hospice, was in such a bad way. his lungs were so bad they were literally protruding through his body it looked almost like baseball gloves and his doctor at the time told him just to just to grind up his painkillers and snort him or drink him or just to just to get quick relief so the city medical examiner found the talcum lining from the pill casings in his lung tissue and they tried to say that he was an opiate abuser and he didn't die of lung disease and they tried to deny his family the benefit and his father was a retired police chief and he said, bullshit. And they went and they got with this group called the Feel Good Foundation,

this gentleman, John Field, who's just this, he's an army vet. He was an iron worker and demo contractor who lost half his foot a couple days into the recovery operation, ended up in the hospital for six months, got sepsis, got out and had $600,000 of medical bills that no one would pay. So he married up with James Adrogh's father. And he's, he's, other groups of unfortunately many firefighters who were dying to start lobbying for our health care because they just wouldn't pay it. So I started feeling sick. What was their reasoning for not paying? Money. There was so many guys coming down and now you're talking about it. Of course they wouldn't say, hey, we're not going to pay for this just because of the cost. What would they deny the

claims? Would they basically say it's not from your time? Oh yeah. Well, at the time, they said you have to prove you were sick from here. So how do you do that? How do you in a profession, especially with firefighting, where statistically we get cancer more often than the civilian population, but now guys that are 32, 35, 37 coming down with these rare, crazy fucking cancers and lung diseases. And now autoimmune diseases, which still aren't covered. And they're like, nope, nope, no link, no link. And our former mayor, Bloomberg basically said, there's no link to 9-11 in cancer. And guys were like, bullshit, there's no link. Guys are dropping like flies. But this was in the mid-0-200s, 2004, or 5, or 6. Finally, after Jimmy's case and his dad and

John Field getting on this. And there was firefighters that had terminal cancers, Ray Fifer, and Detective Luis Alvarez, they were literally lobbying Congress dying in their wheelchair on oxygen, shaming these politicians who was run down the hallways because I went there a couple times with him. These politicians would see John Feele and his army coming down the hall and they would literally bug out and hide in a cloakroom, hide in a conference room. And we go in and say, come out here. Come out here, you fucking coward and sit and have a meeting. And John Stewart, the actor finally got involved a couple years later and he shamed them in Congress. And he's like, do your jobs. You know, these people lined up two, three deep on the west side.

highway starting on 912 which was actually a beautiful day because people were unified flying a flag we love you hugging kissing and these politicians couldn't be quick enough to get a photo and a hashtag never forget hashtag we love you hashtag responder you know all the blah blah bullshit that they you know love to get themselves in the press with and now all of a sudden they did the disappearing act a few years later when we really needed their help so I ended up starting to feel like shit and I just chalked it off to, you know, getting older, football, firefighting, just, you know, maybe not eating right, being 40 pounds overweight, you know, whatever it is. But then I knew something was wrong.

And I kept telling my doctor, who unfortunately on the outs, she was my outside doctor, but also a fire department doctor. And I've heard you say in the past that the Navy doctors, they're not so good. Well, what I will generally say is the people who get Ds in medical school, or Navy doctors? Yeah. Well, the people who get Gs in. medical school or FDMI doctors. I'm sorry, I'll probably get it. Some of them are pretty good. There's one doctor who was actually in Afghanistan. I won't give his name. He was incredible,

but he left through the incompetence. He saw it. He goes, no, I'm out. But anyway, so in 2010, I was relieved of my command because I had a moment with a big upper supervisor over a procedure. And I technically was right, but he cursed me out. And I told him, you're not going to do that. And we got into it. And I lost. I was subordinate. I I lost. So they sent me to bed Lieutenant Camp and I went for a medical and the results didn't find me because I wasn't in my command. And you know, as it is in bureaucracy, it's not so well oiled a machine a lot of times. Well, that medical result just floated around until a year later when I was in a cancer hospital and someone got it to me. And it said then that I had cancer.

So I was probably walking around for a year. Yeah, leukemia. But leukemia. But leukemia. Leukemia is a strange beast because leukemia is different than an organ cancer, and I found this out the hard way. I went, the fire department pulled me off the truck in July of 11 and said my platelets were crashed. They were gone. That's your clotter. My spleen was the size of a freaking Rolling's football. And it was, there was something obviously way to frig wrong. And I was begging for them to say, please tell me what the fuck is wrong with me.

I was physically dying. I knew it. Something was way wrong. And almost four weeks later, I was. I showed up to see this doctor for a differential diagnosis. And the guy at the checking desk went, a lieutenant, she's gone for the day. I went, well, what do you mean?

I'm really bad right now. Like, I should have just went to the hospital. I said, what do you mean? Called her ex-O and he's like, oh, shit, yeah, yeah, we're out in a restaurant. We'll be back in 20 minutes. Well, they came back three hours later, and by that time I was on the floor, semi-conscious.

And the doctor who had the duty that day coded me and called 911 and they're six foot seven tall African-American paramedical I love in the military as you know we call the medics doc and he sees me he's like holy shit 114 where you been I said ah doc I promoted out I'm on the other side of Brooklyn and he goes to man man I didn't see you in a while what it was is we would do car wrecks underneath the elevated highway we'd cut him out of the crumpled car and we'd hand him off the dock and doc would bring him back to life so now I'm as red as a friggin' tomato and he says to me, hey man, you're not one of those surfer dudes down in Rockaway Beach, all you? You get a bad sunburn? I says, hey, Doc, I'm too fat to fly the surfboard,

bro. I go, I hand him my jacket, my medical folder, which is now, you know, frigging thick with paperwork. And he goes, holy shit, how come you're not in the hospital? I went, ask these jokers. So now he gets into it with the doctor, overrides her, races me to the trauma center, which is a cancer center. And in the ambulance, he says, bro, I hate to. to tell you this, you got cancer. I said, I know. I said, I had a couple people in my family telling me it didn't look too good. They diagnosed me, they tell me it's the rarest leukemia you can have. Leukemia is different than an organ cancer. It's not really stages. I said, well, where am I at? They said, well, leukemia is like a car. It drives to the edge of the cliff and then it goes off

the cliff. I said, well, where am I? They said, your two front wheels are off the cliff. We're going to try to pull the car back and hopefully hold it there for now. And I'm like, oh, that's not. not good. So they drilled into my hip. They figured out what it was. The medicine that I needed is extremely rare. They had a fly it in from Cleveland Clinic. And they hooked me up and my nurse Mike Nunes came in with a hazmat suit and he says, this stuff is so caustic that if it gets on your skin or on me, it'll burn right through. He said, but when it's in your veins, it's designed to burn away the cells but not the others. And I'm like, how the hell is that possible? Well, science guy is way above my pay grade.

Correct me if I'm wrong. Leukemia is blood cancer, right? It's blood and bone marrow, yeah. Yeah, so basically my bone marrow was producing cancerous blood cells. Okay. It just could not stop. So basically I phrase certain deaths if they could not mitigate that, like now. So he said this to me.

He goes, look, they're going to give you two and a half years worth of chemo in seven days, bags this freaking big. It's never going to stop. You're going to feel like you're burning. into death from the inside out. But if it works, you got a real good shot at long-term emission. And I said, but if it doesn't, he goes,

I said, I'm going home. Okay, I'm going home. So he goes to start the IV and when he preps it, it shoots out a little bit and it lands on the tube, the plastic tube, and the tube starts to melt and smoke. And it went, Mike, you're not putting that shit in me, bro, right? He said,

and I started crying. I'm not embarrassed to say it, right? I'm like, Mike, fuck out of it. He goes, listen to me. You see those three little kids that were just here at my children? He goes, if you don't do it, you're not going to see them after a couple more days. And I went, okay, bro, just give me a second. I got it right with the creator. And I said, whatever, let's do it, God.

And Andy, within about two seconds, you know, it's like if you drink some hard booze, right, and you feel that burn and it started burning up my arm. Like instantaneously, you're talking. Oh, I'm talking like now. Yeah, it was like no, like, whoa. and it started going up my arm and it went across my shoulder and up into my head

and now you're just like you're uncomfortable and then within 30 seconds my entire body it felt like beastings like I was burning from the inside out and he goes okay that's what it's gonna do

for seven days and he wanted to hit me up with pain meds and I said I can't I know people I love that it's destroyed their life on the morning of the seventh day I finally said I can't do it anymore. Hit me with whatever the fuck you got.

I want to die. I was praying to die the first night. Doctors told me if you live through the first two nights, you got a good shot at living through the treatment. The treatment is so caustic. It kills a lot of the patients the first couple nights. Your heart gives out your liver, your kidneys. But I was young.

The leukemia I have is usually found in elderly men who worked in oil refineries, specifically jet fuels and diesel fuels. So now there's the man. mystery. It was the burning fuels. And I was over by seven world trade for quite a while, which had a 25,000 gallon diesel tank because it was the backup generator for the 911 system for the city. So I was just breathing in that shit, that soot for a couple days straight. Isn't that the building that fell down that everybody uses as their conspiracy theory?

Yeah. Yeah. And being a guy who got like a fucking Z and chemistry and physics, this is my thing. And I already got, you know, people telling me I'm covering up. Tower 7, bro. Yeah, bruh. Well, listen, brus, this is what it is. Steel fails at 1,500 degrees sustained burn. It fails. If this was a, you know, structural...

