Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
You're listening to the Bike Did You Even? Podcast, hosted
by media personality and consultant Mike Glow. You were listening
(01:02):
to the best of the Bravest Interviews with the FD
and wys Elite. Time we begin twenty twenty five within
the Ft and Y Show. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen
to the Mike and Raven Podcast, Episode three hundred and
forty nine, Volume sixty six of one of the mini series.
As I've said plenty of times on the program, it's
(01:24):
really one of the backbones of the show. That's the
best of the Bravest interviews with the FD and wys Elite.
Good to be back. We took a little bit. We
weren't going that long. We took a little bit of
a time off, a weaker change or so from our
last episode to round out the year, which was a
very enjoyable one. I was with Phil Park who I
was volume sixty five of the Best of the Bravest
former FD and Wife Battalion chief. We got a good
(01:46):
guest tonight. Will introduce momentarily, but good to see all
of you. Christian Williams, John Costello, Garrett Lingren You and
I chatted earlier. Of course, Producer Vick on the ones
in tes tonight very quickly again, if you please check
out the previous episodes, and we're gonna play just and
I mentioned this at the end of the show I
did with chief part. We're gonna play it by ear
(02:08):
for shows to start the year. We are booked until
January tenth. They'll mention the guests we have coming up later.
But as you know, with a starting fire academy soon
we may be on a lengthy hiatus for a while,
depending on when the academy starts. So in the meantime,
we got a couple of shows lined up. We start
with a really good guest tonight. We'll keep them waiting
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a proud supporter and sponsor of the Mike the New
Haven podcast. Well from the streets of East Flatbush and
Brooklyn to the heart of Harlem, as well as Ridgewood,
Queens across his twenty six years in the ft and WI.
Those are just some of the places in which you worked.
Got on the job at the summer of nineteen ninety six,
retired only a couple of years ago twenty twenty two.
It would be three years pretty soon. A lot of
(03:32):
busy places, a lot of action seen from the MBA,
so the box alarms. His tours were hardly have for boring.
And they'll tell me about tonight. He saw him on
Getting Salty a while ago. I have to get him
on here and that for this volume sixty six of
the best of the Bravest Interviews with the Ft Wives,
Lee and the first show to kick off twenty twenty five.
Mister Greg Bruno, Greg, welcome, How are you hey?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Mike?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
I Williot good good. It's cold out.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Having me on. Oh you has a little small one, yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Yeah yeah, but otherwise having me on, no progress.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
It's good to have you. So, you know, before we
get into anything involving the of course, your career and
the extensive nature of it. As I asked every guest
to start out, where'd you grow up and did you
have family on the job?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yes, I did. I grew up in Brooklyn, born and raised,
and I had my father was on the job, got
on nineteen seventy and got out, and I believe ninety
two I worked in some pretty heavy duty places. His brother,
my uncle Jimmy, he was on the job. He retired
in nineteen seventy. My mother's brother, my other uncle, Dennis,
(04:38):
he was on the job for a while. And yeah,
so I got into it real early. My father very
very big influence, obviously, always talking about work and I
want to know what was going on. I kind of
got the bug that way, and then if you want,
we can get into how it all started. It was
(04:59):
aboutrobably six or seven years old. My father worked at
that time in Who I Want fifty six on King's
Holloway in Brooklyn. We me and my brother, you know,
got on a bike and went over there to visit him.
I think it was during the Easter break holidays. And
sure enough we get there and they get a run
and my father sister, my brother is older than me. Hey,
(05:20):
come on, rich, let's go get on the rig. We'll
go for a ride. My brother went, came back. I'm
waiting to go. I'm itching thinking, come on, let's get
another run. All of a sudden we get another run.
I get on, we go through the streets. They had
adrenaline starts flowing, and I said, oh boy, this is
what I want to do. So from that point on,
(05:40):
it was, you know, always wanting to get on the job.
Became probably a pretty big buff. I didn't want anybody
to know that until Adam retired. Who really doesn't really matter,
but they know. But take you into that whole scenario.
In that scene, I grew up my an older brother
and an older sister and a younger sister and my dad,
(06:00):
you know, like I said, he started out in three
thirty engine, got laid off in the early seven mid seventies,
and when he got reassigned he had gone to Ladder
three in Manhattan, and latter three he told me, you know,
so such a different world in Brooklyn, back and forth,
different types of buildings, the amounts of people. And then
if we get into it later, I'll explain to you.
(06:22):
You know, I experienced the same thing when I worked
in hallm It was just a tremendous difference from Brooklyn
and the different boroughs that I was detailed too. But
going back to the early days, like I said, waiting
again on the job, waiting again on the job, it
was this problem with this test, and then they weren't
going to give another test for another four years, so
on and so forth. But I used to play hockey
(06:44):
in the street with friends of mine who lived on
the same block as Timmy Stackpole. And although my father
was the biggest influence on me, you know, of course
I got to see Timmy jogging coming back from running,
coming back from work, going to work, and it was
always hey Timmy, you know, hey, what's going on? You know,
he's in one forty seven, and then he was going
(07:05):
to rescue too, and all of the stories and the
amounts of jobs he went to just increased, and I
was hook line sinker, you know everything he had to
talk about. Let me know what the night tour was before,
and then get home and find out the next day
my father came home with his night was like and
it just grew from there, and boy, you know, I
(07:26):
was just excited and I couldn't wait to get on
the job. And my dream came through in ninety six.
Just a great, great time for me.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
And I was gonna say, you got on, as you
just mentioned, smack dab in the middle of the nineties
where fire duties interesting in New York City. I talked
to a lot of guys that got on in the
seventies and eighties, not too many guys that got on
in the nineties. So in ninety six we have a still,
you know, a heavy amount of fires across the city,
especially in burroughs like Brooklyn and the Bronx. But with
(07:56):
the city being in the middle of the renaissance that
it was, the scope is changing to include new construction,
so there's different issues that arise there with construction accidents.
As a result, with the influx of more tourism, you
get a lot more accidents, So the work is a
lot more varied than it was in the seventies and eighties.
Starting out in a place like one seventy four truck
in East Flatbush, I imagine that was one of those
(08:17):
places that still had the same problems with the seventies
and eighties. Fire wise, busy house, not so busy house.
What was it like there early on?
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Oh, it was fantastic. I mean, for some reason, they
weren't all the way up in the numbers. It wasn't
published how great their numbers were for some reason. But
I mean every single year it was constant work. That
was not a highs and lows. It was just steady
work all the time. I mean, you know, you go
on a little bit of a drought sometimes if you
(08:45):
missed a couple of things, but it wasn't uncommon they
go to work and go to two or three jobs
that night, you know, or have two jobs on the
day tour or for some reason, I always seem to
get an awful lot of work on rainy days. I
don't know why. We foot raindy days would be a
little slow and rainy days sometimes you were more busy
than other days with fires. So uh yeah, it was
(09:08):
a lot of fun. I mean I enjoyed getting there,
going there, and of course when I showed up, you
guys wanted to know who the hell I know, how
did you get here? So uh, you know, as I
said when I was talking on Movies podcast, you know,
I had joking with them and say, well, you know,
I lived in Howard Beach at the time, and it
was easy. I got in my car and went down
(09:28):
Conduit to the condo up course by boulevard to the conduit,
and they're like, no, how did you get your How
did you get here? Not how did you drive here?
How did you get here? So, my people who looked
out for me really wanted me to learn the job
and learn it well. And I had tremendous, tremendous senior
(09:48):
men there, and I had tremendous offices. And by getting
my you know, getting me there, the person wanted to
make sure I learned from the best. You know, you're
only gonna learn to do this job. The more you
do it, hopefully the better you can be. And the
potential was always there with the guys that I worked
with to always learn something, sit back and watch with
(10:11):
how they operated, ask questions as often as possible, and
learn better techniques so that hopefully you could last longer
because a lot of times I would always say, hey,
I can get this position. Why are they giving it
to the older guy? You know? And only to realize
as I got older, it takes a senior fireman to
(10:32):
get off the rig, compose yourself, and give you enough
time to say, hey, what do I got? Let's see
what's going on? Because when you jump off and you run,
you always tend to get that tunnel vision that they
always talk about, and there's so many things that you miss.
And these guys would pull me to the side after
it was and say, on the way back in the riggings,
(10:54):
give me a few questions, Hey, Greg, how many win
does we're in the building? What kind of building was it?
How many stories you know? Where was the fire escapes?
What side of the building did you go to? How
did you get to where you were going? Like all
of these different things that I tried to transfer to
the new guys in other places and give them the
(11:14):
same opportunity to learn to step back and say hey,
let's uh, let's throw down a second, because you're going
to catch so much more and you're going to be
more efficient by slowing down, and you're not going to
burn yourself out. And that's some of the things that
the guys taught me. I mean, we can go into
some of the names of the guys if you want to.
(11:35):
In three ten one seventy four. Three ten was a phenomenal,
phenomenal engine on this job, tremendous reputation, just like the truck,
and I had some senior guys there looked out for me,
like Stevie Holman, Eddie Main and Lenny Stromstet. Unfortunately, I
forgot a few guys last time that if I do
(11:55):
forget somebody this time, my apologies, guys like most tremendous,
tremendous guys to Kill Duff Kery, Kill Duff, Tom Day,
Tommy Woods, Richie Savaice, John Schnaz. I had great bosses
like Jimmy Harris, uh, Tom frizz Alone, Danny Monday, Joe Duggan,
(12:22):
Ray Caine, another guy I forgot last time. My apologies,
phenomenal guys, Ray Bayer, George Healy, Tom Riley, all these
guys looked out after you, and they were if you
mentioned their name anywhere throughout the fire department, they were
well known. And those places that do those kind of work,
all those good truck companies like one three, one thirteen,
(12:45):
one seventy four. Uh, you know, they attract the best
of the best people because they want to go to
a place that's doing a lot of work, a place
that the senior men run the house and make their
job so much easier, and a tremendous amount of respect
for them. But going back to you know, my days
of getting on, waiting to get on this job, I
(13:07):
would started and I I'll going back a little bit.
