Recalling That Day

Who among us who were alive on that unseasonably warm day in September cannot remember where they were, what they were doing, or what they were feeling shortly after 9 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001?

The shock, the horror, the pain after all these years, I can instantly summon up in my mind and in my heart. As I watched the immediate aftermath after the collapse of the towers, I knew there would be many FDNY and NYPD fatalities and injuries. At that point, I did not know their names, but I sensed, with my long affiliation with fire departments in Suffolk County and my journalistic affiliation with the Bellport-based Long Island Fire News, that I was sure to know some of the victims.

I was at work when it happened, and so my futility was compounded, but the minute I could, I responded to my North Patchogue firehouse. Our chief at the time refused to, as we say in the fire service, “freelance,” and send units in without being requested. That was the correct decision for a bunch of firematic reasons. But FDNY did end up requesting North Patchogue, and we sent our tower ladder to stage at Shea Stadium to respond to any alarms in the borough of Queens.

In short order, we began to hear the magnitude of how many of our brothers had been killed, and that’s not even mentioning the thousands of civilians killed, including three Patchogue or East Patchogue men: Alfred, Maler, Eric Stahlman and Vincent D’Amadeo. As the names of the fire department members started becoming available, I did know some of them and had actually fought some Long Island fires alongside them. But the first fatality that shocked me was NYPD’s Glen Pettit, who I had actually met when he was a Long Island Advance photographer.

Among the FDNY members who lived locally killed in the attack were Andy Desperito, Lincoln Quappe and Mike Healy.

Then, all fire departments in Nassau and Suffolk received a stunning fax from FDNY. The FDNY had always honored their fallen by showing up at their firematic funerals in overwhelming numbers. This time, because of losing 343 members and having to cover the shift of each and every one, they could not show up in the numbers they wanted to. The call went out for the volunteers from all of the local areas to don their “Class A” uniform and show up at the wakes and funerals of the 9/11 fallen.

And in my own inadequate attempt to honor my fallen brothers, I began to attend maybe 20 or more FDNY and NYPD wakes and funerals over Suffolk County. The sad reality as the days continued was that funerals consisted of everything from full human remains to a turnout coat or a helmet. I had always loved the sound of the bagpipe, but I began to dread that sound as I could tell the difference between a fire department and a police funeral by the songs they used.

We drove in to Ground Zero, not out of a morbid sense of curiosity, but to say a prayer for those who had perished there among the still-twisted girders and with smoke still rising from the pile. Emergency personnel were still working day and night first to save and then to recover.

I would find out later and through the years that I would lose some more friends, like police officer Charlie Cole in this recovery phase, and others who physically would never be the same. Charlie responded as a Nassau ESU officer, but his death left a gap in North Patchogue, where he had been a first responder, and in Medford, where he was a firefighter and medic.

I apologize in advance for mentioning only a few of the many names of lives lost from those that lived and laughed among us. May every one of them rest in peace.

I promised 25 years ago to “never forget,” and I never will.

Brian Curry is a longtime columnist for the Long Island Advance and a three-time winner of the New York State Press Association “Column of the Year.” He is a 2026 inductee to the Patchogue-Medford Hall of Fame. You can contact him at currypointofview@yahoo.com