That shit's plastic. That's failing at like 42 degrees. I think it's made in China, too. What's going on here, Andy? No, no. Right. But, yeah, so if you took a piece of steel and you burned it at 1,500 degrees for 30 minutes, it just fails.

Well, jet fuel, kerosene, gas fuel burns at a sustained burn of 2,200 degrees. So now you get some of these yo-yoes who say, well, it's impossible. There wasn't enough fuel. No, there was plenty of fuel. These guys were smart. They took fully loaded planes at a Newark airport. They swung over four miles and, boof, they were fully loaded.

So at 2,200 degrees, what happened with the Trade Center, and number seven was the diesel tank that was literally hung up in the building. It was, you know, like vertically hung down. Oh, it was like inside the building? Oh, yeah, it was inside the basement of the building, 25,000 gallons of fuel. Oh, wow. So when that tank failed and then that fuel just started to literally think about it, you got three feet deep of the basement of a structure.

Now it's just burning at 2,200 degrees. Well, I'm no genius, you know, hence my career is a fireman. Right. After a little while, the steel just went, roop. Yeah. And the building, if you look at it and people say, well, look at the concussions and it look like explosions coming out the side. Well, that's all the energy. Where does all that air? Where does all that energy go? It blows out. The first space it gets, it's just going to release. So as the floors came down,

boom, boom, boom, boom, the energy just kept releasing, releasing, releasing. And people heard, whoa, multiple explosions. No, that was the floor slapping into each other. And as it got further and further down, now you have five stories, 10 stories, 40 stories, 50 stories coming down on each other. they felt like they were designed. If they would have fell horizontally, they would have ended up in Chinatown a half mile away. The guys who built them, they built them right.

They came down in a footprint. I don't think they ever wanted them to. They have never expected them to, but they failed as they designed them. So I'll probably, you know, you'll probably get hate mail out of it and this and that, whatever. But my personal thing, no, no.

I would hate to think that someone in my government did that to our people. It's just, it was a bad day. It was, I don't know if the terrorists thought they were going to take them down. Maybe they did. Maybe they were smart enough to know that. But it's just the way the physics worked and it just happened. Well, I don't proclaim to know anything about anything, especially Tower 7.

Yeah. But people have infrequently hit me up with, you know, why are you a shill for the government? Obviously 9-11 was an inside job. And what I tell them is, listen, I'm not an expert in the government. government. I'm not an expert in all these shadow organizations that people think carried this out. Yeah. But I've been around the government enough and worked with some of those agencies. My personal opinion is that our government is not capable of doing something at that scale. They're not that smart. Without having somebody else figure out about it or find out about it.

No, man, they were putting explosives in the building. And I'm telling you, first off, Jason fucking Bourne doesn't exist. And you have any idea how many backpacks Jason Bourne would have had to take up there? It's not. It's not. Probably 740 and he's not that big of a guy. Correct. And think about it, the security, the house security in the trade center. Then you have the Port Authority police in the trade center. The NYPD cops out on the street.

You think those guys on 9-9 and 9-10 wouldn't go, hmm, there's a bunch of guys walking in with backpacks. It would have happened to happen for months. Exactly. And there's no way you're going to pull the wool over that many people's eyes. Someone would have saw something to go, hey, timeout, something's fucking rotten here in Denmark and it's not happening. I just, that's how I feel.

I'm sorry if people feel that strong about it. Maybe they have too much time on their hands. I don't know. Believe what you want. That's my experience for the government. It's like I believe in God. Some people don't. I'm not going to fight with you.

You don't believe? That's okay. So back to you basically having the sun inside of your body burning from the inside out. Yeah. Well, what burned me worse is the doctor who got into the fight with the paramedic. She showed up two weeks into it. And she said, so what is it that's wrong with you today, Lieutenant? in her. Oh, fuck right off.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And my inner Navy seal almost came out because I wanted to, yeah. Well, we're sensitive creative beasts. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I gave her some poetry. Oh, I gave some good Irish poetry. And I couldn't hear it because my hearing was gone. And I said, excuse me? I said, what the fuck did you say? What is it that's wrong with? Because she thought I was phoning up that episode a couple weeks before to get some time off in August. She thought you were faking this. Well, let me go back. This is what she said to the medic.

he goes, well, ma'am, his spleen is as big as a football. That's probably from drinking. That's all they did after 9-11. This is how she talks. And he goes, and the blood pressure being 240 of 140, probably an anxiety attack. They all have PTSD. He went for counseling.

She sounds like a proper cut. Oh, she's, yeah. Yeah, my Irish mother would be upset if I called her what I really thought of her. But yeah. And the kicker is the fuel on my fire was she came in then, and I went, what? I go, did you even have the courtesy or the brains? to look on the wall at my folder.

I said, do you know where I am right now? Oh, because what she said is, why are you occupying a cancer bed for an anxiety attack and alcohol abuse? And I went, oh, this lady's really dumb. And I went, ma'am, and I couldn't hear. I lost my hearing for a few weeks because it burned everything out.

I could barely see. I couldn't hear. I was yelling at everybody. Lost a little bit of my mind because it burns everything out. Yeah. And I finally just said to her, she looked at the folder and she goes,

oh, oh, what, I said, it's the rarest leukemia you can have and I'm probably not getting out of here. She goes, I'm sorry to hear that. I said, so am I now get the fuck out of my room. You're fired. Excuse me? I said, ma'am, I can't hear, but I can read your lips.

I said, read mine. Get the fuck out of my room. You're fired. You're not a doctor. You're in the way. I have doctors that are trying to save my life. And then I was in trouble because I spoke to. She's the equivalent of a staff chief and I was going to be fired.

And I'm like, you know what? Go fuck yourselves. I'm going to die anyway. My wife will get my pension. Fuck you. And that was it. I was like, I'm out of here anyway. So I'm going to say it.

like it is, you know? And Andy, that hurts so much because her lack of empathy. There was none. And I never got an apology. Nothing ever. And I wasn't expecting her to kiss my ass and go, sorry, I almost killed you, but at least have the decency to say, hey, you know what? I didn't really see that curveball coming. I was looking for the fastball. Hey, we're good, doc. People make mistakes. But the fact that she arrogantly tried to make me look like the bad guy. Because what happens is it's human nature. It's the summertime. Some guys, they'll look to get a couple days off. They want to go surfing. I can't surf, right?

And that's the medic thought. I was surfing. And but most guys, like me, I'd ride that truck for free. I didn't want to be off. I want to be at work. And the arrogance to think I was faking fucking cancer, like, whoa. So anyway. That's a lot.

And some people suck. You'll probably never get an apology from that person. No, that's okay. I don't expect one. And you know what? I wouldn't want it at this point. It's 10 years later. I'm living life.

Life is good. So in those seven days of IV, therapy. At the end of it, it was able to burn out what it needed to burn out? From what I was told in layman's terms is it killed enough of the cancer cells to stop the mutating. I guess it's almost like a flood. And the more it gets, the more damage it does. So I'm again, not a science guy, but the way my oncologist now, who's a world-class guy, Dr. Peterman'sel, he's from Poland. He's just, I love the man. He's a rock star. And he was explaining to me the mutations of the genes and the cells and this and that.

He said, you're going to have these cells in your body for the rest of your life. But the chemo suppressed them down so far into such a little number. They're just not doing anything. But the kicker is tomorrow they might feel like, yeah, let's fuck with this guy and it's all over. Or it may never happen.

I don't know. And for the first year and a half, I was physically still banged up bad. That mind screw of like, when's it coming back, when's it coming back? You know, like, where's the boogeyman in the closet? it after a while you got to learn how to manage that and get rid of it or you'll lose your mind and I was driving my family crazy I mean I feel bad I'll put them through hell probably almost felt like

you're almost walking to the gallows every day oh yeah yeah well we used to call walking the minefield right and and you know leading up to getting cancer guys would say when am I going to hit my mind and I knew it I knew I was going to get sick because I saw so many guys get sick and then the morning we were coming back from from our first tour at 9-11 you know to go back and get medical help and then return in a couple hours. One of the old timers were walking up a hill. They dropped us off with a bus, and he said, we're all dead. I said, no, no, Danny, we made it.

He goes, no, kid, we can't breathe. He goes, you feel your lungs? It literally felt like we drank acid. He goes, we're all dead men walking. And the kicker is, out of that 20-man squad, 10 of us now have cancers, four guys have had multiple. One guy's had five, three bouts of bladder

and two really, really advanced leukemia. I mean, and we're lucky because out of the 10, we're still alive. There's all the crews that I've had eight guys with cancer and four of them are dead. I mean, so you're kind of like thanking God that, you know, you didn't suffer their fate. I mean, one of my buddies, Larry Sullivan, this big Irish guy from Rescue 5, I loved him. And I run into him a few months after my diagnosis and I'm down to medical office. And, you know, they gave me another doctor now at that point because, and he's, he's a lot. He says, hey, man, what are you doing here?