But I had guys like Garrett Lindgren. I went to
my father's fire house. Garrett worked there. Guys like Danny
Prince May rest in peace, Richie Strike who was there.
He was the guy who always pulled me to his
side and tell me what it's going to be like
and get me all hyped up and ready to go. So,
(13:29):
of course, as a kid, you know, saved up and
I bought a scanner, and not knowing that you had
to buy the crystals for the scanner, I come running
home waiting to get on and listen to all these
different burrows, and I have to go buy the crystals.
So I have to go back and say some more
money and get the crystals. And of course my father
worked in Brooklyn, so Brooklyn was the first crystal that
(13:52):
I got, and I got Manhattan because when he worked
in Manhattan, he told me about how much work was
there A little did I know, Like I said in
the last time, how much work was in the Bronx.
I probably would have been up all night listening to
all the jobs that were in the Bronx at that time,
even before I got on in the eighties, still the
war years per se, but these there was so much work.
(14:13):
It was just great. And then got introduced to a
wonderful person, wonderful humor being named war re Fuse to
this day, to this day, we talk on the phone
all the time, talk about jobs, talk about days, nights
that he worked, and just a great human being. You know,
love Fire Department more than anybody I probably could know,
(14:37):
besides myself. But was there to comfort as many widows
or family members for nine to eleven. I don't think
there was one funeral I didn't go that I went
through that I didn't see him at He tried to
be at every single one because through the years there
were so many people that he knew that it was
(14:57):
either their son or the father, somebody connected, and he
was there all the time. And he's just a He
came in and explain what kind of person he is.
He's just a really really wonderful individual. Like I said,
I had guys like Danny Prince there, guys always welcomed
(15:18):
me in the firehouse, always let me ride with them,
got me all excited about waiting to get on the job.
And like I said, I went to one seventy four,
and boy, I couldn't have I couldn't have. I couldn't
have asked for a better place. Really really great guys,
I mean even in the end of it. Jimmy Steen,
Tommy O'Day, Marty Linquist who's a deputy chief now, Kevin
(15:41):
Judson who was at one time my twenty four partner.
He's a captain in Queen's Joe Piggott, just great great guys,
great guys absolutely, And again a company like that, in
a location like that, you learn very quickly.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
That's really the dream for any firefighter. You don't want
to be somewhere that's slow because you don't have as
many chances to really refine your craft, and complacency early
on can set in. Obviously, wasn't the case. Not only
were you in a busy company, but you were in
with guys who enjoyed the work, who liked the work,
who moved just as quickly as the calls came in,
kept up with the work, and that really instilled an
(16:19):
attitude in you early on the guided you for the
rest of your career.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, it did. And what they tried to put upon
me of the place that what didn't just become a
great place overnight, it came from a tremendous amount of
hard work from guys before me. And I was always
taught that you go to someplace, you should uphold the
reputation of the guys who made that place as great
(16:44):
as it is, and then do what you can to
make it better someday when you leave, you instilled in
the guys that come after you how great the guys
before me were, and they lived keep that tradition going,
and hopefully they do the same with the nexttion that
comes to.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
I'm gonna say, and this brings us into a year
into your career from ninety six and to nineteen ninety seven.
Now that two year rotation from nineteen ninety seven to
nineteen ninety nine, the department was in a program the
department had back then, if I'm not mistaken for Probe's
that they had to do a rotation. Was that a
mandatory thing?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yes, it was. When it first started, I was a
little upset about it because I got the word that
we were going to be leaving. You go to two
different companies for a year a piece, which would mean
you're out of your regular firehouse for two years, and
then you would come back and return. You had to
keep a book up every way you went. You had
to write about your your tours, what you learned, questions
(17:44):
you asked the senior men. And I just thought it
was a little bit long. That you can get the
feeling of a different place or a different bottle, let's say,
being there six months instead of a year, and that
if you did the two you would only be away
from your home base for one year instead of two.
But you know, it worked out. I ended up going
(18:04):
to two great places. First, I went to three thirty
one Engine On of course, the Boulevard and the way
they do it. It's an A B and C company,
And at the time some reason, one seventy four was
kept under wraps and it was considered the B company.
So I got like two great places out of three.
One place in Queens that was a little bit slower.
(18:27):
Three thirty one Engine was a little bit on the
slower side. But as I learned, there are, you know,
so many places that you can go to in this
job as you go on through your Korea that you know,
as you get older, the job seems to get a
little harder, and there's really nothing wrong with slowing it down.
Some guys don't have have more family issues and family
(18:47):
things that they need to do that their heart and
soul can't be at the firehouse that's doing fifteen runs
after midnight, and they want to slow it down a little,
or they may the family may move and for reasons
that may be better for them. But three thirty one
was a great place I learned from. I met some really,
really wonderful guys there. I rotated with some great guys
(19:11):
and some of the senior guys that were there were
like George Barr and Kenny Lawregan, Kenny Borgs was another
great guy. He used to teach me a lot. He
was in the truck and I went on to the
rotators that were there with me was Ron Daily, who
ended up being a rescue for recently retired. I got
on the job with Ron Saint Broby Class. Pat Sheridan,
(19:33):
who's a deputy in the fifteenth Division, was also in
three thirty one with us at that time. Captain of
the squadd eighteen Dominic Pertucci, he was rotating in the
truck at the same year we were there, so we
had a lot of fun. We brought some some youthe
to the firehouse. We got to joke about a lot
(19:53):
of things and have a lot of fun. And then
from there I ended up going to an A engine
which was sixty nine engine and UH at that point
I was really really excited about going there because Patty
Brown was the captain. We had a lot of good
officers there with Chris Lennon, Ray McCormick. Yeah. Ray McCormick
(20:16):
was one of my lieutenants. Great guy.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
He was involved in that roof OLP rescue and Goodway
years back.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
We talked a lot about that. I learned a lot
of things from him and superb officer, really really good officer.
Great guys there. We had Timmy Klett, Danny Sullivan who's
now a battalion chief. We had Colney, Bobby Corwell just
really like I said, you know, where you go, there's
certain guys that just stand out for you. In the truck,
(20:47):
we had Kat Marris with Jimmy Guinty, Bob Carberry, h
Lieutenant Flanagan, fireman Ed ed Edd's alone who's on Salty,
he was there, Mike cays Uh, John Tobin, Robert Derkah's
another guy I spoke about. And Robert Derker to this day,
from what I understand, his work ethic is exactly the
(21:09):
same as it was when he was a firefighter and
now he's a lieutenant Squat sixty one. And the guy
impressed me till the day I die of I talked
about how that guy impressed me. His work ethics were
just cleaning tools every morning. It didn't mean that he
was the junior guy with the proby which he obviously wasn't.
(21:29):
Always made sure his tools were up the snuff, always
made sure that when he went out the door, he
was going to represent that company. And in the public size,
and in the eyes of the other companies in the
fire department, he was gonna wear twenty eight chimes. So
he was another great guy. You know you talk about
in the fire department. But hey, this guy's great, that
guy's great. You know what, They're all great. They're all
(21:53):
great in their own way. And you know, unfortunately everybody,
nobody's gonna love everybody, and everybody's not gonna the other guy.
But you find a way to work together. The public
needs you and they call for help. So when when
they call for help, you know, I always try to
make it like you think about if one of your
family members picked up that phone and called min Um
(22:15):
one whatever wherever they lived or whatever company is closest
to them, you would want them to get on the
rig as fast as they can, be as professional as
they can, and get to you to give you the
help that you need right away. So you know, that
was that was the model from Ever Refinement. I mean,
I know, to talk about how Brooklyn Brooklyn is. You know,
(22:37):
you want to you want to get there in three
quarters of a second if you can make it there.
But uh, they took a lot of pride in trying
to get there and get to work. Uh. And where
I worked in these slappish and ran into Brownsville and
places like that. There was it was an abundancy of work.
I mean, there was so much work and there's so
many offices that I worked with in my company. Cap'n
(22:59):
Bill was first captain. Years later, you know, I ended
up driving. Pat mcilboy was another guy in that company.
In thirty plus years, it was only two captains and
guys around this job. You can say what you want,
but you see guys come and go. I mean they
come in the door to out the door. You get
(23:20):
two guys who stick around, who don't want to retire,
who are part of a fantastic company, and they stick
around for thirty years, and you know the lines that
are out the door and around the block, guys wanting
to get that spot to be a captain or lieutenant
and work in that company. That says an awful lot
about the guys who worked there, the kind of work
(23:40):
that they do, and just the company in general. So absolutely, yeah,
it's a wonderful thing. And you're going to see that
shortly when you getting the Academy. Congratulations to you, Thank
you very much.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I appreciate it. I appreciate it. We're talking with Greg
Brutos is the volume sixty six of the Best, the
Bravest Interviews with the Ft and Wise Elde and goes
back to something you said earlier, which is the company
didn't get to be that way overnight. It brought It
was brought to be that way throughout the years of
guys honing their craft, working hard as a result, not
only bringing a good name to themselves, but bringing a
(24:14):
good name to that company. And when you see guys wanting,
chopping at the bit to get those particular assignments, it's
a good feeling. It's a feeling of pride because you
know you're part of upholding that tradition that not only
benefits that particular company, makes the department as a whole
look good.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Yeah, you know, you talk about how that works out.
