Episode 383: The Best of The Bravest: Captain Steve Elliott (Volume 77)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
You're listening to the Mike to 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 y's elite to you know, maybe it's the nerd
in me, But don't get me wrong. I love all
eras of the New York City Fire Department because each
one kind of had its own signature, own flavor and
defining events of it. But I love talking to the
guys that got on the job PD or FD in

(01:23):
the nineties because I feel like that's a very unsung era.
I mean, police get a lot of focus because that
was the cleanup of the city and that was great
and all. They'll get me wrong, but FD, the guys
that got on the nineties, even if the fire duty
wasn't what it was in the sixties and the seventies,
there was a lot of really cool developments for the
FD and Y during that era, which coincided with the
city cleaning itself up. And I feel like, again with
pre nine to eleven being as it was, that was

(01:45):
a very fun time. As to Night's guests can attest
to you to be in New York City Fireman and
he'll tell me about that when I introduced them momentarily. Welcome,
ladies and gentlemen to this episode three hundred and eighty three.
It's the best of the Bravest interviews with the FD
and wives elite here in the Mike de Nuapen podcast.
It's volume seventy seven of this mini series I started
about three or four years ago and has taken on
a life of its own. And it's funny. So there's

(02:06):
another guest or a friend of the show. He hasn't
been a guest yet that I have to thank for
tonight's interview. And as I was chatting about off air,
small World. So we have the miniseries, of course, on
retired members of the Emergency Service Unit of the NYPD.
It's the EMN inside the NYPD's Emergency Service Unit. Bobby Aeger,
who worked Truck two for many many years, did almost
thirty years in the NYPD. I see him over at

(02:28):
Truck three in the Bronx for the nine to eleven
remembrance ceremonies and he says, when you're gonna have my
cousin on your podcast, And I'm like, who's your cousin?
I'm thinking he's gonna mention another cop. It's like Steve
Elliot FD and Y And of course Captain Elliot has
been a guest on several other podcasts prior to this one,
including The Getting Salty Experience, which I recently saw him on,
So Small World. Thanks to you, Bobby. I hope you're
watching tonight and I hope you well, my friend, it's

(02:48):
good to have that little connection, and we'll talk about that.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Of course.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
When I introduced the guests, momentarily a couple ads to
run and then we'll get going. First things first, a
word from again the NYPD side, the best PI in
the business, maybe the Bronx's own Billy Ryan the Mike.
The New Haven podcast is proudly sponsored and supported by
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(03:14):
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from our friends over at Granted State later on before
the rapid fire segment. Now, if there's ever a guest

(04:40):
who earned his retirement and deserves to chill out and
be lazy if he wants to, it's my next guest.
So let's get this straight before I introduce him. Us
the United States Marine and a decorated fd Andy officers career,
I should say, span more than three decades of service.
He got on in nineteen ninety one, finished up recently
just last year in twenty twenty four. He went from
desert storm to battling fires in New York City's busiest

(05:01):
neighborhoods and earning some really cool honors along the way.
I've talked enough about them. Time to introduce them for
this volume seventy seven of the best of the Bravest
Interviews with the f and Wise lead. The first of
two captains I'll be interviewing this week, retired from the job,
and that it's Captain Steve Elliott, cap Welcome, How are you.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Good evening, Mike. Thank you for having me on.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
Thank you for making the time. Like I said, thanks
to Bobby Aeger once again for putting us in touch.
So we talked about it off air, We'll talk about
it on are. Now tell me about where you grew up.
It's an interesting story.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
So I grew up in Patterson, New York with two teas.
It's a kind of bedroom community that before World War Two,
I don't think anybody lived up there year round. I
live in Brewster now. It's right next door to Brewster.
It's an area in Putnam County which didn't really see
year round residents until probably the seventies and the construction

(05:55):
of six eighty four. So I grew up Swalltown, USA.
I grew up. I went to at Brewster High School
and there was about two hundred and thirty kids in
my graduating class, and it was a lot of cops
and a lot of firemen live up in that area
because they were fleeing the city the Bronx, and they
were looking for a place to raise their children in
the country.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
So you know, that influence, of course, I would imagine
paved the way for what would come later in joining
the fire department. And I'll get to the test taking
process for that. But before that, of course, is the
Marine Corps nineteen eighty eight. So why the Marine Corps
and tell me about how your family felt about your
decision to enlist.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Too well, I don't think my family was too happy
about enlisting in the Marine Corps, and I volunteered for
the Infantry. Originally, I went to Brewster High School, as
I mentioned, and Brewster High School has a Navy ROTC program,
so the kids wear a uniform one day a week

(06:52):
and they learned the customs and courtesies of the US military.
And I did that for four years, and every year
they had a field trip. So for one year we
went to a Marine Corps boot camp in South Carolina,
Parris Island, one year we went to Navy boot Camp
in Orlando, Florida, and then we did a year at

(07:13):
Navy ocs and Marine Corps cs. So, due to the
fact that my father was a veteran he fought in Vietnam,
and a lot of friends' fathers were of that age,
and all the influences I had in the ROTC program,
I tried to get into Annapolis and I wanted to
go to the Naval Academy, and I was unsuccessful. So

(07:35):
I decided maybe I'll go the enlisted route, and I
went into the Marine reserves right out of high school.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
So getting there and of course we're talking. We're retired
AFTERI Captain Steve Elliott here in the Mike and Raven Podcast,
Volume seventy seven of the best, the Bravest interviews with
the Ft and wis Elite. You know, you have to
be tough. It's not just the physical components and the
pt they're running you through. It's also the mental game.
It's my game. Any police academy, any fire academy that
you go to across the country mimics this as well.

(08:04):
It's times twenty five and any sort of basic military
training that you're doing. So just tell me about building
that mental fortitude you needed to get through those tough
days because back then you had Vietnam era guys training you.
So tell me about that component just boot camp and surviving.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
I think one of the things that the Marine Corps
prides itself in is that they don't really put a
whole lot of energy maybe is the right word into recruitment.
It's more of a they lay a challenge out. And
I heard a funny story recently where there's kids at
a high school and the recruiters come in and the
Army recruiter comes in and he's all gung ho and

(08:39):
he shows a video. And then the Air Force recruiter
comes in and he shows a video of jets flying.
And all the recruiters have all these like, you know,
videos to show and all this great stuff to entice
people to join. And then the Marine Corps recruiter comes out,
looks at the audience and says, I don't think any
of you have what it takes, but if you think

(09:00):
you do, come meet me in the back. So it's
like throwing down that gauntlet, thrown down that challenge, and
I think a lot of the young men and women
that enlisted in the Marines, they're looking to challenge themselves
and they're looking I certainly was looking to see if
I could meet that challenge. I knew it was one

(09:21):
of the toughest. I thought it was the toughest branch,
and that's why I think I picked it because I
want to see if I was tough enough to achieve
that goal.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
How long was your boot camp? Twelve weeks sixteen?

Speaker 2 (09:33):
It's thirteen and a half weeks and a half and
you immediately regret your decision when you get there.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
Because I believe, and I don't know if it was
this way. Then I saw a video on it recently
how it is now in twenty twenty five. You show
up in civilian clothes your first day, you know, you
got to get a quick haircut, get that Marine Corps
crew cut. I immediately got to change out inter uniforms,
and immediately it's just it's trial by fire and they're
trying to see.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
It's very disorienting, and it's that way by design. We
shipped out from Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, and the recruiter
picked me up at my house probably at four am,
and they brought me to Fort Hamilton where they do
the processing and you get a medical exam, and then
you get on a plane. You fly to South Carolina.
And the time that you actually are on the bus

(10:21):
and you pull into the front gate, it's probably about midnight.
And that's by design. You're up all night, you're disoriented,
you're exhausted, and then you have these bulldogs climbing on
a bus screaming at you, and yeah, that's the first
order of business is to get you out of your
civilian clothes, shave your head, and put you in a

(10:43):
uniform and strip you of all identity that you had,
of being back on the block as they call it.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, I mean they break you down to build you up.
And also you have to make that phone call to
your family with that script in front of you of
what you're supposed to say.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
I've arrived safely, I'm in good hands. I'll talk to
you in three months.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Yeah, and there you go crazy. Yeah, but it all
worked out well for you in the end. So just
prior to the Gulf War breaking out in the early nineties,
tell me about I mean you mentioned Fort Hamilton. Where
else were you were you stationed along the way prior
to that war?