I said, I got cancer, bro. How about you? He goes, yeah, me too. He goes, but you know, with big mix, man, we'll beat this. And like six, nine months later, I'm standing at Larry's funeral, saluting him as his caskets going by, and I'm crying my eyes out going. Why, Larry, not me? And, you know, I was pissed because I'm saying he didn't deserve that.

I should be with him. And again, it was that survivor's guilt, again, kicking in because I thank God for every second of this. less life, but then I say every time a guy goes, I feel so bad because I'm saying, his family must go, why did this frigging guy get spared? Why? You know, and I don't know. It's like you said, that guy next to you're getting shot. There's no explanation. Yeah, there's no explanation. No. So how long was it before you were able to get back to work? Well, they retired me quickly because once you're, you're alive. Oh, I was out. Oh, they're done.

And I begged. I begged the doctor. I said, Doc, I should be officially in remission in a month. He said, I'm sorry. Your career is over. You could never be on the truck again. And this was the other doctor they assigned to me. She was a lovely woman. And she said, I'm sorry. You can never be on that truck again. I literally, embarrassing enough, was on my knees begging her, please, ma'am, this is my priesthood, this is what I do. It's really the only thing beside my family I truly enjoy.

Please don't do this. And she said, I'm sorry, I can't. She says, you have over 20 years. You're a liability. The city, years back when my dad was sick, they keep you in an office for years. long as you're still productive somehow. Now it's all a money thing. They can hire two new guys for the price of me.

You're gone. They can hire them for the price, perhaps, but you can't replace that experience. Oh, well, they don't care. It's just a body. Well, they should. They just want to fill a... They want to fill a spot.

So I beg, so she said, I'm sorry. So January of 12, after I took my remaining leaves and what have you, I was out. And I'm in the snow walking my rescued Graham going, all right, what are we going to do? And she's like, we're going to go on a lot more walks. And she was, you know, and she was my therapy dog at the time. incredible animal and that was it it was over and and you know this is the crazy thing right

I had my little party my little you know feel bad for myself all that crap and my wife finally said to me she goes what's wrong with you you're more depressed about losing the job than having cancer I said you're right and I said you know sweetie I go they train us in everything else except for how to retire I said I don't know how to do this and lucky for me I had a brief I guess experience in the filming world. I used to drive a fire truck. There was this show by a guy named Dennis Lear. He's an actor. Great guy. He does a lot of things for fire departments. His cousin and his best friend were killed in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1999. It was a bad collapse. Six guys died. So he started a foundation and he started a show about a haunted New York

Fireman after 9-11 and it was a bit of a dark comedy drama. Some of the stuff made us look bad. Some of the stuff showed us doing good things. But it was a show. And I was lucky enough to drive the fire truck for him. So I kind of had a foot in that world. So when I needed a job, the prop master of my buddy, John Tesler, best human being in the world, he said, hey, I'll give you a job. And I work for the stage hands local up there. Local 52, I ATSI. We call it, you know, generically stage hands.

It's props, set dressing. You know, it's hard physical work, you know, but it's a good job. And I was blessed to have it. And so I got into that world and it was kind to me, you know, helping put my kids through college. But it didn't do it for me spiritually like the fire department, you know. You're driving the truck, but it just wasn't for real. Yeah, it wasn't. Well, that was actually during my career.

So that was the lightning in a bottle. We were doing the show while I was still on. And my best buddy Bobby drove the other truck and we were like, they're fucking painos to do this. And then we'd do the set and we go to a firehouse for a real 24-hour shift. And Dennis used to, Dennis was hysterical. He goes, yeah, he pointed to the actors, those are the pussy that pretend to be you guys. And he was great, you know, and oh, Dennis is great. But yeah, but we had the time of our lives.

And but thankfully, I got back on my feet. I reinvented myself and I was able to provide for my family. So it's good, yeah. How often do you have to get checked for cancer? I'm on in every three months for the rest of my life. But now my doc's kind of shifting it after 10 years to four months. Is it blood draw? They do a full CBC panel, and if anything's popping, they'll do some scans.

A couple times, it's been about two or three times upon the verge of a relapse. And by the grace of God, it reversed itself. Don't know why, I don't know how. There's really nothing you can do until it comes back. And if it does come back, will it be the same treatment that you had previously? The thing with that is, and I might be overstepped my bounds, speaking from my doctor, but from what I've been told is if they have success with a protocol, they'll usually try to reuse it.

The thing is in the 10 years since, they've developed a much less caustic treatment protocol. But the problem is the fact that I responded to the other one, now you're sort of fishing with a different bait. Well, maybe they could just not give you two and a half years worth in seven days. They could stretch that out a touch? And I honestly don't physically think I could make it again. I mean, I was praying a dime. I saw my beautiful Irish mother-in-law that first night, and I was begging her to take me. She had just passed six months before the poor beautiful woman.

and she was in a coma. It wasn't fair. And she's smiling. I saw all quick blips of people I love, but she was there. And I said, Nan, we called her Nan and said, please take me. She said, no, my boyfriend. She used to call me a boyfriend. We talk.

And he's not ready yet. Just go back. Look at those kids. And, you know, my wife. And just go back. And I'm like, no. And she just said, I'll see you. And she just went away, you know.

And I'm like, whoa, that was pretty heavy, you know. And she's one of my spiritual forces, her and father judge. you know, and my grandparents and, you know, a couple of loved ones that are just up there watching over me. But I wanted to die those first two nights. I was ready to, I wanted to cash in. I'm like, I can't do it. I'm good.

I'm good. My body just hurt so much and I was so tired. Like it was just, it took every ounce of whatever you had left out of you. And I'm just like, it's like when you're really tired, you just want to go to sleep. And this was like a permanent, like, yeah, I'm ready. But now I'm glad that didn't happen. Do you know anybody else that you worked with who had to endure something similar to that? Yeah.

One of the guys who came to visit me, he's dead. He went through something similar, multiple myeloma, great man, Jimmy. Had no idea he was sick that day. And about two years later, he was in a fight for his life. Two years after that, he was gone. And I know dozens of guys that, I can't say, you know, all of them was I at their house, you know, hanging out for the holidays. No, but had a beer with him on St. Paddy's day. They worked in certain crew.

Dozens. Dozens. Yeah. Leaping forward to modern day in terms or reference to the medical conditions that have come from that service at Ground Zero. Is it in a better spot now? Are they taking care of guys? Better now? Are they compensating guys for that?

Or is it still a fight? Well, the good and the bad of it is this. John Field and John Stewart and Ray Pfeiffer, God rest him. and Detective Alvarez, God rest him and Jimmy Zedroga's dad who took up the charge, the guys with cancer are covered. So if I die, my wife's going to get my pension, and she deserves it. But the cruel thing is, is that autoimmune's are off the graph now. Now, normally women get lupus.

Men don't. And we have dozens and dozens of guys with lupus and bad lupus that is... I don't even know what lupus is. You know, it's something to do with your joints and I think your circulation, and, you know, shame on me because I should know better, but it's painful. It's really painful. But it's normally found in women that are in their 50s and 60s and on up. And now there's guys in their 40s and 50s coming down with it really bad.

And I have a buddy of mine who's got an autoimmune that it attacks his flesh. So he lost a couple toes and part of his calf before they could figure out that he needed a platelet transfusion every week for the rest of his life and chemo tablets, even though it's not cancer or he'll die. and now his medical bills are mounting to the thousands and thousands and thousands and they're not covered. So his insurance that he's been paying for 30 years is going to run out. And it's not covered under the Fed, so he's on his own. And a guy like John Field, I'm sure, is going to, that's his next charge, and he'll try to get it covered.

But they're giving out bags of money right now to everybody. But guys like that and vets end up homeless and whatever, and you're like, this doesn't make sense. Why do the good guys not get taken care of, but other people have done nothing for this country just on scholarship. So we're hoping that, you know, the word gets out there. And the politicians will do the right thing and cover these guys too because there's hundreds of them. Did you just say the politicians are going to do this?

Oh, that'll never happen. As my Irish grandmother said, how dare you, sir. As Irish grandmother Nora, God rest of above, would say, those politicians are all like dirty diapers. They're full of shit and they stink. And they are. They all suck.

And the thing is, we had a bag. and now these poor guys with the autoimmunes have to beg again. And it's not fair. Or why does a vet have to beg for a job or beg for housing when he comes home after putting everything on the line? That's just a no-brainer. You know, and I don't understand it. It just makes no sense to me.

The people who give the most get hump the hardest. I don't have an answer for it either. Some of those situations are so infinitely frustrating. I am not a smart enough human being to come up with a solution for it. I wish it was different. Yeah. I agree. I agree.

And it's so sad because the guys that are really counting on it are so in such a bad way right now. They're panicking going, what the frig is going to happen while your insurance runs out. Yeah. And I don't know. I don't know any answer. So what are you up to these days? Tell me about the 20 for 20. 20 is...

You're a podcaster. Yourself, welcome to the club. Thank you, sir. I wouldn't say such a good one. I know how to talk, but I don't know how to podcast. Now, I'm giving it a shot. A few years back, I reached out to a gentleman, David Koch, who was a very large businessman, and he's one of the biggest donators to cancer research in the New York cancer hospitals.