I have a very good friend guy that I'm super
proud of, my friend Jeff Miller. Jeff came to one
seventy four after me. First he was a New York
City police officer, could definitely hold his own love to
fire department and work his way through the ranks and
every single place he went to. If you mentioned his name,
(24:53):
everybody was like, yeah, I know, Jeff. Jeff was fantastic.
And a guy like Jeff ended up in a in
the Captain latter one O eight, one hundred and eight
in Williamsburg, And anybody who knows anything about the New
York City Fire Department would end up mentioned one hundred
and eight truck. And uh, just goes to show you
(25:14):
they're upholding that same thing we're just talking about about
the tradition, the amount of guys that came in and
out of that place over the years, and wanna wait,
was you know, tremendous pride to be part of one
to weight, just like everybody who loves their own company.
But when you end up pulling as I spoke with Jeff,
and become a boss of a place like that, you
(25:36):
have a lot to uphold because of the reputation and
the tradition that went on before you. And I'm sure
he's doing a fantastic job. The guys there must love him.
And every time you look up on FireWire or something,
you see wanta wait, wanna wait, wanna wait, you wanna work? So, uh,
good luck to him. And he's a probably I know
(25:57):
he's a fantastic addition to that company, and those guys
are doing anything for him.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
That's a great place to be as a boss and
really as a firefighter period, but especially as a boss.
You bring up an interesting point because either way, your
guys and your gals, they're gonna remember you. But which
way is that going to be. Is it gonna be
that man, what a great boss he was, or man,
what a jerk? I would never want to be like
that person if I ever became a boss. You got
to pick one. So thankfully, in your case, you came
(26:23):
across a lot of people. They picked a good course
and then remember result.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Yeah, I Mike, I'm telling you I was so very fortunate.
I mean even from the beginning, from just following around
my dad. You know, he was, like I said to you,
a tremendous influence to me and always always explain to
me how it works and what you need to do.
Not only to keep the family name, because that's number one,
but you want you want to make a name for yourself,
(26:49):
and you want guys to think of you as a
guy that they can depend on or uh, you know,
guy around the firehouse who always tries to make things better,
always contributes. We get can because you love that job.
And you know what, it's very difficult too, as an older,
more senior guy, try to take a young guy that
(27:10):
doesn't know anything about the fire department, has no family
in it, shows up one day and you get to
see these guys go from boys to mend and you
see them grow up, and you see some of them
latch onto the fact that they absolutely love the fire department.
They absolutely have a passion for you. You can't you
(27:33):
can't teach someone passion. Okay, you either have it or
you don't. And you know, in my case, you know
need to get on the fire department. I didn't get
on ttil I was twenty eight, and it was if
I didn't make it that round by time the next
test came out, I was going to be too ineligible.
I was going to be too old. So I didn't
really know what life was going to be for me
(27:53):
if I didn't get on. So I did everything I
possibly could. And I think I told you that real quick.
I'll tell you that, or real quick about my entrance exam.
I got one question wrong on the entrance exam, so
I got one hundred and the ninety nine I got
one hundred on the physical. He got ninety nine and
a half on the written so I one hundred and
(28:15):
four and a half combined score with the city residency points.
So I go to take the physical test and I've
been running with the weighted vest and I'm doing anything
I can. And I get there and I'm going through
the test and first thing I walk in theres a
guy looks like missed the universe, gigantic shaped, He's got
(28:37):
muscles on top of muscles, and I'm thinking, Oh my god,
what am I gonna do now? You know, I don't
want this guy to psych me out. I gotta do
what I gotta do. And he's telling me how this
test is nothing. I don't know. You know, I've been
going to budget Wolsh University for how long and every
time I was doing it, by the end of the night,
I was dead. So give him my best shot. I
(29:00):
get to the very end of the test where there
was a part of the test where you had to
lift up on a metal door with a hook, put
the hook down, and pull down on this cylinder. I
had a cable with a weight and you pulled down
five times. That was one repetition, one up, five down,
two repetitions all the way to twenty five. Well, I
got twenty four of them done, and I got a
(29:20):
bed a minute and forty five seconds to go to
lift the door once and pull down five times, and
I got a hundred. Well, I lift up and I
go to the yank down because now I'm I'm, you know,
really really going, and now I got a hundred. I
was excited. I pulled down in the cable snaps on me.
The guy looks at me, he said, oh no, I said,
(29:42):
what do you mean? Oh no, he said, the machine broke.
I said, I know, fix it. Let's go. Let's get
this done. I got a minute forty five seconds to go.
He says, now you got to redo the whole test.
I said, are you kidding me? I'm thinking to myself,
how could this happen? Okay, okay, what do you mean?
I still can't believe I got to take this whole
test of him, and I know if I have to
(30:04):
take it again today, I'm never going to have the
I'm exhausted, you know. So I said to him, what
happens if you know I don't? I get halfway through
and I'm passing out because I'm exhausted. He says, then
it's over. You fail. I said, I'll see you in
a couple of weeks. I got to go home because
I know the next day I'm going to be a
source could be I'm not coming back tomorrow. I'll come
back in a couple of weeks. When I get a
(30:25):
couple more weeks of running in, I know what to expect.
Sure Enough, I went back there and the guy remembered
me because I did everything minor then flipping out that
day because I was very upset that I had to
go home without a hundred thinking what am I going
to do now? And sure enough I went back three
weeks later, they remembered me, and I got through it,
(30:46):
and I think when I was finished, I think I
had like a little over two minutes remaining. So I
even did better the second time than they did the
first time. And I was as happy as I could
be because I knew I did what I needed to
do like you did a few weeks ago, and the
rest of my life was going to be exactly the
way I wanted to be. So uh, Doug, it was great.
(31:06):
It was I couldn't have been happier. So I know
exactly how you feel. And every other guy who puts
his hand up and takes that oat, and you got
to remember when you take that oat, you know, you know,
only firemen in the firehouse. It's like a cop being
the cop twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.
You see something, you gotta lend the hand. You gotta
do something, step up and make it happen for the people,
(31:28):
and do what you can too, you know, just make
yourself proud of being the New York City firemen.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Well said, and that and I know exactly what you're
talking about because that last station down here in Connecticut,
they called it the pike pole, which is everybody was
telling me, And this is what helped me finally when
I was able to pass it back in October, use
your legs, because that was the mistake I was making
the previous times I took it. When I would get
to the final station that I would run out of time.
I wasn't using my legs. When I finally started to
(31:56):
use my legs, you know, that's when I was able
to get through it a lot quicker. And I don't
know if they were doing the StairMaster back then. But
that StairMaster is the key to anybody that's going to
take the sea pad train. Like you just heard Greg say,
run use a way to best get used to it.
Get on that StairMaster. Go for a long time, because
when you come off of that, your legs are going
(32:17):
to feel like sauce. But if you spend a lot
of time training on it, you can get through it
a lot quicker because by that point your body is.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
Used to it.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
M It's all about the recovery time, the way you
exert yourself. And that's why when you go to a
place like pudg Walsh University at the time when I went,
they told you a little little techniques of being able
to advance the hose line easier. You know, when you
when you throw the lodder up, how to take your
hand on the side and run it up the rails yep,
and all those little things that you're using less upper
(32:48):
body strength to do certain activities that is going to
save you in the end and not make you out
of breadth or tired. Where you have that little time
in between to go from motization to the other where
you're going to recover a little bit. So I mean
all that was fun, but to really be honest, like
I said in the beginning, taking a hold of the older,
(33:10):
more senior guys who would step back and say, hey,
you're getting off the rig. There was one guy I
worked with in particular. His big thing was every time
you get off the rig, he grab his tools, put
his tools on one hand, he take his helmet off,
and we look up a justice helmet. While he was
looking and that little time of him doing that, he
(33:30):
would explain to me how much he picked up of
what he was looking at. Because sometimes as you're going
to see you may get a call for a fire
in a private dwelling. You pull up it's a multiple dwelling,
or you get, you know, a call for smoke from
the rear and you show up and fires coming out
(33:52):
the right side front window. So things that could have
happened in the time that they made the call to
the time that you got there. But things change on
your way there, or the public calls and they say
that they see fire when it's not exactly fire, it's
only smoked. You change what you do and you adjust yourself.
And this particular gentleman with his thing would be take
(34:16):
the helmet off, take a look, and then go. So
you pick up some of those things along the way,
and you know, one guy's technique is not going to
be the same as the next guy's technique, but you
will learn certain things you do on the job. That's
gonna it's gonna be like a routine. Like certain guys
have superstitions in football. You know, they wear the same
chin strap every time, no matter what they wear, the
(34:36):
same stops every time. Everybody's got their own little thing.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
Yep. Gretzky would beat a hot dog before every game.
Before every game, Wayne Gretzy would need a hot dog
and even and there was a great video of him
playing in the Winter Classic all these years ago. He
long retired, still had a hot dog before the game.
So never stops. Mike Roy's watching be a Facebook and
we can highlight his color. Producer Micky says, I was
in rescued for I remember when Greg was doing his
(35:02):
rotation at Engine three thirty one. I worked a small
boat detail. We ran out of the back of three
thirty one. The guys he mentioned he rotated with for
great guys.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Yes, yes, I remember him, I do. He used to
have the small boat. Some of detail in the back,
and the police department would also have the marine unit
in the back. They had a station and a boat
in the back of three thirty one.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Oh okay, I know that you learn something new every day.