Speaker 2 (11:13):
So I enlisted in the reserves. So my plan was
that I'll go in the reserves, and I knew the
commitment was a commitment, was that I have to go
to boot camp. And then I went to the School
of Infantry which was in Camp Lejune, North Carolina. And
I absolutely loved the School of Infantry because what we
would do is a Monday morning, we would go to

(11:34):
the armory and we would draw our weapons and we
would go out in the field, out in the boondocks,
and we would spend the entire week out in the field,
sleeping on the ground, sleeping in the dirt, learning the
tactics of an infantryman, firing all the weapons systems that
the Marine Corps had, learning survival land navigation, and I

(11:55):
absolutely loved it. I ate it up. And then after
I completed the School of Infantry, I came home and
I enrolled in college. I went to Western Connecticut State University,
and Uh, I went to the football coach in the
middle of August, and I said, I'd like to try
out for the football team. It was Division three and
they allow walk ons, and I was able to make

(12:17):
the team. So I had a lot of fun. And
I went to college for a year and I got
to play in the football team.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
What position.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
I was a wide receiver and a kicker.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
There you go. Yeah, a little bit of both, a
little bit of world kickers not an easy job, especially
these days. I see these poor kickers. I've never seen
so many misfield goals as they have in recent times.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
So it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
It is. I always think of Acepentura laces out.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah, there's a lot of pressure. Yeah, it is a
mental game, just like golf. I don't know if you
play golf, but it's a it's a mental game. No.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
I've seen it though, and I don't you know. That's
why I give credit to guys when I'm watching Tiger
Go and it's prime that is go add it and
whatnot amongst other guys too, or the run that Scottie
Scheffer's one. I'm like, they make it look like clockwork.
But even though it's an individual sport, doesn't diminish the
pressure that's involved. It's just you out there with no
safety net, with no safety net.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
So then that brings us to the summer of nineteen
ninety yep Iraq invades the country of Kuwait, which, at
twenty years old, I had to look on a map
to see where Kuwait even was. And the United States
obviously sent resources. And I was in a reserve unit
in for tree company and we were notified, I believe,

(13:28):
on a Thursday night to pack your stuff, fill out
a will take your car off the road. We're leaving Sunday.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah, so it was quite a shock. Yeah. So I
was one of the younger guys. I said, I was twenty.
We had guys that had families and children. Guys were cops,
and we shipped out. They sent us to Camp Pendleton,
which is in southern California, and they sent us out
into the field in the desert and we did operations

(13:57):
for about three or four weeks, and then they told us,
after this is done, we're going to get on the ships. Now,
we thought we were just going to be replacement troops
for the active duty Marines that had gone to the
Persian Gulf. We didn't realize that we were now in
active duty and we were going to do whatever the
Marine Corps of us. So they told us that we

(14:17):
were going to get on ships and then we're going
to depart San Diego and head west. And I said, gee,
I don't know if they can do that to us,
you know, I got to go back to class. Yeah.
So we sailed to Hawaii, which took about eight days,
and then we went to the Philippines and we did

(14:38):
some maneuvers in the in the mountains in the Philippines
because there was some kind of insurgent rebels that were
rebelling against the government there. And then we continued on
to Somalia. And if you remember the events that happened
in nineteen ninety three with Black Hawk, down.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yes, we went to Somalia and we evacuated the US embassy.
Wow yeah, Wow. So the trip from California to the
Persian Gulf took about forty five days. It's quite a
long trip by ship, I would imagine, and I think
there were about thirteen ships in my task force, and
it was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of ten thousand

(15:19):
marines on those ships.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
I mean, you're thrown into it at this time, and
I can't imagine what must have been going through your mind.
Where again, it's not like you didn't think this could happen,
but after the threats of the Cold War throughout the
nineteen eighties, and you know the will they or won't
they dynamic that went on during the Reagan years, a
lot of people thought that was the thing in the past.
This was a relative peace time, and it gets lost
in the conflagrations that would come later. For the rest

(15:43):
of the nineties, sans Fra Kosovo, it was pretty much
peace time. But this was one of those two major
conflagrations where you're reminded, oh, this is kind of why
I'm here, You're not. I don't want to see your
thrown to the wolves, because it's not like you haven't
been trained. You have. But even with all the heart
that you have to possess or something like that, there's
still fear because you got family back home and you're
thinking about them. I imagine the whole way, right.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
And it's interesting you bring up the Cold War. When
I was in the school of Infantry in January of
nineteen eighty nine, all of the targets that we shot
at had Russian hats and Russian red stars on their chests.
Those were the targets that we used, and we learned
all about Russian tanks and all of the AK forty
seven and Russian munitions, and that's basically who we thought

(16:26):
we would fight. That we thought that would be our enemy.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah, and then shifted to the Middle East and you
mentioned nineteen ninety three and Mogadishu. I mean that was
kind of an I don't say this glowingly obviously, between
his involvement and the trade center bombing and in his
involvement and shooting down those helicopters, nineteen ninety three was
one of the earliest years that people found out about
the danger of a man named Osama b Lad.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
That is correct, because he was exiled from Saudi Arabia
and then he was in a neighboring country to Mogadishu.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
Somalia, originally an ally at one point because during that
Goal war, he was the one that was helping earlier
conflagrations fight against some of the Iraqi forces and at
least some of the Russian forces too.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
That's why it's so important to study history.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
Yeah, then the script unfortunately flipped. You know again it
was it was not a particularly compared to other wars
long conflagration. It doesn't diminish the bloodshed. And at that time,
you have to remember, as far as Middle Eastern enemies
were concerned, before Bin Laden, there was another dangerous man
by the name of Saddam Hussain. So just after the
you know that aftermath of being deployed, seeing combat, being

(17:24):
in difficult, strenuous conditions and enemy territory where you never
know what was going to happen. Anything else after that
has to feel like a cakewalk. I imagine Fire Academy felt
like nothing compared to this. How do you feel that
whole experience in the Gulf changed you as a person,
not just for the career that you would enter, but
just your day to day life is a man.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
Oh, there's so many intangibles that you take away from
the military and the Marine Corps, just your time management,
the way you deal with stress, the way things bother
you or don't bother you. I think that it changed
you in so many ways. It changed me in so
many ways, in so many positive ways. Absolutely. Yeah, the
fire Academy was only eight weeks, so it was right.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
It was shorter then.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yeah, it was a piece of cake. And as far
as timing goes, and it certainly wasn't as physically demanding
as the Marine Corps was, and it wasn't as stressful
as being in combat. Nobody's shooting at you, so how
bad could it be?

Speaker 1 (18:18):
Exactly. That's attitude. You kind of adapt and that's the
mentality I feel like. I said, a lot of guys
that I know that have gone through a fire academy
or police academy with prior military experience, especially yours, that
they were in combat, Yeah, they breezed through it. You know,
it's a little bit different if you'd never experienced a
paramilitary structure before, but if you've had in a military environment,
they look back on it fondly. Believe it or not

(18:39):
when they're going through the academy like, ah, this is
just like basic training, and I'm just like, but then again,
you mentioned in tangibles.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah yeah, absolutely so many.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
Yeah yeah, let's take it back for Sorry, I don't
mean you're gonna what were you gonna say?

Speaker 2 (18:52):
Well, I was just gonna complete that deployment. So after
it does a storm, it wasn't a very long combat operation.
We then left and as we were sailing back east,
a typhoon had come through the South Pacific and completely
obliterated a country called Bangladesh. Again another country. I didn't
know where it was. I had to look on a map.

(19:14):
It's just east of India. And one hundred and fifty
thousand people were killed.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (19:20):
So we were sent our task force, our thirteen ships
were sent there for a humanitarian effort.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
And what was that experience?

Speaker 2 (19:27):
Like, the death and destruction was immeasurable. The poverty level
was inconceivable. You couldn't believe how poor this country is
and how poor these people were. People living in cardboard
boxes and grass huts, really really poor. And we built homes,

(19:49):
we shuttled food and water, and we did as much
as we could for those poor people, and like I said,
they were one hundred and fifty thousand dead, beyond comprehension. Really.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
Then we left Bangladesh and we went back to the Philippines,
and once again we thought we were going to go home,
and Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines and I said, man,
we're never going home. I'm never going back to school.
And we got shirts made up, like concert t shirts
that said US Marines Save the World Tour nineteen ninety one.