And I made a handwritten letter just to say, hey, sir, thanks a lot. You know, my doc said basically when he was a research scientist, people like you gave him the funding to find a drug that saved my life. And I'm here now watching my children grow up because of generous people like you. Thank you. And I got a call from him. And the secretary said, can you hold for Mr. Coke? And I'm like, he's a kind of busy dude, but he wants to talk to me.

And he invited me to a ribbon cutting at a new cancer wing. He was donating. And I went and met him. He was a wonderful man. It was like hanging out with my dad. I was so disarmed because I figured it would be this swaggering, you know, swashbuckling rich dude. And he was just the complete opposite. And a couple years later, I said to him that afternoon, sir, how can I ever thank you,

repay you? He said, just live a good life. And he said, you're doing it now. That's my repayment. I thanked him. And a few years later, he died of cancer. So these folks, you know, basically there was a little podcast from his family wanted to know why. Why would you reach out?

And it was, you know, the theme was the gift of a second chance. I wanted to thank him for my second chance. And some folks from this company, Iron Light Labs, they wanted to do a charity project based on 9-11. and they wanted to tell some stories about good folks that were there. And they wanted someone who was there and knows them to help tell their stories. And I said, well, I'm not, that's not what I do. And they said, well, you know, you held your own on the other one. We'd like to give it a shot.

And we just want someone that they can relate to. So what we're doing in is we're telling, you know, 20 stories for the 20th anniversary of these heroes. Some who've since passed. Some who are still alive. We're releasing one every Thursday. Because as we've seen, it's already out of the news cycle. You know, we're here September 24th. And on the 12th, we asked a couple folks to give us a little love and put out the word.

And they said, we're sorry, it's not a current issue anymore. And I'm going, it's 9-11. So, yeah, so these people are incredible. And one of the things is we realize that I think there's 26 states in the United States that do not have a 9-11 curriculum. They do not teach anything about it to the students. At all? at all.

And some of them... What do they teach when it comes to modern American history? Not a lot. I don't know. But they actually deem it offensive, some of them. And it's baffling. Oh, those people can go fuck themselves. Yeah, it's baffling to me.

It's offensive to the people who died. And there's now over 3,000 people who've died since illness since illnesses, from illnesses. Yeah. So there's more folks who've lost their life to the... How many states? Did you say 26? I believe it's 26. I could be off on the number of that, but it's just about half.

It's in and around that number. but they do not have a curriculum, and that doesn't necessarily mean that they're not allowed to teach it. It's just there's nothing there for the teachers to go with. And then some districts will not allow a teacher

to just make up their own. And, you know, I just came across a young lady recently. She's 12, very bright, very intelligent. And she saw this hat. And she said, oh, what's that? I said, oh, it's a fireman. She goes, well, how come you're not a fireman anymore?

I said, well, I have cancer. I had to retire. She said, well, why? I said, well, I got sick from being at 9-11. She said, oh, what was 9-11? She said, was that a plane and a bad man or something with a building? She really, she had a very, very vague idea.

And I tried to tell her quickly, a little quick, brief history. And my wife was there, I said, gosh, that's sad. You know, this bright, young, intelligent person has no idea. And then I had an adult that I know goes, oh, so what anniversary is it this year? And I went, please tell me your kid. I said, it's 9-11-1 plus 20th anniversary. they didn't even remember the year of not it just it was just 9-11 to them so that's trouble you'd be honest some of that doesn't surprise me because people get so absorbed yeah in their own

things i understand yeah like for me um it will always hold a different meaning for me because of the impact it directly had on my life not well obviously i wasn't there in new york but the trajectory that it set sure my life on um and it hasn't probably i don't know it's been a couple years now, but I'm working on trying to see things through other people's eyes. Yes. And the things that are valuable or meaningful to me, I can understand whether they're not valuable and meaningful to others. And I'll use the example of Vietnam as an example.

My dad was a Vietnam met. Vietnam didn't mean shit to me when I was growing up. I understand that my head dad had served in Vietnam. I didn't know much about it. But it has more meaning to me now. And I was taught about it. And I think that's an important thing. Yeah.

I think there's a huge difference between, being taught about it and maybe not having the understanding that it have for your country or your personal life until later in your life you get some more laps around the sun. Sure, sure. There's a huge difference between that and it not being addressed. Yes. We have to understand what we have gone through as a nation and a society, in my opinion, at least.

So one, we can learn from our mistakes in the decisions that we made and hopefully improve upon them. If you're just not going to talk about it at all, that's not helpful. That doesn't move the dominoes in the right direction, in my opinion, at least. There's that huge difference. I can understand, and trust me, my initial reaction when somebody, if somebody were to say, what year anniversary is it for to be now would be internally to be very upset. I would try to give them a pass in the moment.

Yeah. Because you and I will have a different connection to that event than most people ever will. And, you know, Andy, it's almost like if they give the base education, to young people, maybe it'll light a spark in some of their minds and then they'll dig deeper and find more out about it. You know, like I was a history. Like Vietnam for me. Yeah, exactly. And you know, sometimes when we're young, we're just oblivious to certain things. And it's youth. And I get it. But, you know, when I was 12, I could tell you a lot about Pearl Harbor and about Iwo Jima and about the Battle of the Bulge. Normandy. Because it was such a big, there were such

large events in our history. And 9-11 in our modern history is probably one of the biggest, unfortunately, most catastrophic events, but yet it's been somewhat eradicated from the dialogue and from the syllabus. And is that by design? I don't think it's by accident. My gut would land on that it's by design. And I hope that this isn't true, but I feel like it would be removed because nobody can agree on how to tell the story. It's become politicized. Yes, it has. And there were people who would say it was our fault and we need to teach them like that. And there will people who say, though, that's not the case and they can't agree. So they say, fuck it.

We're not going to teach it at all. Yeah. I think that's what's taken place. And, you know, we're trying our best to not be accusatory, but just a couple sort of avenues we're trying to run with the project is recapture that feeling of 9-12, that unity, that love, that sense of kindness. And it didn't matter color. It didn't matter race, creed, color.

None of that mattered at all. We were just America. And then it was a joyous day, yet a sad day because it was the day after the worst day. But yet there was some good of it. And now it just seemed to us faded away. And there's just this anger and there's just division. And, you know, why? Because I think there's people who want that.

It makes them money. You know, if you take a little campfire and you have those embers and those cinders that burning and they're just about to go out but you take a cup of gasoline and it boof blows up into a fire and it's kind of what they're doing with the situation now in the country I don't think people hate each other as much as they're trying to portray or how much they're told that they hate each other yes yes exactly you know and and you know it's sad because people are being told what to think and how to feel and what you know it's like saying if someone told you all these things about me and you automatically assume they were to be true.

And then all of a sudden you sit and go, oh, no, that guy's okay. We're making that assumption on each other because of race, because of this, because of that, because people who are profiting off of it are telling us. The press doesn't want to show you the good. They don't want to show the responder

delivering a baby on the side of the road and breathing life into that little child regardless of the color. They don't want to show you those good acts of kindness. You know, you have this class of people that I say this. They're willing to give up every one of their tomorrows so you can finish out your today. You know, look at that beautiful Marine from a few weeks ago, and she was filmed holding an Afghani baby. And she said, I have my dream job.

Well, as you well know, I think in E1 now in the service is, what, $22,000 a year they make? 23. That might be before taxes. That might be going to say. That might be reaching. Right? 20? So a lofty, 21 grand, let's just say, but that's not for 40 hours a week. That's for 80, 90, 100. So this lovely young Marine is making $6 an hour. And she said she had a dream job. What? That's incredible in this world. This beautiful young soul where you go, okay, people are getting it. But yet we're not allowed to honor her and those other 12 brave souls in Congress. We're not allowed to mention their names. Or, They hung flags in California and someone just decided to cut them with a scissors. And I know I'm going to get yelled out for the negativity, but I'm going to say like it is.

I'm sorry, it can't happen. So we're going to try to do is put, in our own little way, a band-aid on this stuff and say, guys, time out. There's some good people. This is what they did. This is what they're still doing. You know, the yelling across the table at each other, it's not working. It's just not working. It's just not working.

I don't think it ever has. No. And, you know, there's, I can't believe in how many networks. And, you know, it's like all you hear is just yammering all day long. These heads just gab and bop, pop, bop, and it's all vitriol. There's no good shit. How about some good shit, you know, once in a while? And we're going to try to put some of it out there.

What kind of stories are you getting for these 20 from 20? It's an eclectic mix of 9-11. It's, we started out with Frank Siller, who does the tunnel for towers. His brother, Stephen, was the firefighter with five children off duty, literally got to the battery tunnel with his pickup truck couldn't get through, put on his bunker gear, 60 pounds of gear and ran through the tunnel, never came home. Frank made this beautiful foundation where, as you know, every Gold Star family in the country, every responder who's killed, and any responder or military that's badly, badly wounded, they're given a house or their mortgage

is cleared. So Frank was the first interview, and just prior to him launching his mission, he walked from Pentagon to Shanksville to the World Trade Center. And then we had this lovely Egyptian man, Mackana, who helped rescue a bunch of people up on the 78th, 80th floors. And his two bosses, one guy was an Italian man, one was an Hispanic man, and the third man's an Egyptian man, the three musketeers, right, a melting pot. For sure. And he said, take this elderly gentleman that they busted a wall down to get and assist him down 78 floors. And he got to the 21st floor, and he ran into Captain Patrick Brown from ladder three, the Vietnam Venet. and he said, Captain Brown introduced himself, and he said, sir, you need to keep going.