I was gonna say, getting back to one seventy four
truck in two thousand. I didn't ask you this earlier
because I wanted to make sure we got the three
three one in the Harlem Hilton. But usually you know
what type of fires you're dealing with based in the
makeups the building, depending on where you are, that maybe
tenements and maybe a lot of cock lofts, maybe a
lot of taxpayers. One seventy four is area. What type
(35:45):
of fires or what type of building makeups you normally
dealing with, Well.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
A lot of them are mostly private dwellings. But in
that area, what you have to really watch out for
is a lot of SR single room occupancies. A lot
of people will divide their basement four apartments to try
to get more rent, and then you have you know,
you can't go a lot of times people will be
cooking with a hot plate and some of them's trying
(36:09):
to keep warm in the winter. Well it's cold, and
now all of a sudden, they're using bad electrical cords,
they're using illegal space heaters or some type of heaters
that will start a fire to fall asleep with something on.
And most of our work was private dwellings, and we
had a lot of commercials like on Utica Avenue things
like that. But then we did they didn't do a
(36:31):
lot of subways. They had almost no subways, and they
had very very little elevators, which was if you talk
to another truck guy in the city of New York,
they would they would love that, you know, no elevators
and no subways and four fives and private dwellings and
asplay is fantastic. Yeah. So yeah, but you know, in
(36:52):
that area, Mike, you had, you had, as I always
talk about, you had tremendous respect for the other companies.
You know, you had I always say, Bob SONO two
eight three engine, fantastic man, just always willing to help you.
The year that we spent in two eighty three was
so enjoyable. You know, we thought in the beginning, when
(37:14):
they were renovating three ten and seventy four that there's
going to be some friction because years back there was
another company that was in there and there was some friction,
but we loved it. I think before we left they
wanted us to stay. We had such a good time there.
We called a tremendous amount of work. I think that
year we went to like one hundred and sixty old
hands were greater in one year. So it was you know,
(37:38):
a lot of a lot of work. And guys like
Bob Sono, guys like John Calamary and won twenty all
these different places, the companies you ran in with all
had a tremendous amount of respect for each other, and
even even with the Starck companies. And they said this
on the other other podcasts, you know those. If you
(37:58):
come from a very repid that people respect, they will
give you the time to do your job. It could
be at a pin job. You know, you have all
your cutters, your spreaders, everything ready to go. They pull up,
they have theirs ready to go. But if you weren't
as respected as the company that I'm talking about of
(38:21):
being part of, they may try to make their way
in because things aren't getting done properly. When you come
from a very respectful place and they see you doing
everything properly, they're willing to wait to help you and
not try to move in on you. You understand what
I'm saying. So places like you know, Rescue too. You know,
(38:41):
they're great firemen. If if you're not a great fireman,
you're not going to make it there. They're not going
to put their reputation and worry about you know, your
your safety if you're not a top notch timent. So
all the guys that go there very well respected and
like I said, they'll give you the time to do
(39:02):
what you need to do. And that makes you feel
good about yourself that the company you come from is respected.
It's not oh my god, what's going on. Nobody's got
this nobody. It's all being taken care of. And they're
there to back you up and they're there to give
you a hand. And that's when you get to work
hand in hand with them. It's great, you know. Like
(39:24):
I said. You know there were times after the World
Trade Center, you know, unfortunately it was so decimated that
a lot of times we would get detailed. If you
were in a busy truck company, they would look to
the busy truck companies to try to backfill and get
detailed for the night tour, for the data a couple
of times I worked in Rescue one. That was a
(39:44):
tremendous experience for me. Sometimes I worked in the Rescue
four a couple of times, and really really nice guys.
I mean, they so good at their craft. And if
they if you get to that point where you can
do working TALC, you're the guy that has passion already,
(40:05):
you don't, you know, you're not looking to learn passion
because it's something like I said, you can't. You can't
learn that. It's either in you or it's not. And
the guys that have it want to excel in it
in their career and excel in it and on their
craft so much better. And they end up finding themselves
in places like that, right And when the time comes
(40:25):
into public needs and the firemen need an extra hands,
they're the guys that come help. Yeah, it was a
lot of fun working.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
There, absolutely. And the thing that I love what you
mentioned earlier that it goes back to what you talked
about with teamwork. No one's looking to encroach. They're not
looking to tramp what you're trying to do as a company.
They're not looking to step on your operations. It's all
about eating, it's all about making sure the process goes
as smoothly as possible, because at the end of the day,
it doesn't matter what companies you're involved in. Is their
(40:55):
pride in the company yet, But there's greater pride like
we talked about as a department and knowing, Okay, we
did a good job here, what does the truck company
need X, Y and Z. You got it all right?
What's the engine asking for a B and C? You
got it? And that flows smoothly. That's it, you know,
even without the chain of command being something that's always mentioned,
just the smoothness of operations aftven wise always to meet
(41:15):
in the gold standard for that, you know what.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Even like I said, those engine companies around three ten,
three ten, to me, they were they were so awesome. Well,
there's not one thing bad I can say about bad
about them, not at all. But the other companies that
the truck would have a bigger response area. And if
you were going second do to a job and one
of these other companies were at the door, were operating
(41:38):
on the second floor, and you were second Dow truck
and you're going to the third floor to do a search,
you had no no bad feeling whatsoever. You'd still slap
them on the back and say, hey, brother, on seventy
four is going above. Just show you it's your own
practice to know that you said it out loud, well,
the boss said it out loud, so that they know
(41:59):
that you that three three lives above you that are
your own that you have to worry about and give
us time to get a place of refuge up above.
But you have never ever had the feeling that these
guys are never going to stay there and protect you
with that line, and that makes a world of difference
when you go to do your job. There's one less
thing to think about. I always say in regards to
(42:23):
a chauffeur chauffeur of at your company, you gotta be
on your game. Beca's five other lives beside your own,
of guys that you love that you want to make
sure are okay. You have a boss, whether it's a
covering guy or one of your regular guys, you want
to make his job as easy as you can for him.
(42:43):
And I was taught by other guys in my company
like Gary nat and Wally Blum and other really great
chaulfers that listen. Steve Holman, if you could take care
of the outside team. For the boss, he only has
to worry about himself and the two inside guys with
him makes his job so much more easier to focus
on what they have to do, gaining entry, doing search.
(43:07):
Knowing that the roof's going to be opened, the outside
event's gonna give him a report from the rear. He's
gonna event when he needs to vent. Everything's gonna run smooth,
you understand. So that is is essential, just as essential
it is knowing that these guys are gonna have that
door and keep that fire off from coming up the
(43:27):
stairs and coming towards you.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
There's a trust factor. There's a trust factor because it's
a great feeling to have to be confident in that.
All right, engine companies here they know what they do.
You know, they know exactly what to do, and I
know they're gonna do it. Let me go do my thing.
You know, you never have to worry. And that's a
sweet spot. Not that it's an invitation. I'm not saying
you're saying this. It's not that it's an invitation for
complacency or recklessness. But again, going back to the smoothest
(43:52):
of operations, I know they're well versed. They may not
work with me, but they've been trained the same way
I've been trained, just at a different capacity. So I
know they're going to do an you know, an A
plus job.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Absolutely, absolutely, And like I said, you know all these
other boss tites I was talking about, not to forget
anybody here saying about Bob Sono. Then you had guys
like that Danny Florenco, captain of one O three. There's
not a doubt in my mind that any guy that
goes to that company is going to be trained by
the senior guys, because guys like him don't go to
(44:27):
a place that doesn't run itself. You know, you don't
want to put yourself in a position of being a
boss worrying about every single facet of the firehouse and
everything going on at a job. So you become a
boss of the place. Everything should run the way you
want it to be run. And having the senior guys
(44:48):
take care of all the stuff that can be taken
care of downstairs is great. And all the drilling, all
the things that these guys need to know about their area.
Something comes down in the park in orders. These guys
are on it, they're reading it, they're going over it
every day at drill. Maybe they're pulling the tool out
and they're having a junior guy give a two or
(45:08):
three minute speech about everything he knows about the rabbit
tool or the Halligan tool, or the airbags or And
you can make a daily drill out of it by
doing it in the morning for a few minutes at
roll call, and for the rest of the day. Anything
you go out you see on the outside could be
out for discussion. You go to a job and you
(45:28):
come back and you ask, hey, what'd you do? What'd
you do? What'd you do? How'd you get to the rear,
how'd you get upstairs? All these things and sitting back,
even if you came in early for the night tour
and they came back from a job, you're going to
learn knowledge and you weren't even at the job. You
could find out what everybody did and you're ready for
the night tour by sitting there, having a upper core
for you, having leftovers for lunch, and you're going to
(45:51):
learn about what all these guys did, and you won't
even at the job. So I used to love when
I was a kid that would go to my father's
firehouse and hang out for the night, talk to guys
like Garrett. Garrett was a wealth of knowledge and he
ended up going on to bigger and better things. He
went on to thirty three truck and then went on
to rescue like this guy had passion for this job,
(46:14):
like Warren as a dispute, as a dispatcher, had a
passion to get you whatever you needed. I remember hearing
him on the radio. Redirecting companies was another job. Came
in and he knew every every street in Brooklyn. Whatever
he had to know. It was a dispatcher to give
you the information or to give you what you needed invaluable.
(46:37):
You couldn't You couldn't ask for another better guy him.
He had the other guy that was a dispatcher there.
Munch was his last name. And these guys worked hand
in hand. It would almost be like an engine company
at you a company. These two dispatches did what they
had to do, got you the resources you needed right away.