(20:23):
All the countries that we get gone to.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
That's awesome, that's awesome. Yeah, I's sorry what we're going
to say.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
And then well I was just going to finish off
with it. And then we finally got home. That deployment
ended and I got home in July of ninety one.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
We will continue a moment, but I have to get
my eye drops here and folks, this is live podcasting
and its fine as because my left eyes bothered me.
So I'll be right back with Captain Steve Elliot's off
to my right side. Bear with me while I grab
that so I don't have an eye flare up in
the middle of this show. Right back, as I said before,

(21:04):
volume seventy seven of the best of the Bravest Interviews
with the FD and wys Elite. So I try to
prevent my left eyeball from falling off. One thing I
do want to scale back to a moment is when
you were growing up. You mentioned growing up around a
lot of cops and firement prior to the Marine Corps.
I will mention there's a lot of guys that because
of influences like that in the neighborhood. They encourage you
to take all the tests. Take the police test, take

(21:24):
the fire test, tech, take the sanitation test, take them altly.
So that was I imagine your kind of upbringing where
you took them or did you just take the fire test.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
I was so fortunate my father was in the fire department.
He did thirty years, retired as a lieutenant, and they
offered the FD and Y exam when I was just sixteen. Wow,
And they allow you to take the test when you're
sixteen and a half get called you're twenty twenty one.
You have to be higher and you have to be twenty.
Why I believe the PD is twenty I think because

(21:54):
their academy is six months. So as long as you're
twenty one when you graduate, then I think you're in
the clear for the p day. So yeah, So I
took the test. I was barely seventeen. I took the written.
A year later, I took the physical. I was in
peak shape. I was playing high school football, I ran
track and field, and I aced the test. I was

(22:17):
very fortunate. And they had called me twice when I
was just twenty and I had to defer because I
wasn't old enough. Oh, they wouldn't let me go into
the academy at twenty. And then they reached my list
number again in April of ninety one, so I should
have been in that class, but of course I was
deployed to the Middle East. So when I got home

(22:39):
in July, I immediately called my investigator and said, listen, I'm back.
I know you reached my number, you know, let me
know where the next class is. And they said, well,
we're putting the class in on August eleventh, and I
was in that class. So within about forty days of
returning home from the Persian Gulf, I was in the
Fire Academy. Wow.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
So that's quite the turnaround if you back an it
to this point in your life. Nineteen ninety one actually
probably the craziest year.

Speaker 2 (23:04):
Hard to believe.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, from you know, one extreme to the other.
Of course, although you said fire, academy wasn't that long.
So you graduate after those eight weeks, you get over
to thirty truck Originally, what area of the city are
we talking about? What's its first do well?

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Tretton the smack middle of Harlem, on one three to
three in Lenox. And the funny thing is, I didn't
really speak to my father a whole lot about companies
or where he intended me to go, or if he
was making phone calls on my behalf. I kind of thought, like,
you know, I'm gonna let the cards fall where they may.
And when I was in the academy and they gave

(23:38):
us our assignments, they said latter thirty and I honestly
didn't know where that was.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, you learned pretty quick, though, I went pretty quick.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
Yeah, i'ming about the make up with the senior guys
who were there at the time, who really broke in
and showed you the way.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
Well, see, there was a handful of guys that were
Vietnam veterans. I think most of the guy. I was
certainly the youngest by a long shot. I was twenty
one years old, and I think like the next youngest
guy in the company was probably ten years older than me.
And I know the officers. All four of my officers

(24:13):
had kids that were my age.

Speaker 1 (24:16):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, so yeah, it was very much you know, like
father figures and uncle figures. You know. When I walked
into the firehouse, it was like the military, like you're
the new guy, and the platoon consists of corporals and
sergeants and lieutenants and captains, and you're the new guy.
You're the private. So that's very much how it was
in the firehouse. That was the same dynamic.

Speaker 1 (24:35):
Nothing you weren't used.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
To correct, nothing I wasn't used to.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah, yeah, I'll get to your first box alarm in
a moment. But just to get scaled back, as we said,
we would talk about this to the time. In the
Marine Corps. One guy you crossed passed with, amongst several
other notable figures during that time, and I believe two
of them. I don't know if you crossed past with
Seth Gar Remind me if you did.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
But I might not remember that name.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
Okay, he was there during that time, but I don't
believe he might have been involved in the Marine Corps
at that time, but Mike Curtain was one of the
Marines that you definitely did cross paths with during that time.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah. So Mike was my gunnery sergeant when I was
in the reserves, Fox Company two twenty five. We were
headquartered out of Nurroschelle. So it is very unique because
in a reserve unit, everybody is from the same area.
And everybody that was in my platoon was from southern
Westchester County, Yonkers, the Bronx, Queen's Manhattan. It was all

(25:29):
city guys, and Mike Curtain was our company gunnery sergeant.
He was the only one that held that billet or
that rank, and he took us into a desert storm.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
And then of course I made the connection when I
found out he was also a police officer in NYPD.
He worked in the seven five Precinct, and I said, wow,
you know that's where my cousin Robert works, And my
cousin Robert was under him. He was a sergeant in
the seven five. Cartin was a sergeant in the seven five,
and my cousin and Robert was a patrolman there.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
Yep, yep. Mike ended up going into the Emergency Service Unit,
becoming a sergeant there for a while. Was also involved
in the recovery efforts down in Oklahoma City in nineteen
ninety five. Yes, he was was there six years excuse me,
he was there in ninety three at the Trade Center,
made some rooftop rescues. He was there again eight years later,
and tragically we know the story by now. He unfortunately
lost his life that day. Heroically, but he died that day,

(26:24):
among the twenty three NYPD officers to lose their lives
in the World Trade Center attack. But scaling it back
now to getting a thirty truck in ninety one, a
lot of fire duty in Harlem. It's a great place
to work if you're a truckie. You know, our friends
over an engine sixty nine can attest to it. It's
a great place to work as an engine man. Tell
me about the type of buildings we're dealing with in
the first box alarm that you had in thirty truck.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
Well, I remember going there after the academy and getting
assigned to a group number that had me scheduled to
work immediately on Saturday, and Sunday, and so I think
we graduated the academy on a Thursday, so I had
Friday off and right into the mix. And to answer
your question about the buildings, primarily old law tenements, new

(27:05):
Law tenements, five six story tenements, all walk ups, not
too many elevators. The next most common building was probably
brownstones and projects, no private dwellings, no real high rises,
and a lot of stairs. So I remember my first
day we had gone to a fire almost immediately, just

(27:28):
a couple of hours into the tour. And then my
second day, we had a fire up on maybe it
was one hundred and forty first Street, and we were
with sixty nine engine twenty eight truck was out for
some reason, they must have been in another fire or
another job. And we got in first due and I
followed the lieutenant into the apartment. It was a lights
out condition, couldn't see anything, and I just heard the

(27:50):
officer say to me, here, take this, and he handed
me a kid and we dragged a five year old
and a three year old out of that apartment that day,
and neither one of them survived. So that yeah, it
was terrible situation, tragic fire, and it was my second
day in the job. So certainly baptism by fire very quickly.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
Yeah, literally and figuratively see something like that and endure
something like that, you know. And again, as I said before,
it may not have been the war years, the famed
warriors that many have written about and many lived through
as New York City firefighters, But again it doesn't diminish
what was going on in the nineties. Even as the
city was coming out of the dredges of high crime
and high poverty. In the seventies and eighties, there's plenty

(28:30):
of fire duty to go around, and Harlem was one
of those places where it just wasn't stopping. Besides a
fire like that, which is in a very extreming situation,
given the loss of life, what are some of the
other fires that stand out? Or especially operating in a
truck company, you were learning and you felt after each
box man, okay, I experienced this, I'll keep this in
mind for next time, and so on and so forth.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
There's so many fires that come to mind. I remember
one fire we had where I had come in and
committed homicide on six people and then lit the apartment
of fire and we went in and we were dragging
all these bodies out. I remember so many explosions, and
we had one particular fires in the one teens maybe

(29:12):
one hundred and sixteen Street and Broadway on the west side,
and a guy named Matt Barnes had made a rescue
at the Tippitty aarial. He had gone up and rescued
like two twin babies, and I think that fire was
like an eighth alarm or something, and it was very memorable.
It was unbelievable how much fire that we had to
deal with. I think there was fire on just about
every floor. And at one point in time, we had

(29:35):
found a hose line that had been abandoned by an
engine company that all had gotten burned, and we picked
up the hose line and we were extinguishing fire and
forcing doors and searching. Excuse me. Yeah, it was unbelievable,
unforgettable experience. And yeah, I had many fires.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
Like this, especially working there.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
Very memorable, a lot of fires when I was a
young fireman. I seem to remember that we we were
going to fires every single week, and the fire department
adopted a procedure they called the fast truck, so it's
as a firefighter assistant search team and Basically, what that
is is the third to arrive truck company stands in

(30:15):
the street and they are there to assist a firefighter
that's in the stress. So prior to nineteen ninety five,
maybe that didn't exist. So what would happen was you
would go to more fires and you would operate at
more fires because that procedure didn't exist, So you weren't

(30:36):
the fast truck standing in the street. You were the
next truck to go to work. For that reason, we
operated in more areas in Harlem, went further south, further west,
further north, and operated at more fires, and we went
to more fires because of that procedure.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
And I don't feel it was until the mid nineties
because there was a spade at the time from really
nineteen ninety five to nineteen ninety eight where the department
had several line of duty deaths, that WRIT became more
I mean, well another place is around the country it's
known as WRIT, but in New York City it's not
as fast. Fast became a little bit more normalized for
that reason. Where again, and it's funny because there's a
podcast called Top Floor Tactics by Mickey Ferrell, retired Lieutenant

(31:12):
off the or not retired active lieutenant currently on the
job in the bronx on truck company, where he mentions,
you know, again, does anybody want to stand on the
street and watch as other companies go to work? No?