He said, oh, no, I wait here for the medics. He said, they're not coming. They can't. They're not allowed up. Go down to the West Side Highway. And he said, well, what do you do? He says, well, I'm an engineer. So Captain Brown picked his brain real quick, found out about the fire systems, the evax systems, this, that evacuation.

He said, where can I get water? He said, we can break into that vending machine. So they did, they busted it open with the Halligan. and Captain Brown gave the older gentleman of water and Mac wanted an ice tea and put in his pocket went all the way down. Had to carry the elderly gentleman the last couple floors, literally physically carry him.

Got out of the building, the last two known humans to leave that North Tower. Got to the west side highway, sat down, started drinking that iced tea, building came down. The man is now a Coptic priest because he said God sent Captain Brown to save him. And by getting Mo out, by evacuating Mo, he lived, but his other two of the three musketeers died. And this gentleman is so powerful. On the night before 9-11, he called me because I was, I went there for the ceremonies that wasn't allowed in because I didn't have a pass.

That hurt. And he said to me, Nils, this is father, he's now Father Mark. He's a Coptic priest, St. Mary's parish, East Brunswick, New Jersey. I said, Father, it's so good to hear from you. I just want you to know I'm praying for you tomorrow and I love you, my friend, and you will be okay. And I'd like you to come see me soon because I want you to speak to the children at the school. And I said, Father, I'll be there. And I said, I love you too.

Thank you. I'm so glad God put us in each other's path. And he said, okay, my friend, I'll see you. And he hung up the phone. And there's this man that was a stranger a couple months ago. And then we have, I was saying earlier, we have this gentleman, David Bracko, who speaks of his father, Al, who was praying with these people. up on the 50th floor and knew they were going to die and just consoled those people in their last moments and we have another young lady whose father was on flight 93 but at the time she was

adopted she didn't know birth father but that morning she knew something was wrong and something happened to a loved one and three years later when she turned 19 Mariah she found out who her birth father was and it was Tom Burnett he was on the plane he was one of the let's roll guys And she just knew it. Somehow she knew it. And she tells that whole story, and it's incredible. And then we have this lovely 85-year-old woman Shirley who was stuck in Gander, New Finland for a week. And those were the people that got grounded.

The planes got grounded. And she was so in love with that community up there. They embraced them. They took in thousands of people into their homes, cooked for them, clean for them. And now she started a scholarship fund for their youth who don't normally go to college. And, you know, we're just going story to story all of these different people that were there. John Field, who started the Feel Good Foundation, to fight, to protect the protectors. Literally is the man with James Zygdroga's father who got thousands of people covered.

There's now 80,000 people that are ill that are getting federal coverage because of this one man. So we did a story on him. and we're just, you know, we're hoping to go for 20, you know, we don't want it to end, so we're just doing one a week as it comes out. Are you definitely going to stop at 20? Because I feel like you go to 30. Well, you know, it's funny. Andy, we've actually had people who want to tell their stories.

And some of the folks at Iron Light said, they're like, look, if we could swing this, you know, it's a charity project and we, you know, we have some sponsors. And we could go to perpetuity with this. There's so many people coming out of woodwork. these interconnecting stories with like people I've known for years I've never heard this connection to the story and it's like what

like why didn't you tell me and you're like I just never thought of it till now so it's helping a lot of people heal but it's also shaking their memory one of my dear friends is a Vietnam veteran from my firehouse we were pitching a project on a TV show a morning show was just a quick blip

and his sister saw it and her brother-in-law who since passed was an NYPD officer and he had pictures taken from the helicopter in the morning of 9-11 hundreds just after the planes had impacted and just photo after photo after photo and now there goes one tower more photos photos photos and he said please make sure these get into the right hands someday and she saw what we're doing and she said I want these to go to the museum And I said, well, I have the perfect person who'll take them.

We have this beautiful couple. Sonia and Joe are grown. They're 70. Joe was a combat marine in Vietnam. Came home and 30 years in the busiest precincts in New York City Police Department, South Bronx, real tough area. And Sonia was an EMT until she got injured and then she became Red Cross, where we called them the angel ladies who would come around 24-7 with water, with food, with soup.

they're both dying of cancer right now from being down there and Sonia still goes down to the museum a few days a week to to donate her time so we're going to make sure she gets those pictures so they live there in perpetuity and we did an interview with her

and she's lovely they're just these beautiful people married for 50 years living in the same apartment since they were newlyweds and and Joe was just there for support he never told Sonia what happened to him in 9-11 because it was his birthday

and he feels like he had something to do with it. Why would it happen on my birthday? And after interviewing her, they switched seats, they smiled at each other. And you said, do you mind if I talk? I said, of course, sir, it would be my honor.

And he just started talking like, we're talking. And it was heart wrenching, his version, because he just started opening up. And we finished. And we got up and Joe stepped up the way for a second and Sonia came up and she said thank you I said no thank you ma'am she goes no he never even told me his story and he came up to me and he said he gave me a hug and he said can I give you a kiss and I said Joe you know cops flying with sloppy especially St. Paddy's Day right big old hug he kisses

my cheek but he whispers in my ear my brother please tell my story because I won't live long enough to hear it myself. And Andy, I walked out. I held my composure and I saluted him and I thanked him. And I said, what an honor. And when I got out of the elevator and I got to the car, I lost it for a few minutes because I thought to myself, what a high honor for this man who I couldn't even really shine his shoes because when I was six, he was fighting in the jungles of Vietnam with your dad. and now after giving his whole life he just said I want the stories told because I feel like my country is fading away on me

and I take that as such a high high responsibility and I don't know where the project's going to go we're hoping it's going to go to a permanent one to talk about these people who are giving it all every single day as we say every tour of duty but when that man trusted me enough to tell his story that's one of the highest compliments and honors I've ever received in my life.

Yeah, it's incredible. I was blown away, blown away. And that's what we're trying to do. Just tell these people who no one knows about, who gave it all for strangers, right? They had no obligation to go down there. Sonia had no obligation to donate hundreds and hundreds of hours. And Father Mark, he could have just said,

I'm getting out of here. He didn't have to carry him all those floors. He could have just said, I'm out. He didn't. He gave up his safety. for a stranger. That's huge. And we need more of that in our world right now. Take politics out of it. Take all the bullshit out of it. It's just a human condition. We need to rehumanize ourselves because if we don't, it's not good. Yeah, I agree.

Yeah, so we're on a little bit of a mission and we're just hoping it's 20 for 20 podcast.com. You know, we have a couple of generous folks that are sponsoring it and it's been interesting. You know, We've been going in different places to get people, Lieutenant Colonel Ted Anderson, Airborne Ranger working in the Pentagon that morning, congressional liaison. And he was there when the plane struck his building right just down the hallway. And he started doing what you guys do. He started getting people out. And he got together with another sergeant, and they got a bunch of people out successfully.

One guy was burned horribly. He's had 64 surgeries and he's still here. He's happy to be alive because of the colonel. But the sad part about it is the colonel was held back because the building was about to collapse. And he was in a rage fighting with the fire chief because he wanted to go in because he knew there was a dozen people trapped

in an area that was sort of crunched in. And they wouldn't let him in. And then the rest of the building collapsed. And a couple days later, they found those 12 people huddled together dead and he can't shake it. He said, I failed my mission. I let those people down.

I failed. I said, no, sir, you did not fail. I said, you got those other dozens out. It doesn't matter. I still left someone behind. And it breaks my heart to hear this decorated war veteran beating the shit out of himself because he couldn't get all in them.

And then you get the flip side these other people complaining about nonsense and they're so ungrateful. They should thank God that men like, that Lieutenant Colonel Anderson gave his life of service to protect them. So those are the messages we're just trying to drop in there without the politics, without the anger, without the screaming. And as you see, I can get worked up about it.

But we're not doing it in this. We're just keeping it right down the middle, straight fastball down the middle, let people figure it out for themselves. If they want to pull a message out and they want to make up their own message, it's okay. We've got no wax to grind. We just want to talk about heroes. I would like to think and believe that people hearing those stories, it would help them change their perspective. Yeah, I mean, you know, we're trying to win over hearts and minds, but not forcefully, right?

We're just trying to show them the human touch, the human side of these beautiful people. See, that's the problem. Like now everyone's being forced to think a certain way, shamed into it, threatened into it. We're not doing that. We're just telling stories, you know. And I love it because I was a kid who loved listening to baseball games. You know, I was a baseball kid that loved it, played it. But I enjoyed listening to it more than watching it

because when I listened to the radio and I could hear the cadence of the announcer when there was a home run and you could just see the ball sailing over the wall or double to center field. You could just see the outfield that's chasing. And it got to me, it got me thinking more. So we're hoping the fact that it's really mostly an audio podcast that people will just tune in and just really listen to these people.