(46:58):
They would even prompt you and ask you these things
were going hey why hey, and them say hey, chief,
do you want a second along? Hey, chief, do you
want a turn alarm? They had prompted them because they
know they're gonna need these resources and it was it
was unbelievable to listen to, you know. And those are
the back in the days when I was chasing fires
in my car anyway, being the buff that.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
I was so right, no, of course, and I could
see the passion tonight. And I'm very much enjoying this
conversation as a result.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
You know, it never It'll never go away, Mike, Never
go away.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
That's the beauty of it, you know. And that's what
I've noticed across all the conversations that I've had, both
on the fire side and the police side, no matter
what the guests may have done as a profession. Once
a fireman, always a fireman, Once a cop, always a cop,
It never leaves you.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
That's beautiful, you know, Mike. You think about some things
too that you bring up funny stories, and they know
part of these podcasts to talk about funny stories. And
you know, some you can talk about, some you can't.
But here's one that you can't talk about. Uh, working
in a engine company not far from one seventy four
on the day tour, I don't know if they had
their picnic. It was like a summer time or maybe
(48:07):
some guys had gotten hurt of the fire. And there
was four details in the engine that day. It was
a regular chauffeur, regular boss, and four guys in the back,
two guys from my company and two guys from another company.
So during the day, some of the things we had
to do. That particular day, we had to do hydrant.
So we were in a place where there was some
(48:28):
hilly streets. I'm walking talking to the guy get to
the top of the hill as the boss on the radio,
Hey boss, this is the one. You want? This one? Yeah, okay,
let it run because when you turn it on, especially
in the summertime, you get that brown mustard colored water.
Oh horrible. So a guy, two guys from the other company,
(48:48):
and on the other side of the street checking the
hydrants because it was two lanes one way, two lanes
the other. And I cracked the hydrant open and I'm
looking at this ward. I'm like, oh my god, and
I'm trying to get it to run, and all of
a sudden he hears somebody yelling, screaming. I looked down
the block. I didn't realize there was a guy working
under his car on the hill and all his tools
(49:12):
and everything got blak. He got blasted by this brown
yellow water. We were laughing about it. I felt bad
for the guy. It was not something that we planned
on doing intentionally, but he ended up getting the whole
mouthful of brown water just working on his car, and
I think he lost probably ninety of his tools. So
(49:32):
that was that on that one.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
Well, so, as Louis said, swinging, he struck him out.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Yeah, we struck him out. Then we did yeah, right now,
go ahead, apologies. And there was another I know you
ask sometimes what is your funniest MS run? And I
won't say the company name, but we were went to
a lady who was having some problem with Hans couldn't
walk and I think she was on like the third
floor of this five story muffle blown and uh, one
(50:01):
of the guys we had with us was this big
husky guy that was, you know, in the fire department
calendar and all this, and of course you know that
old man Murphy is on his way down, and uh,
we're telling her the lady is very upset about being
in the stair chair. Could we carry her? And you
see these big guys are like, man, you know we
got you. Don't worry. We've done this a few times
(50:22):
before you have not to worry about. And I just said,
something's gonna happen. And sure enough, we go to lift
her off on the statue to walk down the first
flighter steps and the handle bricks off the stat chair
and down she goes, bang bang back. She wants to
hit every step on the way down. Man, I'm so sorry.
(50:43):
You know. We tried to help her the best we could.
She ended up being okay, but uh, that was one
of those things is oops, we didn't mean to do that. Yeah,
it was kind of funny.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Was she was? She on the more plus size? Shall
we say?
Speaker 2 (50:56):
Yes, yes she was? And uh, one guy I had
one handle, one guy had the other handle in it.
A minute later one guy had one handle in his
hand and down went the stature. Oh yeah, that was
a little funny.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Thank goodness that Google didn't exist. The capacity of DestinE
review dropped down a stairs. It's flight of stairs. Don't
recommend now. Oh boy, this is a question.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
We were very kind to have. Later we bought her
flowers and all she was. She was grateful.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
Okay, it had a happy ending. She wasn't seriously he
there's a question that chat from Stuke Kelso he's watching
across upon in England where it's just before midnight over there,
he says, Greg, with your level of experience, and we
talked about one seventy four trucks make up as far
as type of buildings, and it was in the area.
What were the most challenging jobs throughout your career? M
(51:51):
Thanks for the question.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
Still well challenging. Well, I mean every job we go
to challenging because it's the unknown. But a lot of
the times, the most challenging jobs to me were the rehabs.
And what I mean by that is like, you know,
you would go and build an inspection where you would
see something, and then the next time you went back
(52:13):
and there happened to be a fire there all of
a sudden, what was there before isn't dreel You know,
you end up being in the basement of a multiple dwelling,
and then the next time you have a fire, you
go down there and that all these rooms are here
because they have these single room occupancies and things like
that would throw you off because even in a small condition,
(52:34):
you know, you were down there three weeks ago and
it was a clear runway from one side to the other,
and now you can't see anything, and what you remember
it being is not what it is. So those are
things that were a little more challenging that And if
you were relocated and you went to another area and
went to a job in an unfamiliar area or got
(52:56):
detailed and you happen to have the outside position and
you're into the back. We're trying to do what needs
to be done, but it's a little bit of an
unfamiliar situation because you've never seen it before. We haven't
been there, So those were a little I could answer
this question saying, well, the challenging ones for me, and.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
Again, thank you very much too for submitting that, and
just to play off your questions too. I know officers
do it a lot, but senior guys can do it too,
especially as your career progress. A lot of pre planning
where that's part of the building especially and going there
but afterwards, and it's difficult when you mentioned that what
was there before is not there now. I imagine there's
unofficially or officially some notes that are jotted down about that,
(53:39):
especially with building codes being what they are. Maybe sometimes
it's not even the violation of building code, it's just
normal alterations. But would you guys keep a running log
of what was changing.
Speaker 2 (53:48):
Well. In the fire department, we have something called Kids
Information Critical Information Dispatch System and what you do on building,
especially if you come across something that is out of
the ordinary, or it could be a handicapped child living
on in a certain apartment, if that, if that boxing
them came in the dispatcher and on the ticket and
(54:12):
the truck in the fire truck on the screen you
would see the CIDs information and it would give you
that little heads up that something's out of the ordinary
and maybe you need to tend to that first. It
could be for a roof position, could say you have
gyps and roof. We're not allowed to cut a gypsy
roof in the fire department, So everybody has to be
(54:32):
on board that the SIDS information is that there's a
gypsy roof, so that nobody tries to cut the roof,
nobody falls through the roof. All these different things are
told to you. Sometimes it has to do with the
engine company taking an extra length to hose because of
the length of the hallway, you know. So this SIDS
information is something that the boss would submit paperwork for
(54:56):
something out of the ordinary.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
That's a big help because literally can save lives. You know,
we've seen this happen if you're in New York City exactly,
you know, and not just in New York City, but
across the board where situations were not correctly communicated and
as a result, you know, people ended up getting hurt,
if not killed. I think we just passed the anniversary
not too long ago sniper mclachlin's death. And I believe,
(55:21):
you know, Pete McLoughlin were going to Rescue four where
they had added gates, you know, anti burglar gate some
of the windows, and unfortunately that wasn't communicated and he
ended up getting stuck and end up getting killed in
that fire. Had that been communicated, would have changed operations
that night, maybe mister McLachlin still be here.
Speaker 2 (55:37):
Yep, maybe it would be. You know.
Speaker 1 (55:39):
So it's stuff like that to be on the lookout for.
We talked about it off the air, and we'll touch
on it now. We're talking with Greg Bruno. This is
volume sixty six of the Best of the Bravest Interviews
with the Ft and Wives Elite. We get the Trade
Center in of course, September eleventh, two thousand and one,
and that was enough. Said there, we know what happened
that day in the devastation, and there's a period of
(56:02):
time where New York City naturally is on edge. The
whole country is, especially New York given that's where the
brunt of the tragedy happened, as well as Washington, and
everybody's on the lookout to see if anything is next.
When the Rockaways happened in November of two thousand and one,
given what had happened two months prior, everyone's first assumption
(56:22):
was terrorism. Now that was sorted out later determined to
just be a really tragic accident. But what's ironclad is
this terrorism or not. It's mass casualty incident and it
requires a massive response. That day you told me a
little bit off about it off the air, but I'll
let you take it from here. In November of two
thousand and one, responding to Flight by eighty seven in
the Rockaways.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
Yeah, I worked the night before. I think I worked
twenty four hours night before and the day before, and
I had to wait relief because I was getting off duty.
I was in three ten engine that night and we
had a finement coming from an of the firehouse and
if you remember it happened like eight forty five, eight
(57:04):
fifty in the morning was when the flight five eighty
seven went down the Rockaways and the guy didn't show
up yet, and obviously the bell went off and three
ten was something to go to the Rockaways. We were
first doing the third along. As soon as they transmitted
the third alarm, we got the ticket from Snyder in
fifty first Street to respond. And a lot of the
(57:26):
firemen from my firehouse lived in the Rockaways and Breezy Point.
So you know, the guy that was driving that day,
I guess in his mind he was thinking, my kids
are in the school, you know, I think that there
was a holiday, and not thinking that the kids weren't
in school. But I have to be honest with you,
I never one was fast in the fire truck as
they did that day. I mean we were he was hauling.
(57:48):
We were hauling down Uticaer Avenue, turning on the Flappish
Avenue up over the Marine Parkway Bridge, and instead of
going to the left on the Beach Channel Drive where
ninety nine percent of the fireparases went, he went to
the right and went around Rockaway Beach Boulevard and Rockaway
Beach Boulevard had a lot of you know, these pumps
(58:10):
on every street, and he was he was flying over them.