Speaker 2 (31:22):
Absolutely not.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
WRIT is a vital function.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
Now.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
Granted, you hope you don't have to do anything as
WRIT because that means something has gone terribly wrong. But nevertheless,
the concept is key to where still stay prepared, stay ready,
because even if you're not doing WRIT operations to rescue
another firefighter per se, the conditions can deteriorate as such
that do you still have those tools on you? Are
you ready to deploy them as needed? Even that alone,

(31:45):
just watching fire behavior, even if you're not working in
that moment, it's still an education when you look back
on it, right.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
You know, so I'll ask you to you know, even
in the military, they have it's not called a WRIT,
it's called a quick Reaction Force QRF. Military has the
same thing. You might be in a combat unit and
you're not actually involved in the combat because you're the
quick reaction for US and you're there to extract troops
in contact.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
Yeah, and it's imperative training. There's drills that are done
at it all the time. You hope that were used
in real life. But the reason why it's there and
the reason why it's strained on is because there's been
scenarios in real life where it had to be deployed,
some successfully unfortunately, others not so successfully. But nevertheless, there's
usually reasons behind it, especially in something as dangerous as
the fire service. Now I'm not jumping too far ahead

(32:33):
because I still want to keep it in the nineties
for now and just learning and the different jobs you
got the chance to experience. But the examples you had
in the fire in that particular firehouse, I should say
around that time, older guys. A lot of guys, like
say you mentioned earlier, quite a few of the officers
there had kids your age. Was that the impetus for
you to eventually want to study to become a boss
yourself or was that something that you had in mind

(32:55):
from the moment you entered the academy.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
That's a great question. I don't think it's something I
ever had in my mind. The reason that I studied
was due to an injury that I incurred in the
line of duty. I had gotten injured in January of
two thousand and one. I was making a rescue and
I was at the third floor window. I was on
a portable ladder, and I was holding onto the child guard,

(33:19):
and I was trying to keep the woman inside the
window because she was trying to self evacuate. I was
trying to assess whether or not I needed to take
her out on a ladder, or if I could just
shelter her in place, or maybe take her to a
fire escape, which would be safer than a ladder. And
the window guard broke in my hand, and that was
the only thing I was holding, so I fell off
the ladder. I fell about three stories. I broke two

(33:40):
bones in my leg. I broke some ribs, I tore
some soft tissue, and it required two surgeries. And I
didn't go back to work for well over a year.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
Okay, yeah, sorry, but hear about that. I'm glad you
got back, obviously.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yeah. I was very fortunate. I was young, I was
in good shape, and I fought like heck to come back,
and I was fortunate enough to recover from those wounds
and come back to work. And while I was recovering,
one of my best friends, Paul Conrad, who's now, a
deputy chief said to me, you know, what are you

(34:16):
doing every day? I says, well, I go to physical
therapy and I just kind of hang out. He goes, well,
why don't you come to study group with us. We
meet once a week and we just fire questions off
at each other and we have a couple of beers
and we have some laughs, and you'll learn something. I said, Okay,
that sounds like a great idea. So we studied together,

(34:36):
and we had a great study group. It was about
six or seven of us, and lo and behold, the little
Tennants test comes along and I passed the thing.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
And that was the October two thousand and one test.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
If I'm not mistaken, you know what. It was scheduled
for October of two thousand and one, and then because
of the World Trade Center, it was postponed to the
spring of two okay, yeah, And then it was unpressed.
They gave the test, and then like six months later
they put a list out and they promoted like one
hundred and fifty guys, and they sent seventy five directly

(35:08):
to the field, and seventy five went to first line
supervisors training. And then after a month they switched and
then a month later they promoted another one hundred and
fifty guys. Unprecedented three hundred lieutenants in the span of
three months. Never been done before, I don't think, in
the history of the New York Fire Department. And I
was fortunate enough to be in that second group of

(35:28):
one to fifty. So I got promoted February of three
to a lieutenant.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
And for very good reason, given the magnitude and loss
stuffered a year and a half earlier. You know, again,
it look at the battlefield promotions that happened just days later,
you know, people who were moved up to battalion chief,
the deputy chief. The circumstances were somber, but the losses
were such the experience loss too, not just because of
those who died at the trade center, but the retirement retirement. Yeah,
that's correct, Yeah, the wave of retirement.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
Yeah. So there were wholesale promotions, you know, at every rank.
So I was very fortunate because of that. And and
to answer your question, I didn't really have any aspirations
to be a lieutenant.

Speaker 4 (36:07):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
I had taken the ninety seven Lieutenant's tests with very
little effort and preparation, and I failed miserably, and I
was okay with that.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
You were happy doing what you were doing. You had very.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
Very Yeah, I was very happy being a fireman working
in the heart of Harlem, in the center of Harlem.
I shouldn't say the heart of Halem, that's forty truck.
But yeah, I was having a great time. I was leaving,
uh living the single life and being a single fireman
with the schedule we had and going to fires, and yeah,

(36:40):
I just I was having a great time.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
In the best city in the world, you know. You know,
and this is before social media. This is before cell phones.
I mean, cell phones were starting to become a thing,
but they couldn't do what cell phones that today could do.
So it was it was kind of the last gasp
of greatness before you know, the world kind of went
a little crazy with social media in the mid two thousands.
You know, truck were anywhere is interesting. Truck work in
a major city, especially one like New York is fascinating

(37:04):
because the core of it is you're operating without the
luxury In most cases of a hand line, the engine's
going to handle those components. Now you mentioned earlier, there
could be situations where the truck ends up with the line,
but it's few and far in between. You trust your
engine to get to the seat of that fire and
handle the component of distinguishment. The truck's operation primarily forceable entry, ventilation,
search and rescue. You were with guys such senior guys,

(37:26):
as we've talked about quite a bit throughout this program tonight,
who that was their bread and butter. It was mechanical
to them because they were doing it so much across
not just a few years, but decades. So when it
came to at least Harlem and the fires you were
fighting during that time, what were the components of search
and rescue you enjoyed, and what were the components of
really ventilation too that you found to be most fascinating.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
There were a lot of changes to ventilation in the
course of my career. One of the most notable things
was the advent of the thermopain windows got so early
on in my career you had these single pain windows
that failed very quickly under fire conditions. And then as
my career progressed, we noticed that more and more fires
didn't present themselves when we arrived. There wasn't fire blowing

(38:09):
out the windows that you see in photographs and we
had a more difficult time finding fires because those glass
windows were holding the fire in holding the heat and
they didn't fail. And then you had different construction features.
The use of sheet rock came into effect because you know,
early on when they built these buildings in New York City,

(38:30):
they used lath and plaster. And the changes of going
to five eighth sheet rock and the thermopane windows and
more buttoned up and less drafting apartments, it changed the
dynamics that we dealt with. And then of course the furnishings.
That was probably the biggest change that the Fire Service

(38:51):
has seen since the seventies. Everything used to be made
of cotton and wood fiber, and now everything is synthetic.
And what a synthetic mean, Well, it means that it's
made from a petroleum based product. You know, these foam
cushions that you see in couches today and the furnishings
that we have and mattresses and all that, all that

(39:12):
stuff is artificial. It's not made of wool and cotton.
So as a result, it gives off a much thicker,
blacker smoke and it burns at a much higher temperature
and much quicker.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
Yeah, and it may not be the most fun thing
to do in the world. But that's why BI is
so critical. You know, when you're going on those building inspections,
you could pick some of those things up because you
may have to vary well. And I'm sure it happened
to you plenty of times in your career as both
a fireman and later on of course as a moss
between lieutenant and captain, where you did come back to
that same building you did bion for a fire and
you remember, oh, yeah, they have this fire load here

(39:45):
in this apartment. Be aware of this. And that's not
even counting things like hoarding conditions.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
It can be a perfectly It's another thing that didn't
exist in the nineties that is so common and prevalent today.
I don't understand how people have just so much more.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
Stuff, yeah, you know, and the disorganization of it and
not knowing where to put it, and then just people
who just let themselves go and are living at the
type of light that is not Oh I saw it all. Yeah,
failure to thrive, as we call it. And that's a
diplomatic way you're putting it. Yes, you know during those
times too so and you know keep in mind, granted
it affected Harlem in a bit of a positive sense too.