And you could hear the hurt in their voices. You just hear it. You hear the emotion. It's so raw. And I had a couple of hard men, as I would say, tough guys call me up saying they were in tears listening to it. And it touched me in the heart because to get guys like that, to even admit to that is tough.

You know, you know that. It's just sometimes, yeah, we don't show our minds. motion sometimes. But I've had some guys who've had some really, really heartfelt comments, and it makes me proud to say they're my brother, and they're hearing the stories about their other brothers. On 9-11, was there a point where, I know there was a variety of agencies from law enforcement to EMT, first responder fire, all of that, was there a point where they realized if they continued to go into the building, it would essentially be a one-way trip? Well, I think, you know, I got there as they had come down,

so I can't speak for what was all happening up to the collapses. But I do believe that there's accounts of guys from certain units running into other guys from different units saying, I love you, bro. Probably not making this one see you on the other side. I mean, there's accounts of that happening. And I truly believe a lot of the guys knew that, and they still went in. And, you know, that troubles me because I say to myself,

whatever I had the courage to go on a death mission that morning. And I asked myself the same question. It's a tough one to grapple with. But you know we'd never, we'd rather be dead than let our brothers down. So I think we just give each other that look like it's not going to be good, but we're going to be together. And I remember one time my best buddy, we got lost together in a fire and we were running out of air. And being the fools we were, we didn't want to call out for help because we were embarrassed. Because it wasn't a big fire, but it was just, it was going wrong.

And all of a sudden, that old shit meter was going off and we're like, fuck, this is bad now. And this whole time it comes blasting through a window off of a ladder. Like, hey, you assholes, come on. And we're like, okay, that's nice. And we go down the ladder and we got out and he looked at me. I looked at him. He goes, wow, that was scary.

I said, yeah. He goes, well, at least we would have died together. I go, I love you, but I don't want to die with you. But we would have. And I think that's part of that code, that brotherhood and, you know, the sisters in it. It's just an unwritten code. You'll go down together.

Not only will you go down together, I found, like I've said, on this episode already, you know, survival's guilt is real. Yeah, huge. And I used to try to seek out, especially on my last appointment, where I was more senior than the people who had been there and I had more experience. I would try to put myself in the more dangerous position. So I would rather bear that risk myself than allow somebody else to do so.

Yeah. And I think knowing the number of people that I have or did that have given their life in the service of this country overseas, I feel like to a man, if they were given the choice between replacing themselves with somebody else or going back there again and having the same outcome, but ensuring that it didn't happen to anybody else, that they would choose, they would choose to go back to that position. So they would be the one that experienced it to prevent others from having to do so. I agree.

I think it's as leaders of men, we would rather be dead than lose one of our own men under our leadership. And I remember when I was a rookie fireman, a probie. 1991, my best buddy from the academy, Kevin Charles Kane, FDMI, No, 2, 143. and he burned to death on September 13th, 1991. And I remember on about September 8th, I said, holy shit, it's KC's 10th anniversary. I can't believe it, how fast that went. And I didn't think of him until the 15th

because we were digging and it broke my heart. And his lieutenant, Kevin got trapped and it was just a twist of fate, a ceiling came hinging down, collapsed an inferno, and Kevin was on the burning side of it, and the lieutenant ended up on the clear side of it. And the lieutenant was feverishly trying to break through that, you know, wooden roof.

And as Kevin was writhing in pain and on fire, and it was before we had the full bunker suits, we only had the old coats and rubber boots because of money again. You tell me you guys were wearing like fucking 501 jeans? Yeah, we were wearing jeans with roll-up boots that, you know, muck boots that would roll up to your hip. And a jacket. And a long fire coat.

It was somewhat fire retardant. but it was not what we have now in the present day. And we were for years trying to beg the administration to give it to us. And finally in 1994, when three of my buddies, my colleagues, burned to death literally in a tenement, excuse me, in Manhattan. Mayor Giuliani at the time said, that's it, enough. Give these guys what they want. I don't give a shit what it costs.

But in 1991, when Kevin, he was burning to death and he dove out of a window to land. in a bucket truck and he died 20 hours later in the burn center. And this was a kid who tried out the priesthood and realized it wasn't for him. And then he became an airborne ranger and he did his four years and he got discharged and he wanted to be like his dad. And guys used to bully him a little bit in the academy because he was a different kind of guy. He was a character, but he was a little bit unsure of himself.

But an airborne ranger was one of those unassuming guys. You knew he was a killer. Don't push him to that level. But until you got him to that, he was just, you know, soft and nice. And I used to protect him almost. And, you know, say, come on, Kev, you sit and eat lunch with us. And, you know, he became part of our crew. So then, you know, as we got tighter, then he busts my balls.

And when we were rookies, we were in trucks that ran in together. So if he got to do a certain task before I learned how to do it, he'd like, you suck. I cut a roof before you, you know. You didn't cut a roof yet. You suck. You know, and then all of a sudden, he's gone. And I'm going like, and it was just powerful. And then the strange part about it is our other squad mate.

We went to Kevin's wake together in 1991. And then Jimmy was one of those three guys to burn to death. And we finally got the gear. And I remember going to Kevin's wake with Jimmy to greet Kevin's father, who was a retired chief. And now all of a sudden you're like, am I going to be number three? You know, and that gets in there. And yeah, there's all these different.

forms a guilt that you form over the years of service. And then when you become a lieutenant and Kevin's lieutenant, he was never the same after that. He blamed himself for his rookie dying, but it wasn't his fault. There's nothing he tactically did or could have done to change that. It just happened. But he couldn't live with it.

He retired a short while after it. It's heartbreaking. Yeah, those are heavy burdens to bear for sure. Yeah. And most of society doesn't understand those emotions because... I'm glad for that, actually. They're better off, but that's the thing is that's why they have a hard time understanding the warrior class because they just, you know, I've heard people say to me, ah, it's 9-11, let it go. It's 20 years, let it go. Like, what? Let it let it go. Like, they're just so nonchalant about it. And I understand because they, it didn't confront them. They didn't lose anybody. You know, for weeks, for months, when you, when you respond out of a firehouse, you jump out of your shoes or your sneakers if you're working out. And you leave them aside and you jump into those boots and you pull up the pants and you put on a coat and the trucks leave.

Well, for weeks around New York City, there was empty garages, as we call the truck bay. The trucks were all destroyed, but the shoes were still there because all those guys died. And nobody wanted to be the guy to put those shoes in the guy's locker. Yeah, fuck, I don't blame them. And finally, chief said, look, guys, we got to bring trucks in. to get crews, you know, so guys had to go around and take those shoes and put him in Kevin's locker, Nils's locker, and Andy's locker. And it was heartbreaking for them. And most people would be like, what's the big fucking deal with that? That's my friend's shoes. And he's not there

to fill them anymore. Yeah. I'm glad they don't have to experience that. Yeah, they're better off. Much like the people that we worked with who would willingly go in somebody else's stead to bear that burden. Oh, yeah. I'm glad that I was able to fill whatever microscopic role that I had so other people would not have to. I agree. But it does make it tough. I guess people will say some dumb ass shit and you're like, yeah, you want to strangle. Oh, one of my buddies, one of my neighbors is a warrior. He's a airborne infantry ranger and he's got this beautiful mural tattoo of his foxhole buddy being led off the plane in Dover, his coffin. And he's got a beautiful flag. It's incredible.

And then he's got another one on the other arm. And he was with his young kids, and some girl started sassing off on him. You're proud of being a killer, you're this or that. And his wife had to physically take him and pull him away. He said, excuse me, do you know who that is? And she just, she was 19. She knew everything to girl, right?

She's woke. That's all right. Life's going to serve her up. Right. And that's, yeah. You hope karma doesn't come back and bite her in the ass. But like, but he said, he goes, except for when you do.

Yeah, it is a bitch, man. It is a bitch. But you know, this guy, he said to me, he said, after my rage subsided, he said, I felt so hurt and he said, I actually prayed for her. He said, this girl is so ignorant to say something like that, having no idea this man I'm memorializing on my skin. And that's the continental divide of the warrior class and civilians. And that's why cops right now are having such a hard time.

They're getting buckets of urine and feces and all other sorts of crap, throwing off of buildings at them. And look, not every cop is a perfect human being, nor is any organization in this world. I don't care what it is. There's messed up people and all walks away. It's just people. It's people.

Yeah, people are messed up. But they hold you to these high standards that are impossible to maintain. But they're trying their frigging best. And again, it's just how about some good? how about showing some friggin' good and no one will. They're so scared of being woke or not getting the agenda out there

and it's just sad. It's like, stop, enough, that we need some positivity, we need some love, we need, you know, I kid around, I won't open a hug booth. There was this guy in Manhattan a couple years ago, I think they locked them up because he didn't have a license, right?

He was just hugging people. And, you know, and people were lined up, right? It was like, I was in the airport this morning in Chicago and there was frigging 50 people online for a coffee. And you'd see this in Manhattan. It'd be 50 people waiting for a hug. And he wasn't a pervert. He was just a guy who wanted to hug people.

And I'm going, that really makes a lot of sense. Like, people, you know, hugs are one of the greatest things someone can give you because it says, I love you, I give a shit about you. You might even be a stranger. It's like when I worked on Rescue Me, there was a hundred-person crew on a film set. And now I'd probably get in trouble, but I was the hugger. Not because I was a weirdo or whatever. I just truly meant it.