He got there so fast that we ended up getting
a hydrant on the block of the of the of
the plane crash and pumping water through their pumps. So
he went around. We ended up putting out a lot
of fire that day, a lot of foam. But you know, Mike,
(58:33):
that would to me was very disturbing mentally. I mean,
the trade Center was a horrible, horrible incident, but you
kind of you knew everybody was was going to be deceased,
and it took a long time to try to find
any part of somebody to bring that family closure. And
(58:54):
this was just a massive amount of people who passed
away in front of you. I mean you had to
step over people, and you just didn't think it was real.
You thought it was like a scene out of a
movie until we got a little bit of a handle
on putting the fire out and keeping the foam on
the jet fuel. But the turnout was in fire department fashion.
(59:20):
It was tremendous turnout. Guys went above and beyond, of course,
doing everything they possibly could, but that if you had
to ask me in my whole career. That was probably
the most disturbing incident that you had to overcome. I mean,
you had trouble sleeping for weeks. I did, anyway, I
(59:40):
mean it was I felt very, very bad for those
four people. But you know, the way things happened. I
you know, the plane came straight down. I mean, if
the plane would have went and when through the Rockaways
straight you could have had seven eight blocks of fire.
I mean, you know, just was contained to one corner
(01:00:02):
on a half of one block, maybe because it came
straight down, But it was not an easy thing. I'm
sure there many other guys that you spoke to them,
they would tell you the same thing, that it was
a difficult on auduous job to try to get that
fire out and try to have a little bit of
tunnel vision not to look at what was underneath you
(01:00:24):
and on the side of you. It was difficult, and.
Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
That that neighborhood in the Rockaways had lost a lot
of firefighters in the World Traits Center attack, a couple
that's priory, So that was another blow to them. And
really in a year of two thousand and one, at
least the back half of two thousand and one from
June and December. It was very difficult for New York
City for obvious reasons Father's Day nine to eleven and that,
but the acting wide was able to push through. And
(01:00:52):
you know, looking at what Stuke Kelsaw type in the
chat just now about support in the aftermath or something
like that. There, we're putting a good emphasis on it.
Now times are a little bit different back then, even
though two thousand and one and two is not that
long ago. How what was your outlet for dealing with
some of the rough stuff that you had to see
(01:01:12):
on the job. Which's a lot of great days in
the job, but then there's days like that that they
can really bother you.
Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
What do you I say that again, when you had.
Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
The rough days, we had to see some some tough
things that the firefighters have to see. What was your
outlet for being able to decompress and deal with.
Speaker 2 (01:01:28):
Those things, you know, being able to go home to family,
you know and uh talk about it if you could
with family to let it off, let it out, or
really talk about it with the guys in the fire house.
You know, many kinds or something happened like that, whether
there was maybe a fatality at a fire or a child.
(01:01:51):
It was a little okay to talk about with the
guys who you got back to the fire house. Kind of
let it out right, uh, and be thankful for what
you have at home, you know. You know, we all
do the best that we can to try to prevent
these tragedies, but they're going to happen, and you're going
to have to just know that you do your best
(01:02:11):
that you can and sometimes the results aren't going to
be the way you would write it out in the
story book. But all in all, you do the best.
You did the best that you know you could.
Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
Do, absolutely, and that's you know, as somebody told me
a while ago, and it was more along the lines
of being able to put up that emotional barrier in
the moment. Yes, it's a rough situation, but when you're responding,
you have to realize, and I'm paraphrasing, we didn't do
this to them, you know, we're just simply responding after
the fact to make the situation better. And I think
that's a good perspective to have in the moment and
(01:02:44):
hopefully a guiding point in the aftermath as well. We
talked a little bit off the year two about you
know being able to drive an engineer or a truck
through the streets in New York City. The more time
you get on that's when you're able to do something
like that. And it's not easy because I always quote
this line from Paul hat Shaking, but it's so true.
No matter what type of rig you're driving, it's not
how fast you can go, he said, it's how fast
(01:03:06):
can you stop? Because traffic in New York City is
so unpredictable. The streets are narrow, you got cars, you
got a lot of people too. So when it came
to being a chauffeur, tell me about the training for
that and from your perspective, because everybody's different what it
takes to be an effective chauffeur in New York City.
Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
Okay, first of all, I think you have to realize
enjoy your training at going to shou for school. You
need to understand that it doesn't turn like a car
number one, So when you're making turns, all of your
turns have to really be very square. You may have
to go out and go out more before you start
(01:03:43):
to turn so that you clear a back. You know
a lot of times with let's say amount if you
go and try to turn as if you were in
a car, you would end up cutting down the angle
on whatever side you're turning and probably take three or
four cars with you or the telephone pole on the corner.
So you have to always use your mirror's tremendous amount
of mirror using your mirrors, and also take into account
(01:04:09):
your weather conditions. Trying to stop on a dry surface
so much different than if it's a little bit tiny
bit of rain where you're going to end up, you know,
just being very slick, all the oils come up in
the floor. And the more do you drive, the better
you feel like. You know, you have to be very
confident when you're driving a rig or something of that size,
(01:04:32):
knowing how much distance more you're going to need to stop.
If you're responding during the day and it's ten minutes
to three and you know that there's kids running all
around the place, you may have to you know, you
get this the same box at the same corner for
a fire the last four day tours that you work,
because you know, some kids pull in a box or
(01:04:54):
call and saying there's a fire. And if you're going
to try to go as fast as you possibly can,
and you going to go up the block where the
school is. You have to slow yourself down and say,
it's a better chance that it's going to be a
false alarm because kids got out of school and you
would feel terrible if something happened the kid ran out
in the street. So you always need to to how
(01:05:17):
do you how do you how do you prepare yourself
at it? You don't know you know what the kids
are chasing each other or doing, so you always have
to be one step ahead and know that even at nighttime,
you have to realize that people are out drinking, or
you're come into a light and you see the lights
(01:05:37):
still read for you. I said this in the in
the podcast with Louis. You may want to back off
on your accelerators so that you keep the momentum going,
but you give that light enough time to turn from
yellow to red and then green for you to give
yourself a couple of seconds that that person coming across
the intersection is not trying to beat that light at
two o'clock in the morning, not knowing that you're responding
(01:05:59):
to a fire. So you want to see what I'm saying.
So those things that you know, but most of all
is make sure that you understand the breaking power is
not the same as your car. No one had to
square your turns and be able to drive fast when
you have to when the brothers are in need. But
(01:06:19):
you always have to follow your you know the laws
that if red light you have to come to a stop,
you have to make sure that there's nobody before you proceed.
So those are the only things as far as being
a show for that. You know, your positioning is tremendously important.
It could be the meaning of life and death for people.
But flow yourself down. Always make sure that your weather
(01:06:43):
conditions dictate the way you drive. The time of day
dictates the way you drive, the nature of the claw
dictates the way you drive. It would be my best
tip as far as you know driving being a chauffeur.
Speaker 1 (01:06:58):
That's great advice. And I'm thinking back to something Tim
Brown said a while ago too, and he was talking
about driving rescue threes rigged soft hands. You know, that's
something I never forgot him saying, to soft hands on
the land because there's there's a lot of unpredictability on
the road with like you said, sometimes somebody's trying to
beat the light and I'm fortunate where I work now
on the civilian side over in West Haven, where I
(01:07:19):
work with people who can drive the engine in the
truck and their sleep intersections are like you talked about,
are a big thing that it's always mentioned to new
drivers as well. And shout out to all the drivers
that I work with, the guys and the one gal.
Shout out to the Sarah that are able to do that,
because you're never able to predict what another driver or
what a pedestrian is going to do, and if you
get into an accident on the way, well then you
(01:07:40):
can't complete your.
Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Mission, never going to get there to be of any
of any use, no help there. But you know, no
matter which city you're driving in when it comes to
city driver for any emergency apparatus, the early you take
on that oncoming lane, the better off you are, because
if you go and the traffic on the other side
(01:08:03):
builds up, whether it be a red light, and you'll
get blocked in, they're never gonna let you in. So
you can ring the horn and hit the siren all
you want, But if you were to take that lane earlier,
or ride the middle of the yellow line, they see
you coming, they know you're not stopping, so it gives
the people that are coming towards you more time to react,
(01:08:26):
to move to their right, to open up the middle
lane to let you get through. If you wait too
long and you get on the back of somebody in
front of you that can't move forward, you're stuck and
you're not going to be able to get out of
that gym. Right.
Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
That's precious seconds sticking off too. It can make that
difference quite literally between life and death, transitioning transitioning now
to your time in over in which Ridgewood, which would
Ridgewood sounded like like tweetybird for a second. You know,
it's interesting because and I've had this conversation the podcast before,
bless people think this, but there are still some that
(01:09:00):
think when they think of jobs in New York City,
as far as fires go, Manhattan's a little b different
because you get to make sure everything Oh it's the
Bronx in Brooklyn. You know, there's quiet companies everywhere. But
Queens gets plenty of work too, and we can't forget
about them. So you know, you were gonna.
Speaker 2 (01:09:16):
Say Queens, Queens gets an awful lot of work. And
what I think other people don't realize is you take
a borrow like Brooklyn, very densely populated, just like Queens,
but you have fire companies stepping on each other. Yeah,
a stone throw away from one firehouse to the other.
When you go to Queens, you could be ride for
(01:09:39):
six seven minutes as a first new company because the
distance from where your firehouse is to where the core
was coming from where the emergency is is a tremendous distance.