(40:20):
I mentioned it a few times already as the city
was beginning to revitalize itself. During this time period, building
construction is going on throughout all five boroughs, especially in Manhattan.
So while it's good the city's bouncing back, it's an
officer's dream and an officer's nightmare at the same time,
because it's that much more to keep track of, especially
if you're in a truck company.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
Right, and of course the construction and the boom and
Harlem was incalculable. Every building across the street from the
firehouse when I was a pro lea was vacant. I
actually have a photograph of me standing out in front
of the firehouse and every building cross street, every Brownstone
was vacant. Then the windows were cinder block up. Today

(41:01):
they're all occupied, every single one of them. The rents
are probably, you know, three thousand dollars a month for
a two bedroom.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
Yeah, well you have Bill Clinton to thank for that,
because he water Brownstone late eighties, early nineties, and that
kind of kickstarted the turnaround when you have it eventually.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
I think they also had a program I think the
federal government had a program where they would loan you
the money for the renovation as long as you lived
in the building.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
Yeah, I think that mortgages were paid off very quickly
because once people started moving in, you were collecting rent,
and the people that were risking benefited from it.

Speaker 1 (41:36):
Yeah, you know, and listen. It was something that ultimately
contributed to a much better New York City, but a
busier New York City Fire department, that's for sure, especially
in a place like thirty Truck, you know. So that
brings us into two thousand and three, so you move
ahead twelve years there. Of course, you got hurt in
January of two thousand and one. You come back to
full duty during a much different time in the New
York City Fire Department, a time of transition, a time

(41:57):
of healing, to just people coming to terms with what
had happened nine months prior at the Trade Center. So
as a boss, you're going to Ford Truck. So you're
still in Manhattan, but night and day, Harlem's a lot
more grittier in the nightmare and day. This is Midtown.
And it's worth noting before you answer, they had just
dealt with so many losses. Every guy they set from
engine fifty four and for truck to the trade center

(42:20):
that morning, including Angelini's slid from rescue one, did not
come back. So it's an interesting time to walk in
there and again, like we said, night and day from
the Manhattan you'd been used to for twelve years prior
what was your two thousand and three two thousand and four,
like getting used to four truck.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
It took me a long time to get used to
being an officer. First of all, it was an uncomfortable transition,
and then added to the fact that I'm in Times Square,
I felt like it was a new career. Between being
a new boss and being there, it was like starting
all over again. It really was a unique experience, and
the fact that that firehouse had just lost fifteen guys

(42:57):
right made it very delicate to work there. But I
didn't think I would like it. Initially, I thought, you know,
I'll probably go back to Harlem, maybe twenty six truck,
you know, in the one fifteenth Street or one teens
maybe one hundred and twentieth Street. And I loved it.
I didn't think I would. I was very attracted to

(43:19):
it immediately, and I put my paper in for four
truck and I got assigned and I was very happy
that I did. I enjoyed every day that I worked there.
It was very challenging, it was difficult, and we did
a lot of running, but I learned a lot, a
lot of things that I never would have learned in
thirty truck, and I saw a lot of really unique situations.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
Well, I was going to say, it's not just the
buyers that you're going to, and you went to plenty
of them during that five year stretch too, it's the
other emergency. So much foot traffic in that area, so
much construction going on, there's potential for building collapse. You
have to be prepared for it all as I mean,
And again I think the guys knew too. You were
truck guy for a dozen years. You were in a
no nonsense truck company, so you had that factor to

(44:04):
you walking in, so that component of it hadn't changed
for you. But just in terms of drilling, I'm sure
there were drills that your officers ran with you when
you were in thirty that you loved. Tell me about
bringing some of that as a new officer yourself the
fore truck.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
Yeah, it took every opportunity I could to teach. It
didn't have to be a formal drill. It could have
been on a run, it could have been on a
gas leak, it could have been on building inspection, and
any opportunity that had to teach them something that I
had learned or more importantly, that someone had taught to me.
You know, we have a responsibility to pass that knowledge on,

(44:36):
and I embraced that, just like the military. You know,
once you become a corporal or a sergeant, you're now
a teacher. You're an instructor, and it's important that you
teach what you've learned and passed that knowledge on. And
I enjoyed doing that in forour truck and teaching the
young firemen there Aeriel and truck company work.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
You know, I'll ask you to You mentioned the transition
wasn't an easy one, and it's always you know, you
hear guys saying that the two hardest transitions in the
fire service are from firefighter to lieutenant and also captain
the chief. It's a whole different ballgame you did one
of those transitions in your career. That being said, as
far as the first emergency doesn't necessarily have to be
a box, but the first major emergency could have been

(45:19):
an MBA, anything man under the train. To get a
lot of those two where you were what was the
first emergency as an officer where afterwards you found yourself saying, Okay,
I think I'm starting to get the hang of this.

Speaker 2 (45:30):
I don't remember an incident specifically where I felt like
I was getting the hang of it, but I know
that I was uncomfortable being a lieutenant. I was uncomfortable
being in Times Square, and it probably took me a
year to feel comfortable and to say, listen, I know this.
I have the experience behind me, and I was raised right,

(45:51):
so to speak, in thirty truck, so I gained the
confidence that was necessary after probably a bit about a year.

Speaker 1 (45:59):
You mentioned the standpoint mentorship too. I mean, you had
a lot of great lessons passed down to you from
the Marine Corps. You carried those lessons into the FD
and y those guys in thirty truck passing down to you.
Now you're in a position where you even if you
weren't a lieutenant. Let's just say by this point you'd
have thirteen fourteen years on the job, so you're seeing
your guy even without the rank. Let's say you never
took that test and moved up. You're still a respected
seeing your guy at this time. What were the main

(46:21):
things just about the fire service in general? You wanted
to hammer into the younger guys that you had under
your watch at Ford Truck, And who are the guys
that you felt, I mean looking at where their careers
may be now or where they ended up that really
blossomed under you, that made you feel like a proud
papa looking back.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
You know, there's a couple of guys that come to
mind right away when you asked that question. There's one guy.
His name is Tommy Hunt, and Tommy was a fireman
in Ford Truck when I was a lieutenant. He was
my subordinate and he was an all star, and I
knew he was going places. And now Tommy's a chief.
So I used to tell him, you know, you lapped me.

(46:57):
So the guy he was under me and now he's
above me in just twenty short years. So that's one
guy that comes to mind. Also, I had a proby.
You always remember your proby's right, because break them in
from the start. I had a proby in four truck
that was from North Carolina. He wasn't even from New York,
and of course everybody made fun of the way he talked.

(47:19):
We made fun of the fact that he moved to
Manhattan sight unseen and he got an apartment in Washington
Heights and he thought he was in midtown Manhattan, and
we always had a good time breaking his chops. But
he was another all star. He was a fireman of
four truck and now he's a captain. And he's the
captain of four truck. So he left as a lieutenant,

(47:39):
worked in Washington Heights, and then came back and four truck.
I'm very proud of the time that I did there,
and I think that I don't mind saying a lot
of the captains that worked in forour truck were invited
to work there. It's kind of one of those places.
It's a great place to be, and it's kind of
one of those place places where you know, the chiefs

(48:03):
invite you to come there, right. Not so much I
want to work there.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
It's a prestige factor.

Speaker 2 (48:08):
I think it's a prestige factor. I think it's also
do you have what it takes to work here, because
it's not for everybody.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
I think about where you are Manhattan. It's the Theater District,
one of the more pre eminent neighborhoods in the city,
not just to Burrough of Manhattan, in the city as
a whole. It's one of the more pre eminent places
that you can work.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
You are front and center under the spotlight in.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
For Truck, hence the nickname never missed the performance. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
I'm laughing at the guy that came from Carolina. I
imagine he was in an apartment, looks around the neighborhoods.
He's a bunch of Dominicans and says, I don't think
this is Midtown.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
That was Manhattan. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you'd be surprised. You know,
people that aren't from New York, they don't know neighborhoods
of New York. I've had people I live in Brewster, yeah,
and I've had people say to me, oh, you work
in Manhattan. I said, yeah, the Manhattan. I thought you
worked in Harlem. Well, Harlem's in Manhattan exactly. They don't

(49:01):
know the neighborhoods.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
Yeah, you have to really pay attention to it. Oh,
I work in Stytown, for example, Well where's that right?
You know?

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Right?

Speaker 1 (49:08):
Yeah, you know so sty.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
Is in Brooklyn. I didn't know that. Yeah, I mean,
people don't know neighborhoods, but obviously if you're in New
Yorker you do. And I wasn't a city kid, but
the fire apartment gave me quite an education. Well.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
Absolutely, he learned very quick, as I'm sure that guy
who's now captain of Ford Truck has learned, as I'm
sure that guy who's a chief now has learned.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
You know.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
And I always admire guys like that because it's not
easy to get on the New York City Fire Department
in New York City Police Department. Coming from a whole
different state to do that and succeeding, that's off.