I love people. I hug them. People would line up for their morning hug. And I go, what are you doing? They're like, you don't understand. I had a shit ride in here. It took me two and a half hours and they bang me out for 40tholes, bring it in.

You give them a big hug and they got rid of it. And then they start their day. And it's funny, but it was like medicine. And it did more for me than it did for them because I said to myself, wow, I'm really making them feel good about themselves in their day. And it did.

And now we can't even look at each other, right? It's just, you know, you don't even know if anyone's smiling. You know, like, we're not allowed. That's weird. I hate it. I want to look at people and smile. And now if you smile at someone, I think you're weird. You know, that's what I love about small town in America.

It's nice. It's still that humble, how are you? I'm good. How are you? And then you get into a little conversation with a stranger. And then, you know, and go your way. Agreed. So what the hell are you going to do with your life moving forward?

Seems like you've lived about seven lifetimes already. I have no friggin' idea, actually. I want to finish. I was training to be a pilot with my son. He's a good pilot. I'm a wannabe pilot. But I found that cognitively from all the chemo, the learning was coming hard. I enjoyed it.

I was doing okay with it. You know, got my solo in, all that stuff. Started, stop, started a couple times. Then COVID just put it to a halt for a while. So part of me, I'd really like to get back into that. But I know doing it for a living is not probably going to be. to happen. I'd love to maybe do some mission work, just fly supplies in places, whatever. I've done a couple missions with storms, with a couple Christian missions, just showed up to

help them out. And they said, hey, if you ever fly, you don't come back. So, but any, I don't know. I'm going to let God guide this one, you know, with this whole podcast. I'd love to go into a permanent project talking about great responders and warriors and just getting the good messages about them out. But for the here and now, I'm 100% with, you know, it's on my time. whatever and that's fine, but we're probably going to be busy up to almost, you know, the holidays with this one. And I don't know, I want to go back to being a stage hand for a while, you know, I'm a half-ass farmer.

Not so good at it. I got a couple tractors already in creeks and, you know, and, yeah. I think that might mean you're not a very good driver. Well, it could still be a great farmer. Yeah, you can't drive a tractor like a fire truck in New York City. I learned that a couple times. It's just, you know, it's circumstances. is there's hills and the grass is wet.

You don't realize you're going to slip. They tip very easy. Or you're going to slide for 50 feet uncontrollably. It's a very humbling process. So I'm sort of winging it. But I don't know. I'm a firm believer. God's leading you where he wants you to be next.

So I'm in that blessed position. I have a pension. I have bosses with my stage career who are very patient. Like, you know, they like my work ethic. So I can come and go at will. You know, my kids are finishing up college in the next couple years, so after that, things will be a little easier. But I don't want to fully retire yet.

It's not, you know, we're 53. Like, I'm not ready for that. But I was a three-job, Charlie, for so long that I'm physically tired, but I still have some left in me. I mean, if they told me tomorrow drop 30, 40, probably 50 pounds, you could be back on a fire truck. I'd be in the gym like a maniac. I would go back on the truck in a minute.

It's never going to happen. So I'm looking for that next, where do I fit in? But as you know, passion and doing something that you love, when you're not doing that anymore, you're sort of constantly comparing what you're at at the moment to that. And I have to stop doing that because... That's life in the rear view mirror. Yeah, and then when you do that, you're not looking at the road.

And then what happens is you crash your car. Yeah, or a tractor depending on what you drive. Or a tractor. Yes, you roll it. Yeah, you roll it. you allegedly, hypothetically have a few in the creek. Well, my neighbor said to me a couple weeks ago, this was a smaller one. It was like a zero-term mower, and I'm down there.

And he says, you need a hand? I'm like, no, I'm good. He goes, you're going to need a hand. He comes over with a winch in the truck, and two hours later we get it out. So I would never would have gotten out without them. But they're great folks. They love to teach you what they do. And it's a huge learning process for me.

You know what I've found when it comes to figuring out what you're going to do next is it took me a while to come to this realization, and I think it's been recent. You can fall in love again. And I'm talking about it professionally. I agree. I agree. The key to it that I have found

is being willing to take steps away from what you used to be in love with. Yes. And if you get out of your comfort zone and test yourself. Like I love flying because it's challenging. And I have one instructor where he loves crosswind training because, as you know,

you start, your ass cheeks, start, you know, curling up in your seat and you're going, why am I 50 feet away from the runway? And I love flying for that reason because it's so challenging and yet it's got that mystery to it. You're not really sure what you're in for next and it's similar to firefighting and, you know, you have to be into it. You have to work at it. And it, so that's one of the only things that just giving me that satisfaction. But more than that, I love helping people. I feel like you're going to fall in love with talking to people. I do, because I love good people, and as you can see, I can run my mouth.

And my wife's a sweetie. Podcasting will be good for you, then. Well, my wife's very funny. My wife's a good kid. You know, she should have just given up on me years ago between 9-11. I was absent physically and emotionally for almost a year. And then I got sick, and then it was all over again. And, you know, she's a great woman, but she's my fiercest critic, my biggest ally.

And she could just knock me down quicker than anyone. and she said to me, there's a whole lot going on in that big Irish head of yours. And she goes, it must really be torturing you that people are asking you to talk. And I'm like, yeah. And I'm enjoying it. But, you know, I'm enjoying because I'm learning so much from people.

And the one thing I learned in the chemo ward was to listen because I lost my hearing somewhat. And I was a little bit of a docent on the cancer ward because I tried to keep my spirit so high and I was masking my pain and my depression. I was putting on a smile and I was talking to everybody. But I was in a bad way. And there's this gentleman next to me

and they had to give him his own room because he was not going to make it. He was an older African-American man with advanced throat cancer. And he really couldn't verbalize. And it was very frustrating for him. But I realized he just waved at me one night and I put my ear down to his mouth

and I could hear what he was saying. It was pained, but you could make it out if you really listened. So I try to have little conversations with him, and I try to give him some hope. And he just said to me, I'm 83. There's no chance. I smoke too long. And he was accepting it. So they had me come over one night.

He was calling for me. And they kept pointing to my room. Like, get him, get him. So I came over and I said, sir, you're doing okay? And he pulled me in. and he verbalized in his whisper to please call his sister, North Carolina, because I'm going to die tonight. And I told the nurse, and I said, could you get me a phone? I said, could you dial so they'll understand, you know, I'm not some random weird dude?

So the nurse got on the phone, and she said, there's a gentleman that wants to speak to you. He's your brother's roommate in the hospital. And I just said, ma'am, I'm so sorry to say this to you, but your brother would like to speak to you. You probably can't hear what he's saying, but he said he's going to go home, and he just wants to say goodbye. And I put the phone to his ear, and he smiled, and he said a little something,

and then I repeated back to her what he said, and she thanked me, and he died that night. And then the next day there was this young girl that was from my response district, an African-American girl, and she was only, like, 21, and they figured she had leukemia, but if they don't drill into your hip with this huge needle,

it's almost like a drill. They can't figure out which one. There's 49 of them. It's like ammo. You can't put 9 millimeter into, you know, 38. So they have to find out exactly which one it is so they can treat it. So she wouldn't take the bone marrow harvest because it's brutal. And they asked me to talk to her.

And I had come in a couple times to cheer her up and talk to her. And I said, hon, I said, look. I just had it, and I said, I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that the medicine doesn't hurt. But the only way they're going to save you is if they do this test and figure out how to treat you. I said, hold my hand. I'll stay with you during the test. You squeeze as hard as you can. You yell at me, whatever you have to do, but let's do this.

So she agreed to it, and she squeezed my hand, and I kept consoling her, just hold on, hunt. It's only five more seconds, five more seconds. And they got the diagnoses. they got the right med, and they saved her. And I'm not saying it was me, but I took such comfort in knowing that she trusted me enough to help see her through that.

So I'm hoping that I can find a way it's not even about money. It doesn't matter at this point. I'm solid. I'm comfortable. I am content. I have what I need. But I'd like to just keep doing some good acts just to make it right for my heart and I guess that credit card balance I have a god is huge right I need to pay it back

I need to pay it forward and I just hope I can find that right niche to do it you know um and I think this this project is allowing me that it's allowing me to connect with people and you know what what that doctor lacked was empathy she never walked in my shoes she never knew my fear she never knew my pain and I would never wish it upon her because it's cruel but when you have empathy and you can try to put yourself in that other guy or that other girl's boots and you know that you've walked in those boots

and you've carried that fear and you've carried that doubt and that uncertainty you can relate and I think a lot of people once they can connect with you on that level they know you get them and my wife sometimes you know my phone will ring a lot and I try to counsel a lot of people

because they trust me and she said doesn't it get tiring. Doesn't it wear you down after a while? And I said, I'm not going to lie to you. There's some nights where I'd rather be doing something different rather than talking some guy out of suicide

or begging him to go to rehab because he's drinking his liver out of his body. But then I say to myself, my lieutenant that I just lost, my mentor, my idol, Lieutenant William Thomas Muddry,

I know he'd pick up the phone If I dialed and said Hey lieutenant I'm having a real shit time And he'd see me throw it and he wouldn't hang up Or he wouldn't see the call go oh shit He wouldn't do it And that's why I do it

Because they're my men And I wish I could have traded with him And these other guys and I didn't I think a lot of people feel that way Who survive when others don't And I think the best thing that you can do is live the most fulfilled life humanly possible, the life that they wish that they could have lived or would have wanted to live.