And those companies are much more spread out in Queens.
I mean you take you take a rescue too to
go from one side of Brooklyn to the other, probably
get there in ten minutes. You take Rescue four on
(01:10:03):
Queens Boulevard to go from Queens Boulevard all the way
to far Rockaway, it's got to be a twenty five
minute ride, even with LiF's in silence. It's it's a
tremendous distance for them to go. You know, I'm not
saying that. I mean, of course that's in the rescue
part of it, after the ten seventy five is given.
But just in general, you take the peninsula of Rockaway,
(01:10:26):
you have two truck companies or to three truck companies
on the whole Peninsula. So something happens from the next
companies coming from Brooklyn or from another part of Queens
to go through Broad Channel, to go all the way
here to get to far far rockaway. I mean that's
a ride and the half. That's a tremendous distance. So
but tremendous amount of working Queens. If you go like
(01:10:47):
South Oast on South Jamaica, you're going near two seventy
one twenty six. All these companies one thirty three, two
seventy five, you know, they are hammering out the work,
hammering out the work.
Speaker 1 (01:11:02):
Yeah, especially now you can really it's with FireWire and
all these different scanner apps. You can see the amount
of calls that are coming in. Like we talked about
earlier one and wait, it's the same thing for a
lot of these companies and greats all hands fire in
a private dwelling, all hands full on box, you know,
m b A. It's just left right trauma jobs.
Speaker 2 (01:11:22):
Exactly, water rescue or you have abrupted guess meaning you
have so many other emergencies going on, and you don't
even hear about the seven or eight runs that the
company had for a stuck elevator and an oven fire
or smoke with food on the stove. You don't hear
about the lockouts. You don't hear about the little car accidents.
(01:11:44):
You don't there's so much more going on. You don't
even hear on the FireWire. You're only getting the confirmed emergencies, right,
you know, and that you know to me versatile in
this job, and you love every single call because you want,
you want to get in there and want to do something.
Speaker 1 (01:12:01):
I'm reminded of a Terry Hatton line of the Great
Captain Hatton who lake Great Captain Happened, who gave his
life for nine to eleven, where they're asking him, you
know something along the lines of when do you sleep?
And he was talking about rescue one. But this really
applies to the ftic Lin as whole. It's like sleep,
I never sleep in this company. There's so many different
companies you could say that about it, and I imagine
One forty is the same way.
Speaker 2 (01:12:24):
Yeah, I mean I went to one forty in twenty twelve.
I believe it was in twenty thirteen. My wife had
lost her daughter years ago when he was in Proby
school and that was a really difficult time, and years
later she had gotten sick and I needed to be
closer to the home. You need to be focused on
(01:12:45):
that job, you know, going to work. You want to
leave all your problems at the front door. But not
knowing what needed to be done, I tried going to
the five day battalion first, so maybe being a chiefs
aide would free me up that if I needed to
day off right away I needed a quick mutual or
to get off to go to a doctor or whatever,
I would have the flexibility. Not that the guys wouldn't
(01:13:08):
help me anywhere work then do it for me, but
it would make me feel like I didn't count on
them so much that I would have to ask her
to favor so much. So I thought by going to
the battalion was good, But after a couple of months
I saw the difference of I wasn't going in the fires.
I was outside of the clipboard. It was a good
job learning all the radios and all these little things
(01:13:29):
that the battalion does that you don't really know what
they do by not being there. And then it was
at a point and I said I want to go
back and want to go to fires, but I really
got to get closer to the home. So I ended
up transferring to one, and it was the last minute transfer.
I didn't even get a chance to really go and
introduce myself. I caught the captain on the way out.
(01:13:51):
He was on his going on a vacation, and I
stopped by and I said, I'm the guy put my
paper into coming and he says, yeah, okay, you know,
we see with the chiefs, and I said okay. I
was waiting on a call and ended up getting a call,
like on a Monday night, Greg's starting there tomorrow morning.
I'm like tomorrow. He's like, yeah, tomorrow. So I ended
up going the next morning and walking in there and
(01:14:12):
you know, feeling a lot of place because I really
didn't know anybody there. I mean, I don't think you
ever dressed yourself up, but I felt like I was
wearing a tuxedo with brown shoes. You know. I f
also out of place. But the guys welcomed me. They
did all they could to open their arms and accept me.
And as time went by, you know, I gave you
(01:14:33):
a shot and realized that, you know, give you a
first impression, maybe see what you're all about. And I
think they understood how much I loved the job and
what I wanted to do there and try to give
a little bit of knowledge if I could. As I
was on my way out the door and ended up
staying there like ten eleven years, you know, it was
I probably would have stayed longer if I didn't get hurt,
(01:14:55):
and I'd still be at work today. But it's just
one of those things, you know, As it was time
to go, and uh, I did what I have to do.
But they were great guys. They had great bosses there,
and Lieutenant Roman, Lieutenan Valentin, Uh, Lieutenant Joy, Lieutenant Costa,
and the engine. You got great guys there. Lieutend Deminos fantastic,
pretend to be nulty just retired. Captain Viola was there
(01:15:18):
when I first got there, with Richie Scott and Lieutenant Perry,
so well rounded. Guys came from Brooklyn, guys came from here,
came from there. We ended up in the same place,
as luck would have it, you know. And this guy
knows that guy, and I guess they asked her, what's
this guy's what's this guy's story? You know, and the
guys talk about good things if they liked you, and
(01:15:41):
bad things if they didn't, I guess, But I guess
to go that way to bad and it worked out fun.
You know, I got a lot of enjoyment being able
to work with a lot of young guys who wanted
to know about the busy place. Or you know, you
go over something and you're watching a YouTube video over fire,
or you put something in and it could be one
o'clock in the morning and all of a sudden, a
(01:16:03):
phone along for fire comes in and now you're not
only hyped up because you were just talking about that.
Now you're up, you're out the door. Boom, you get
to jump on everybody. Maybe you get in first due.
Maybe it's a job and it just it just enhance
your job. It makes everything better because you were up
(01:16:23):
on your game. You would drilling, you were talking about it,
and you're ready to go. You know something's not gonna
Don't let your training slow you down. You know, like
you gotta be on the ball, you gotta be ready
all the time. And these guys impressed me. You know,
there were good guys everywhere you go, some guys not
as into it. Where in different places. It could be
(01:16:44):
in the best place in the world. The fact could
have a bad day and not be into it, but
We tried to make those guys into it and they
made me very proud. They did.
Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
Absolutely and he had a great run. Yato, as we mentioned,
he was a kind of bit short by entry. It
doesn't ullify everything that you did. I know you miss it.
We talked about how much off the air, on and
on the air that you miss it, and I know
it's not easy to leave behind. But nevertheless, you know,
how's retirement treating these days? I know you can look
back on and you have a lot to be grateful for,
But how's retired like now?
Speaker 2 (01:17:15):
It's okay? Mike? I mean, uh, you know, I think
over time you start to settle in and realize that
the thing you just can't do the things you used
to do. You wish that you could, but you can't.
You get to do some more freedoms of wanting to
do things and not thinking, hey do I have to
get off now? Am I working that day? You're off?
(01:17:35):
Every day? Every day is Friday to me. You know
it's good, but you know the excitement, the adrenaline, that
kind of stuff I miss and I missed terribly. But
you know, I have friends guys. I speak to my
friend Scott load prey to lives in Florida now. He
was from Lemon Lemon Min's Leo Minster Fire Department in Massachusetts,
(01:17:59):
and we talk a lot on the phone. His son,
Mikey works for the Old Burn Fire Department and h
he's doing well. And I remember the us to come
and follow us with their car. Every time I was driving,
I knew he was behind me and going to a
job and he'd be right there taking pictures. And he
was big into photography. And you make life lifelong friends
(01:18:20):
with these people and no matter what, no matter what,
these people will remain your friends forever. And that's another
great thing about the Fire Service said, you're gonna you're
gonna realize very shortly, you're gonna you're gonna end up
learning to love people that you never thought you were
gonna even meet in your life. And it's to the
day you die. You can be my friend, Jeffrey. I
(01:18:42):
wish I talked to him every day. I have so
much fun talking to him because he's still on the job.
When we reminisce about the days in one seventy four
and the days that we work together, certain jobs we
went to we talk about and it's great and once
a year we all get together and March March tenth
every year we go to it with a three ten
day uh, and the companies, guys, guys that are active,
(01:19:05):
retired guys from years ago who made that company what
it is, all get together and we we enjoy a
whole day out and reminisce about fun things and uh,
it's it's great. It's I think that's a growing thing
throughout the fire department. A lot of companies do it
on the engine company date, you know, So it's I
(01:19:26):
think it's good. It's a lot of a lot of
history in that in that and a lot of pride
guys taken doing that.
Speaker 1 (01:19:32):
It's a lot of camaraderie. You're in Massachusetts in the
chat and yeah, Lemon, I used.
Speaker 2 (01:19:39):
To you know, podcasts have screwed it up twice. I know,
sorry about that. Scott.
Speaker 1 (01:19:45):
All right, thank you Scott for watching. Yeah, yeah, this
is This has been a great conversation with you. It
now brings us to the rapid fire. And I normally
say five questions. He answered one of them, which was
the funniest job. So I can kind of gloss over
because you already covered that pretty with the two stories
you told. Uh, but and this could you can nullify
this by choosing the firehouse instead, because a lot of
(01:20:06):
guys always loved eating in the firehouse with a lot
of cooks they work with. But if of those three,
either the firehouse or a good restaurant or a good bar,
where did you like to stop for a good fight?