Speaker 2 (49:36):
Man absolutely absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
And as someone who's Dominican and Puerto Rican myself, he's
an honorary Dominican. We'll but still that title upon him
very good.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
I'm gonna let him know that.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
He's an honorary Dominican.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
If he doesn't watch this podcast, I'll let him know
he's an honorary Dominican.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
Absolutely. So you're having I mean, by the end of
it in two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight,
you're having a blast. And even though you're happy about
the promotion to captain. I imagine that once you got
used to Times Squared, had to be bittersweet to leave,
because again, great opportunity. You're still doing truck work, you're
still staying in the area too. But man, you know,
I imagine those five years you really grew to love.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
It, absolutely grew to love it. Every firehouse leaving, thirty truck,
leaving four truck, they were both bittersweet moments and four truck.
I was there for probably about two years, and they
offered a captain's exam, so my study group reconvened. We
had just come off the lieutenant's exam. We really hadn't
stopped studying, so we figured, all right, let's keep going.

(50:35):
And I was lucky. They gave a very very difficult
test that was I believe in five yep, and only
two hundred guys had passed that Captain's exam. It was
a very difficult test, and I had studied really hard.
I wanted to get a ninety five on that test.
So I was fortunate enough to make that list. And

(50:55):
then in two thousand and eight, the end of two
thousand and eight, I got promoted to captain. We had
done a lot of favors for people. When we were
in Times Square. We often got phone calls from the
union or from chiefs that would say, hey, listen, can
you secure us a hotel room? Can you get theater
tickets for me and my family? Can you do this
or that? You know while you're out on bi And

(51:15):
we were happy to do it for guys on the job.
We always try to do favors for guys if we
were in a position to do so. So when I
got promoted to captain, I made a phone call to
a deputy chief that a father, a fireman with my father,
and I said, listen, you know I'm getting promoted captain.
Is there any possibility I could go up to the
Bronx or Harlem again? And he said, yeah, that shouldn't

(51:38):
be a problem. You're you're getting assigned to a division.
And I got assigned to the sixth Division. So when
I got on the job, thirty truck was in the
fifth division. So the rule was always you had to
leave your division when you got promoted, So I left
my division when I got promoted lieutenant, and then when
I got promoted captain, I went to the sixth Division.
So technically I left my division again right, And I

(51:59):
was very un fortunate once again that a battalion commander,
a chief Frank Donaldy, had called me up and said, listen,
the guy who's in twenty three truck, the captain of
twenty three truck scored number one on the chief's list.
When he gets promoted, I want to put you in there.
What do you think? And I was like, what do
I think? Are you kidding me? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (52:17):
So yes, my left arm.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
Over my right exactly. So he gets promoted to chief,
and I slide into twenty three truck, and I wind
up going back to the same battalion. I was a fireman,
back to the sixty battalion, and I couldn't be happier.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
And I was going to say it was a very
and I don't mean to say the word lucky because
it doesn't seem like it makes it sound like someone
didn't earn it or charmed either, because I don't think
that's applicable either. But it was a very blessed career.
I think that's the right very to use. Because you
got to stay in truck work, which was your passion.
I'm sure if you had to work an engine for
a little bit. I'm sure you wouldn't have minded that.
The truck work was in your blood. You got to

(52:54):
stay in the same burrow, even if you shifted around
a little bit of course, going to Harlem to Midtown.
For those five years you stayed in the same owner
was able to enjoy the crux of that over the
course of a three decade career. That's something not a
lot of people can say. So it was a very
very blessed and cool road for you that you pay
for yourself, and you earned every step of the way.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
Yeah, it was unique. I've heard of guys staying in
the same borough for three promotions or three ranks, but
it's very unique, not common at all.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
Yeah, I think you're the first guy I've had on
this program that has achieved that. So that's pretty noteworthy
in its own right. And again, it's in your blood.
And lieutenant to captain. That's a lot of guys say
that's an easier transition because it's kind of more of
a been there, done that kind of a thing. The
responsibility increases a little bit because now you have lieutenants
under you as well, but for the most part, the
concept remains the same. Just tell me about the emergencies,

(53:41):
especially as again constructions changing in the city. Building codes
are changing in the city too, that you have to
keep up with. You're getting a lot more of a
modernized New York. Gentrification. Really, I felt took off in
the late two thousands, early twenty tens, correct those last
sixteen years, because you're not out that long. Tell me
about the changes you saw personally and where you felt

(54:01):
truck work had to accelerate to catch up to what
New York was doing.

Speaker 2 (54:06):
I didn't really feel necessarily that it had to accelerate
to catch up. I felt that I had a responsibility
to continue to teach and to train and to motivate.
I think that was the biggest thing. A lot of
the building construction was similar to what I had experienced
as a fireman, so that was that was pleasant that

(54:30):
I wasn't I didn't feel like I was learning anything new.
Even though you always learn. I've I've always said that,
like it doesn't matter how much time you having a job.
I've always seen things that I had never seen before.
I always learned when I was in a job, but
I guess I learned less because the buildings were the same,
The construction was the same. I was running in with
the same companies, and once again, I was so blessed,

(54:54):
as you said, because the guys that in twenty three truck,
they knew their job, they were professionals, They did their job.
They were trained by the guys that came before them,
and it made my job so much easier. They made
me look great. I was like a winning coach that
had a great team and I didn't have to be
a good coach because the team was so good.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
It's kind of like I look back, you know, pat Riley, right,
all those great teams he had over the years with
the Lakers, even though he didn't win the championship with
the Knicks, he had some great mixed teams. Obviously, he
had some great Miami Heat teams when he coached them.
You know, listen, he's got to push them, but the
players ultimately got to perform too, and if you can
get the best out of them, and if they're already
motivated enough as it is Shoe Torri with the Yankees
dynasty in the late nineties, same thing. You know, you

(55:35):
push them to where they got to be, but they
know where they got to be. They just need someone
to guide them, and you were that guidance point.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
You know. That's that's how I felt. I felt like
I was a winning coach with a team that did
all the work and I didn't have to do anything,
or to use the analogy, I didn't have to trim
the sales very often.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
Yeah, no, not at all. And I imagine there were
opportunities to go for Battalion chief but you were so
happy where you were. I mean, that was the last
the test for can happened? Was the last test you
ever wanted to take.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
I did take a Chiefs test, and I failed it miserably,
and there's a lot of reasons for that, mainly probably
because I didn't want it. I didn't prepare for it.
So I think that if I wanted it, I would
have prepared for it. And also there's a requirement that
you have a bachelor's degree, and I never finished college.
I never got a bachelor's degree. So I think due

(56:24):
to the fact that I never got a bachelor's degree,
due to the fact that I never studied for the
Chiefs test and prepared for it and didn't pass it,
those were all indications to me that I didn't really
want it. I wanted to be a captain. I studied
hard to be a captain.

Speaker 1 (56:37):
You wanted to be a lieutenant.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
I wanted to be a lieutenant. I studied hard for
those exams. I did not prepare for the Chiefs Exam,
and it showed with my score. And then when the
next Chiefs Exam came up, I didn't take it. I
was quite content to where I was, and I think
I had now made that conscious decision, this is where
I'm going to finish my career.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
Everything for a reason, because I mean, you went in there,
and again you're a very motivated guy. You're a very
driven guy. Doesn't take long in my conversation with you
tonight to see that that you know, listen, if you
would have wanted like you said, the preparation was there,
the work ethic was there. For sure, you would have
gone gung ho to get it. But ultimately, being where
you were, the spot that you were in, there was
really no need for lateral movement unless there was extreme

(57:19):
factors at play, which there was not. So I mean
that conscientious decision allowed you to really ride out the
rest of your career and enjoy it. And you already
were enjoying it. There was really I imagine you kind of
had that point in your career, not that you stopped learning,
not that you stopped teaching, where you kind of had
that mountaintop view like a man. I did it, I
made it. I'm set.

Speaker 2 (57:37):
Yeah. And in the fire department, chief officers don't overtime.
Captain is the less rank that over time. So what
they do with the chief officer rank is they allow
them to accrue comp time compensation time. So if they
go to a fire at the conclusion of a tour
and they're there for three hours, they are in three
hours of comptime, and when they take their COMPI they're

(58:00):
not replaced with another chief because chiefs don't make overtime.
They're replaced with a captain, and that captain is called Acting.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
Battalion Chief ABC.

Speaker 2 (58:10):
So at the end of my career, the last five
years of my career, I was abcing all the time.
There were months during the summer where I would ABC
fifty percent of my tour, so I would work a
twenty four hour tour. I would come in for a
night shift or a night tour, and either the night
tour or the day tour, I was ABC. I was

(58:32):
taken out of my firehouse, out of my company, and
I was sent to either one of the four battalions
in the Bronx or the sixteenth Battalion where I worked.
So I actually had the best of both worlds even
though I wasn't a chief officer. I was playing chief
all the.