Oh, I think about my friend John every day, he always smiled. And that's why I smile at people all the time, because I'm saying it's so easy to be miserable, but you make people's day. You know, I had this girl this morning. I was in the airport of 4.30 in the morning. And I knew she was tired. She's probably there all night. And she made a cup of coffee.

She's like, I'm so sorry. I just ran out. It's okay. And she's like, it's going to take about eight minutes. I said, that's okay. And eight minutes later, she'd come walking up with my cup, and I handed her $10. And she said, no, I said, no. Thank you.

You're here all night. You could have said, we're out of coffee, but you did it. And it's those little random acts of kindness that makes such a difference, right? The look on her face went from fatigue and tired to happiness. It's 10 bucks. It's nothing. But it goes so far. And I think people are missing the point with that stuff.

These little random acts of kindness. There's a teacher in Philadelphia. She calls it do a Patty Brown, because she read about Captain Patrick Brown. And he was known as a kind, loving, decent man, hard man, soft edge. And she said, why don't you go do a Patty Brown today? And I think that's such a beautiful lesson to teach these young people. There's nothing wrong.

There's nothing weak. There's no shame in being a good person. It doesn't mean you're weak or soft. It means you're strong. Exactly. You know, bullies, bullies do that because they're insecure. Yeah, there's some of the weakest people that they're are. They're scared.

I was bullied badly as a kid. My Irish mother caught me going to school with a pocket knife in sixth grade. Because Jesus Christ, what you're doing? I said, I'm going to stab these guys to death. They keep punching me in the belly, right? She goes, you're too young to go to jail. You don't be in prison. So my father took me to decide.

That doesn't send six-dragers to prison. No, I hope. I don't know, yeah. But I saw a nine-year-old. carrying a nine millimeter one day. Yeah, when I work. But anyway, my father took me aside. He goes, what's going on?

I said, Dad, these guys beat me up every day. I can't do it anymore. He goes, okay, let's work out, box, whatever. And I went on a mission, man. I was like on a Schwarzenegger without the steroids, right? Went on a mission from God and work, you know, and I got stronger. And then a couple years later, he always said to me,

it takes a man to walk away from a fight. So I had this guy, this bad dude in the neighborhood. He was a few years older than me. And he started in with me, and I just got the best of him, and I had him in headlock, and I could have pounded the piss out of him, but I didn't want to. And I said, okay, Frank, you know, you tried to make your point, and let's just walk away like men. And all of a sudden, I walk away. I'm so, I'm so it takes a man to walk away.

Guy comes roaring up. And now I'm down on the ground, a bloody heap, and I come in, Dad, it told me it takes a man. And he goes, I didn't mean it literally. All right, you know, he goes, listen, the next time, you got to be. I get him a couple of shots. And so, and I feel like God made me big for that reason to be that protector. I purposely will put myself in the way of the week to defend them. And sometimes it's got me into trouble.

Yeah. And it's not, it's not an ego thing at all. It's just, it's the right thing to do. Probably feels like what you were put on this planet to do. Yeah, I love protecting. But at the same time, you can't go too far with it because then you get yourself in trouble. You know, if you stop for every road incident or this and that, after a while, the cop's going to go, yeah, you're not working for us. Get the freak out of here, right?

But it just burns me up when you see, you know, when you see these people doing these vicious acts to innocent people and you just want to react. But you can't, you get in trouble. Yeah. Where can people find the 2420s? You said it was 2420 podcast.com? Yes, sir. It's 20-0-F-O-R-20-20. podcast.com and Ironlight Labs is the sponsor company and sponsor site. It can be found on

Apple and Spotify podcasts. You know, appreciate it. Folks, give it a listen and give us a rating. And, you know, as I've heard you say before, if you think we suck, tell us we suck. You like it. Tell us you like, you know, it's not going to hurt my feelings. But it's from the heart. It's people telling their story and the beautiful stories they have, they're powerful. We just let them just tell the audience what they did and what. You know, it's about sacrifice. It's about strangers laying it all in the line for strangers. And isn't that what America's about, Rayo, when you think about it?

And, yeah, so we're hoping it gets out there. And, you know, maybe Iron Light will be kind enough to keep me around for a little while, and I'll keep on gabbing until people just get tired of hearing me. I don't think that's going to happen. They get tired of hearing you part. You're a good story telling. And people are trusting you with their stories, which is an incredible thing. I'll do everything I can't do.

I appreciate it. Thank you. And I so appreciate what you've done for our country and you just continue to do. And I am so humbled. I really am when a gentleman like Joe, combat Marine from Vietnam, I'm like, that's just the most humbling thing in the world. You know, to sit across the table from a hero that just says, I trust you. and really that's that's something that's kind of fading away is trust right we just so few trusting people anymore and i can understand that it's it's a tough in-your-face world yeah and we're trying to

dull that down a little bit and and you know and maybe iron light will sponsor a hug booth and you know hopefully i won't get arrested but it's just because people need hugs man right i mean we can't now at covid you can't hug you can't look you can't this it's like what the freak we're taking the human touch away now we like all these automated cash registers, right? Try to get a human being to, like, interact with you, just to buy groceries or just no more people. Like, we're doing away with people.

And that scares me as an old guy, because I remember it was all about everything was a human interaction. Now, we were better for it. We really were. All this technology has taught us so much, except we're regressing in how to physically communicate with people. We're losing those skills. You know, I mean, I love my kids and they're great kids,

but there's times that we're sitting at a table with a family group, you know, 12, 15 people. Everybody's head down. They're texting across the table to each other. It's like, who are you texting? Oh, my sister, what? Talk to each other. You know, but the flip side is to watch my dad

try to master technology is comical, right? I mean, oh, I love it. Just keep upgrading his tech so you can have constant entertainment. But I love it. Oh, my niece's boyfriend's a tech guy, and he just cringes every time they go to see my parents. Hey Matt, give me a favorite.

Come on over here. Like two hours later, Matt's point. Because my dad messed something up, you know, on his pad. And it's actually very funny. But I get such a kick out of it, though, because my dad, when he first learned to FaceTime, he'd do it like six times a day. And I'm like, Dad, you really like looking at me, huh?

No, I just really think this thing is cool. You know, now and now he's just a phone call. All right, yeah, I got sick of looking at you. But it's funny to watch all the folks master it. Yeah, it's something else. It's a trip for sure. I cannot thank you enough for dedicating your time to coming out here and talking about your experiences and the stories of the people you have talked with. I think it's amazing.

Like I said, I'll do everything I can to help promote it. No, I'm honored and I'm flattered that you would give us the time and a lot of it. And as you could see, I could kind of wander away. And it's, you know, I hate excuses. I haven't slept in 24 hours. I couldn't sleep. I was so jazzed up on getting out here. and you know there's just a lot I'm trying to cover

and you know sometimes you try to rush through there's so many things you want to tell and this here's the beauty you guys can come back you got an open invitation to come back I would love that and you know I'd love to get my son flying with you actually because he loves to I haven't flown in years so that would be actually exceptionally dangerous okay well you know

it's it's all right he's you do danger you're a seal come on you know but I am trying to avoid danger in my no I know older years isn't it funny we're bulletproof proof and we're 21 and then we get it to our 40s and we start going, yeah, that was, and I don't like being in a hospital. I'm not doing a good job of a wedding danger for clarity, but I'm trying to. Yeah, it's hard.

It's hard. And I, in my mind, I'm still 21 until the next morning when I can't get out of bed. And yeah, so. That's how it is. But I appreciate it, sir. Thank you so much. And just thank all your, your fellow brave warriors for what they've done for us. I mean, we would not have this free country without you guys.

So thank you. Well, I assure you that they would say it was their pleasure. Oh, yes. Thank you, guys. God bless you, sir. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. Thanks for taking the time to tune in, whether you're listening on an audio-only platform or you're watching on YouTube.

I appreciate that you take the time every week to tune in. People ask me a lot, what can they do to help me spread the word? And the answer is actually embedded in the question. The biggest thing you guys can do to help me if you enjoy the podcast and you think it would be helpful to others is, subscribe and share it with other people. And if you have the time, go on to Apple Podcasts and leave me a rating and a review. If you think the podcast sucks, tell me it sucks and leave a zero-star review or the lowest stars possible. If you have a question, comment, or suggestion, you can go to clearedhotpodcast.com. And there is a contact me button right there, which will

land in my inbox. And the last thing, if people are interested in helping out what you can do is fly the old flag. And by that, I don't mean an actual flag because I don't have any of those. I'm talking about t-shirts or sweatshirts or hats, whatever it may be. Again, cleardotpodcast.com, click on the shop tab

and hopefully something in there looks like it would be an item you would like to wear around town. And then you can tell people what it is when they ask you. But that is it. The biggest thing I can say is, thank you. I truly appreciate it. Until next time.

See you.