Speaker 2 (01:20:20):
I think the best place was the fire ass. The
best place to eat is always in the fire ass.
And you're right, you got the best cooks.
Speaker 1 (01:20:28):
Yeah, and the meals cheaper.
Speaker 2 (01:20:31):
The meal depends who was working. It depends what was working.
Then they want to make it they may want to
make it hard on you, but it depends who's working.
Speaker 1 (01:20:39):
Yeah, fair enough, fair enough. There's a lot of firefighter
movies and TV shows over the years that maybe don't
they kind of shade more towards the entertainment side and
the realism side. But as far as most realistic firefighter
movies or TV shows that you enjoyed, if you had
to pick one, if you watch them, what would you pick?
Speaker 2 (01:20:57):
You know, Mike, I have to be honest with you,
like I know this is Cargo nine one one or.
Speaker 1 (01:21:01):
Something in Chicago.
Speaker 2 (01:21:03):
I haven't you do? You know? I don't. As much
as I'm retired, I never even never really watched those shows.
So to be honest with you, I guess the uh
the most well, I don't know what would be the
most realistic fire show. I guess or a few times
I saw A few times I saw that. I guess
(01:21:23):
it would be that Chicago fire or something. I guess
that would be what I think is somewhat close. It's
hard to say because I don't watch it. Yeah, it
might be once or twice.
Speaker 1 (01:21:36):
I don't either. But you can catch my mother plopped
in front of the television and nothing else matters when
that show is on unless it's an emergency. Don't talk
for which he's watching her Chicago fire.
Speaker 2 (01:21:45):
So you know what, Mike, I don't. I don't think.
I don't think any movie or TV show could capture.
And you'll soon know this what it's like when you're
in a fire. It's not that Hollywood seen what. You know.
A lot of times you can't see anything. It's as
hot as could be. You're in you know, you've gotten
(01:22:06):
a little bit of closer to phobia. Maybe you're wearing
a mask. It's hard to talk. You hear glass breaking
you hear sirens, you hear air horns, you hear people yelling.
It's not that nice, you know country scene with the
fire place, crackland Wood. It's just not like that.
Speaker 1 (01:22:22):
No, it's not it.
Speaker 2 (01:22:24):
Oh So I think that's very hard to capture, no
matter what you try to put it in a movie
or a TV show. It's very hard to capture that. Yeah,
and the only way you're gonna find that out is
talk to other firemen, and then they'll talk about with you
and say I didn't say anything. I couldn't see anything.
You see a red glow and all of a sudden,
it's hot as hell, so right.
Speaker 1 (01:22:43):
You know, And that's it's so true. I think the
best ones that capture the essence of the fire service,
from what I've seen, kind of inculcated the driving me
early on is a documentaries Still Rioting is a great
example of it. Yeah, the one that Brothers did, the
late Ray Hickey Lake Captain Brian Hickey, Brothers in Battle.
I think I still watch Brothers in Battle about two
to three times a year.
Speaker 2 (01:23:04):
Yeah, launch I saw that back on my buff days.
But I do remember in the fire Academy then making
us watch it because we were probably at a point,
because it was thirteen weeks, we were probably at a
point where we were starting to lose the motivation and
they showed you that film and they picked your motivation
right back off.
Speaker 1 (01:23:23):
Oh yeah, oh yeah. The opening is great. And if
you want to make me cry, and I don't cry often,
but if you want to really tugging my heart strings,
the ending of Brothers in Battle where it's the montage
as he ain't heavy, he's my brother's plan. Every time.
There's always onions in the room every time that comes
on for me, So that's that's a good way to
get me if you want to get me. Great documentary.
(01:23:45):
As far as uplifting experiences, he talked about the tough ones,
but there's a lot of uplifting ones. If you had
to think back on calls across twenty six years, what
were some of the more uplifting ones.
Speaker 2 (01:23:57):
Well, obviously when there was someone rest someone especially a child,
you know that was you felt like you were even
if it wasn't you personally, you were part of that
team of making this crazy chaos controllable and uh, you know,
(01:24:17):
helping a family not go through that horror that people
have to go through of losing a loved one. That
would probably be the the highlights of of your job description.
I mean, but if you want to tell when you say,
also the uh, the lifelong friend that you make on
(01:24:40):
this job. Like I said to you before, I don't
think there's ever guys that are truly you could say
you love another guy. You know, you love someone that
you do anything for them, and even retired, you can
call up your best friends and I need to have
a hand with this or that. They'll be right there.
The travels they have to and they'll do whatever you
(01:25:02):
have to do, just as if I would do it
for them. And not many jobs out there, brother, that
that happens. You know, I guarantee you you know. And
I'm not knocking garbagement of sanitation department or a guy
digging a hole in you know, working in an electric company.
But as I'm sure there's a guy an electric company
(01:25:22):
that might say, yeah, I can't get there, I can't
come tomorrow. Maybe guys in the firehouse, you call them,
they drop what they're doing. They'll come right to you. No, no,
it finds your butts. So you don't find that in
a job. That job is the most unique job I
take out there, and that's why I tell every guy
(01:25:44):
they should they should love every single day they go
to work, because it is like no other I mean,
and a pension for life, friends for life, people care
about you. Anything you need is a thousand guys that
are willing to do something for you unbelievable. And you're
(01:26:07):
going to find that out real soon, my friends. And
I'm very proud of you, and I'm very happy for
you because getting that assing grade and knowing that your
life's going to do a complete three sixty is fantastic.
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:26:20):
I told that to Garrett earlier, and you answered the
other question and the rapid fire. You covered both questions,
which is a piece of advice for young firefighters. Garrett,
you know, and I were talking on the phone a
little bit before the show, and I told him, you know,
I've been telling friends of mine this in a good way.
I realize now as I'm about to head into this job,
nothing is ever going to be the same in a
positive way. You know, everything as I know it is
(01:26:40):
going to change from here on out. And it's surreal.
It's surreal, but it's it's good stuff to look forward to.
Very good stuff forward to you lived it, so you know.
Speaker 2 (01:26:50):
I was one of the lucky ones, my friend.
Speaker 1 (01:26:53):
Yeah, absolutely, I was lucky. Yeah, And we documented that tonight.
This has been one heck of a show. We'll talk
off fare before I say goodbye to the audience for
the night. Any shout outs to anyone or anything that
you got the floor is yours.
Speaker 2 (01:27:07):
Just my family, uh, I appreciate. I appreciate them always
being there from way back when my dad was my
biggest influence and get me on the right track to
want this job as much as I did and and
help me. I'm glad he's still around to see me
enjoying my retirement.
Speaker 1 (01:27:26):
Nice shout out to dad.
Speaker 2 (01:27:27):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:27:28):
And of course shouts the rest of your families as well.
Like I said, stick around, talk.
Speaker 2 (01:27:31):
Off there, especially especially my wife. My wife has been
there for me all the time.
Speaker 1 (01:27:37):
Yes, and forget them.
Speaker 2 (01:27:39):
Yeah, she's been too much heartache cussel, but she's always
there for me to pick me up. And wonderful woman.
Speaker 4 (01:27:48):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (01:27:49):
Shout out to all the moms of firefighters and the
wives of firefighters. And there are some people that wear
both titles. They had to.
Speaker 2 (01:27:58):
Both that the closed My mom of course she's still
aroundfully and or my dad. I know, we'll happy with
my life decision, with following in this booksteps and doing
what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (01:28:11):
As they should be, as they should be. Heck of
a show, my friend. Like I said, stick around. Thanks
to everybody that tune to Night as always, rather you
were watching on Facebook, rather you were watching on LinkedIn,
or rather you were watching on YouTube. I appreciate your
support as always, and for those of you that'll listen
to this, of course, on the audio side, coming up
next to the Mike the New Aven podcast, we have
two shows booked. They'll both be PD shows next week
(01:28:33):
and we'll see what happens after that. Like we said,
don't quite know when the academy is going to kick up,
so just kind of playing it by here for now.
But this Monday, it'll be Mike Charles, retired NYP detective.
Came on the job January of eighty three, left in
March of two thousand and one. A lot of great stories.
He was a detective for thirteen of his eighteen years
on the PD. So he'll be here and then next
(01:28:54):
Friday he was in the New York City Transit Police
Emergency Medical Rescue Unit and when they merge with the
NYPD and thirty five he came on over into the
NYPD Emergency Service hen that's Gary Grizzolia, who I'm looking
forward to speaking with. That should be another good show.
It to be another volume volume fifty of the Ement
inside the NYPD's Emergency Service Unit. So Monday and Friday
with those two guests, six pm, as we always do,
(01:29:15):
borrowing anything unforeseen Eastern Standard time. Now for those of
you listening on the audio side for tonight's outro song,
it's from their nineteen ninety four album on God Stabbing
Westward with Nothing in the Meantime on behalf of producer
Victor who always does a great job, and Greg Bruno.
This has been volume sixty six of the best and
bravest interviews with the fdnys Elite. I'm Mike Glom and
(01:29:36):
we will see you next time. Take care.
Speaker 2 (01:29:38):
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Speaker 2 (01:31:14):
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Speaker 3 (01:31:16):
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Speaker 5 (01:31:20):
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cause calls.
Speaker 4 (01:31:46):
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Speaker 3 (01:31:50):
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Speaker 4 (01:31:56):
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(01:32:26):
swell a dafe.
Speaker 5 (01:32:30):
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Speaker 3 (01:32:32):
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Speaker 4 (01:32:37):
Another night, listen to my change maker God. I tell W,
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Speaker 2 (01:33:05):
I tell't w.
Speaker 3 (01:33:07):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (01:33:09):
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