Speaker 1 (58:47):
Time, right, And you had exactly you had an inside view.
You kind of had to do it anyhow, you had
to look at what the rank was. And again it's
not that you didn't enjoy. I'm sure it taught you
a lot, and you brought some pointers back to your
firehouse for the next shift, but it gave you, besides
the lay of the land, kind of more of an
indication that you know, I'm right where I need to be.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
I imagine exactly it was right where I need to be.
And you know, if you're a new chief officer, you
again get pulled out of your company, out of your division,
and probably sent to a new borough. And if you
can imagine, you worked your entire career in Manhattan and
you never lived in the city, and now all of
a sudden you're a covering chief in Brooklyn or Staten Island.
You're thrown into the mix in an area that you

(59:26):
don't know, neighborhoods that you've never worked in before, and
companies that you don't particularly know, and I'm sure that
that's a really big challenge. I give a lot of
credit to those guys. It's a really big challenge that
you're working, you know, in the middle of the night,
and you're calling out these companies that you don't know,
and you don't know the players, you don't know the personnel.
I didn't have that issue. I'm abcing in the South

(59:48):
Bronxon in Harlem. I knew the companies, I knew the players,
I knew the company officers, and I knew the response areas.
So it was so comfortable for me. I was like,
why would I give this up? Why would I leave
twenty three Truck to be a chief when I am
already a chief half the time in the sixth Division
And I love twenty three Truck. I had such a
good time there and I was still going to flyers

(01:00:09):
and the personnel that I had there were consummate professionals.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
That's all you really can ask for, too, and it's
where it's owing. You know, there's certain components to depending
on where you aren't Harlem and Squad forty one can
attest to this because their slogan is literally the best
of both worlds, where besides Harlem, you can go into
the Bronx on maybe even a first two assignment potentially
depending on where it is in the Bronx, or a
second alarm, a third alarm, or greater. So you're going
to get that experience and you know, again, the familiarity

(01:00:35):
factor was there and it didn't create any problems for you. Now,
I didn't want to ask this for any guy or
gal that's been on this program that worked during that era.
When the pandemic hit in twenty twenty, you were able
to survive it. You were able to get to you know,
at least post pandemic area by retiring last year. But
when that whole thing went down and the changes that

(01:00:55):
came with that, tell me about your twenty twenty twenty
twenty one.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
It was so interesting because where we were, first of all,
as a captain, chiefs don't bother you. Where we were
on the West side of Manhattan. There the deputy chiefs
didn't make the trip over because it was as far
as you could possibly travel to go to a firehouse,
so we didn't get visits from chiefs, so the supervision

(01:01:21):
on the level of micromanagement didn't exist. There was no micromanagement.
They kind of let us take care of our companies.
They let the captains run their companies and their houses,
which was great. Twenty twenty didn't really affect us. Okay,
we worked our twenty four hour tours, some guys got sick,

(01:01:44):
We did what we had to do. When we went home,
the traffic was minimal. We love that. We actually slowed
down as far as fire duty goes, because it just
seemed it was odd. We would go to work and
there was no traffic, there were no people out in about,
there were no restaurants weren't full. Yeah, it was just
a weird time. I remember getting relocated to Midtown one

(01:02:06):
night and driving through Times Square and there was no
people in Times Square, and I took my phone out
and I said, I got a video record this because
this is something that you'll never see. You've never seen,
and you'll never see it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
Again, hopefully not hopefully not. Felt like I am legend
with Will Smith. It was very it was a very
very bizarre time. Forgive me, folks. I am battling some
really bad allergies tonight, so I am not feeling one
hundred percent and it came out a horrible time. So
if I sound awful, if I sound off on the podcast,
now you guys know why. So that moves us ahead
until twenty twenty four. The decision to step away. You

(01:02:39):
know it's not easy, but again, I imagine a sense
of contentment after thirty three years. What was the moment
where you said, you know what, for as fun as
this has been, it's time to go.

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
It was physically, when the body doesn't keep up with
the mind, and you see all these young guys that
you're leading are now passing you, it's time to to
be real and reflect and say, you know what, maybe
it's time to step back. And I re injured my

(01:03:09):
knee in twenty twenty three, and I went to see
some specialists and they all concurred that it's probably time
for you to tie up the boots. And one surgeon
had told me that I was going to need a
knee replacement. So I said, well, my decision is made.
It's time to go. There's no need to stay and
injure myself further and at that point in my career,

(01:03:32):
I didn't feel like there was anything that I hadn't
accomplished that I wanted to accomplish.

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
So at least even if it wasn't your call, per se,
because the doctor's kind of made a decision for you,
you still had a say in it to say, all right, listen,
I've done everything I've needed to do. There's nothing left
on the dock that I look back on now and say, dang,
I didn't get the chance to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:03:51):
Yeah, that's correct. I could have gone for a surgery
eighteen months ago and then gone through another recovery process
and tried to come back again. But for what I'm
fifty five years old, I did thirty three years. I
accomplished everything that I want to I had a exemplary career.
I'm so grateful for everyone that I worked with, the

(01:04:14):
places that I worked, and like I said, I accomplished
what I want to accomplish.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
You absolutely did. So what are you up to these days?

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
Well, unfortunately, I'm caring for my elderly parents. But during
the summer we did a lot of travel and I'm
really enjoying retirement. I tell my friends that are of
retirement age, I highly recommend it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
Well, listen, you had a hell of a run. You
had a hell of I had a hell of a run,
that's for sure, and a lot to be proud of
for sure. When you look yeah, absolutely no problem. So
when you look back on it, before I get to
the rapid fire, if you had to define it, I
always like asking this to guys and gals on the program.
If you had to define it in a sentence or two,
how would you define it?

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
I was just very fortunate. I worked very hard for
everything that I achieved, and like you said, maybe lucky
isn't the right word, but I do feel lucky and
definitely blessed. Yeah, absolutely absol Right.

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check that out again. For those of you tuning in,
if you're looking at me tonight saying why does Mike
look like more of a mess than he usually does?
Seasonal allergies are really ruining it, so that's why you
see me keep leaning down to get a cough out

(01:06:14):
and fight my nose, and fight my eye and fight everything.
So I apologize for the lovely timing of those allergies.
Before I get to the rapid fire. We do have
this question in the chat from love Soka one. While
a captain of the company, did you ever implement a
no cell phone rule in order for you to talk
about certain jobs and training techniques? Which may enhance your
firefighting skills. And he also adds to no cell phone

(01:06:36):
rule applies to the kitchen table.

Speaker 2 (01:06:38):
Yeah, it's a great question. I never instilled any kind
of rule for no cell phones. I think the fire
department didn't want us to have cell phones on the apparatus.
But I understood that people have families and they need
to be in touch, and never had any kind of
rule like that. But it was kind of like an

(01:06:58):
unwritten rule that during the meal time there were no phones.
And it wasn't a rule that I had to enforce
or instill. It was kind of a rule. Guys just
enforce it on each other, right, you know, if one
of the guys took their phone out, one of their
peers would say, what are you doing? You know, it's
meal time. In eighty and twenty three, where I finished

(01:07:20):
up my career, we didn't have a television in the
dining area in the kitchen really, so we would sit
and converse and very much like a family when I
was a kid, family dinner time was special and sacred,
and in the firehouse it is the same. And we
would sit and we would talk, and we'd break each

(01:07:41):
other's chops and we would laugh and we would learn,
and then after the meal was over, we would tell
the junior guys, don't get up. I know you want
to jump up and go start cleaning, but don't get up.
Just sit because we're all going to sit and we're
going to converse and have some laughs.

Speaker 1 (01:07:58):
And then never forget us to get those conversations.

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
I mean, that's probably most guys that are retired, that's
gonna they're gonna tell you that's what they missed the most. Yeah,
that time in the kitchen table.

Speaker 1 (01:08:08):
I can't wait. I got a little piece of it
as it is where I am right now, but I
can't wait to jump into the career side of it,
you know, somewhere and hopefully gain even more. So thank
you love Soka in the chat for those questions, and
thank you everybody who's tuned in so far to As
I said, here's the rapid fire, and it's five hit
and run questions for me, five hit and run answers
from you. You can say pass if you want so.
We'll take it to where you started your career there

(01:08:30):
those first dozen years really from nineteen ninety one until
two thousand and one, when you got hurt unfortunately. What's
your favorite memory from thirty Truck alone?

Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
So many good memories, the fire duty, the camaraderie. We
played softball together, we played flag football together with had
a basketball team. We spent so much time together and
off duty. It's it's unlike any other career. You don't
here doctors' offices, getting together every weekend with a softball league,

(01:09:01):
or going to you know, Christmas parties together and a
boys' night out once a month. And there was just
so many things that we did together as a family,
not only in the firehouse but off duty.

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
Yeah, and as those bill bods that last a lifetime,
you know, their swords through quite literally, blood, sweat and tears,
and there was a lot of that to go around.
And not only thirty Truck, but the other places you
worked over the course of your career. Now, you mentioned
the grabs that you had earlier at the fatal fire
of the five year old and three year old. Besides
that one, and I don't think there's not a lot
that can top that. What's another really tough fire you
had over the course of your career, either as a

(01:09:33):
fireman or as a boss.

Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
So many in nineteen ninety three, I performed a life
saving rope evolution where I slid into a enclosed shaft
a six by six chaft to get to a woman.
She was on the floor above the fire, and when
I got to the window, she had become unconscious. So
I had to go into the window, enter the window,

(01:09:55):
unclip myself from the life saving rope, and find her
and drag her out of the apartment. I wasn't able
to go back out onto the rope. I was able
to take her through the interior the apartment. I had
numerous rescues that we got unit citations for because there
were more than one rescue. There was one rescue that
I made. I had mentioned too that I had got
a Class two metal yep. There was a woman. There

(01:10:19):
was a fire on the eighth floor, and the chauffeur,
John Barry, was an exceptional fireman, was able to put
the turntable of the ladder on the sidewalk and put
the ladder up to the eighth floor window, which was
fully extended. It was one hundred foot ladder and it
couldn't go a foot higher, and I climbed up to
the eighth floor window. I opened the window, I crawled

(01:10:40):
into the apartment which was on fire. The room that
I crawled into was the only room that was not
on fire, and I was fortunate enough to find an
elderly woman in the apartment, and I dragged her back
to the window. I took her back out onto the
tip of the aerial eighty feet above the street and
just held her there. She was unconscious. I just held
her there until they extinguished the fire, and then I

(01:11:02):
took her back into the apartment and carried her down
the interior stairs of the building after the fire was extinguished.
So that was what I mentioned that I got that
Class two metal for. And then the steam pipe explosion,
that was another one. We got a metal. The steam
pipe exploded on forty second Street and Park Avenue. I
think I believe it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:22):
Was this seven or the one in fifteen that took
out a building seven oh seven yep. Downtown, yeah, or
close to downtown.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
We turned the corner off of Seventh Avenue onto forty
second Street and we're heading east and all you saw
on the street were hundreds of pairs of high heeled shoes. Yeah,
literally kicked their shoes off, running for their lives, thinking
that it was some kind of terrorist event.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
Can't blame them.

Speaker 2 (01:11:49):
We were able to evacuate about twenty people from a
city bus that was in two feet of two hundred
degree water. Wow. Yeah, bricks were raining down on our
heads from the pipe. It was like a geyser. And
it was so loud. We couldn't talk, We couldn't communicate
with each other. It was like standing on the runway
at JFK. It was so loud. So there's some of

(01:12:10):
the notable fires that I had where I was fortunate
enough to make a rescue.

Speaker 1 (01:12:15):
Yeah, of course, I mean listen that one. People forget
about that job because there was so much that went
on during that era. But that steam pipe explosion sensitive time.
I mean because this is six years only six years later,
and we had Corey Lattle's plane crash too.

Speaker 2 (01:12:27):
Yeah, I was at that. I was at the core
Littel plane crash.

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
Talk about these things.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
Yeah, you were there. Yeah, I was working for that.
I had a helicopter crash in the Hudson River and
we extracted eight people out of the Hudson River, all alive,
no fatalities.

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
Amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
Yeah. I saw everything, I mean, trains, planes, helicopters, you
name it, buildings, yeah, I had a very interesting and
fortunate career as far as I.

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
Is concerned, you sure did. I'm gonna have to bring
you back just to talk about these jobs alone, because
we didn't even hit on them tonight. Oh there's so many,
so we're definitely gonna have to do a part two.
Third question the rapid fire A lesson you took from
the Marine Corps into the FD and.

Speaker 2 (01:13:05):
Y always lead by example. You never know who's watching you.
You don't have to have the fire Service, the police Service,
or the military to have someone that you look up to.
Right everybody has someone that they look up to, someone
that they aspire to be like, or someone that set
an example that you always remember. So it's important that

(01:13:26):
you always set the example and lead by example because
you don't know who's watching you. Someday you might be
the guy that they talk about and say, you know,
there was this guy that used to work with and
he used to do this, or he used to do that,
or he was so calm under pressure. So I think
the biggest thing I got from the Marines was always
leadership by example. You set the example all the time,

(01:13:49):
even when it's difficult, even when you don't want to.
And that's a definition of discipline.

Speaker 1 (01:13:54):
Absolutely. And look at the guys that we talked about earlier,
when you talked about start now in thirty truck. These
guys have probably you know, since passed away or if
they're still around with us through up in years and
they've since moved away. But look at the profound impact
they had on you where you got there in nineteen
ninety one. Thirty four years later, you still remember them. Finally,
you still recall them like that exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:14:12):
And I'll give you a great story. There was a
guy who worked with in thirty truck. He was a
great mentor, very patient, excellent teacher, superb fireman, and he
always set the example. And I followed an example and
he taught me and I made it up through the ranks.
And then lo and behold, ten years ago, his son

(01:14:34):
gets on the job, and where does he send his
son twenty three truck?

Speaker 1 (01:14:38):
Three truck to you?

Speaker 2 (01:14:39):
So I'm sure he never thought thirty years ago he
was set in the example for a kid who was
going to become his son's captain.

Speaker 1 (01:14:48):
What he was, what he was, And look at it,
and look how you know you were able to pay
it forward he paid it forward for you, you paid
it forward for his son, and continued that good cycle.
A lot of meals to eat in the firehouse. What
was the best one at latter twenty three?

Speaker 2 (01:15:01):
You know, when you mentioned my favorite meal, I think
the thing that comes to mind is my favorite tradition.
So the fire department is filled with Italian Americans and
Irish Americans, and a tradition that existed when I was
in thirty truck, continued when I was in four truck,
and existed again in twenty three truck. It was unbelievable.

(01:15:23):
Every Sunday night it was Sunday Sauce and they would
make some version of either meatballs in spaghetti or sausage
and meatballs or chicken palm. And I always love that meal.
And I always love the fact that the fire department
had these simple little traditions like on Sunday, we're going
to have sauce. And it was probably a tradition brought

(01:15:45):
from the Italian Americans from years ago that you know,
their mothers made a Sunday sauce every weekend, and they
brought that tradition to the firehouse, and that tradition is
still alive today. In many firehouses.

Speaker 1 (01:15:57):
We have something similar down here. Every Friday's Pete Tonight.
You know, I don't know if it's the same for you guys,
but every Friday night's Pete Night, every Saturday steak Night.

Speaker 2 (01:16:04):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:05):
Oh yeah, it's it's the little things like that. But
you hold to it because it's the generations before you
that defined it. Same thing with you, guys, as Sunday sauce.

Speaker 2 (01:16:12):
And traditions only die because you let them.

Speaker 1 (01:16:15):
Yeah, yep, you know you hold dear to them. They'll
file you for the entire course of your career. You
mentioned the guys. You mentioned the fire duty. I know
you missed that a lot. What's another saying, final question?
The rapid fire. What's another thing you miss a lot?

Speaker 2 (01:16:27):
I miss going to fires, the adrenaline rush, the uh
I guess it's a bit of a power trip.

Speaker 1 (01:16:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:34):
No, I never went to a fire. We didn't become victors,
So it's you know, you're always on the winning team.
I always worked with great guys, so that was like
I was always on the winning team. I felt like
I always worked on the all star team, and I
certainly miss going to fires. Unfortunately, when we're going to fires.
We're having a good day, someone's having a bad day.

(01:16:55):
But I'd be lying if I told you that fireman
don't enjoy going to fires. I certainly I missed that thrill,
that excitement, that danger.

Speaker 1 (01:17:03):
Yeah, as long as everything turns out okay, I'll never
forget what Bob Gallione said in the rescue documentary Still Writing,
which I watch about two to three times a year,
where he said, you know, listen, it's a you're fighting
a force of nature, that's fire, that nature. You win, Yeah,
you win. That's an amazing thing. And that's an amazing thing.

Speaker 2 (01:17:24):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:17:24):
It's chronicle anywhere in the fire Service, but especially with
the ft and y cap stick around. We'll talk off here.
Thank you very much for your time. Again, to those
of you in the audience, I appreciate you putting up
with me tonight. I'm just having a flare up of
some ongoing health issues I deal with, including of course
the seasonal allergies. Is I caught here for a second.

Speaker 2 (01:17:40):
Well, Mike, thank you for having me on. It was
an honor to be here. And to our viewers and listeners,
thank you for tuning in tonight.

Speaker 1 (01:17:47):
Thank you so much. It was Yeah, I enjoyed it
very very much. Before we of course conclude, and like
I said, stick will talk off here. I just want
to make mention of this. It's been a tough time
for the Ft and Y. I mentioned it original.

Speaker 2 (01:17:58):
Yeah, we should raise a glass to firefighter Pat Brady.

Speaker 1 (01:18:01):
Pat Brady and paramedic sale abdu Rahman who died after
a shift at Randall's Island two weeks to line of duty.
Deaths never easy, and you know we rather be the
Ft and Y EMS Division or of course the FD
and Y firefighting side of things. It's not an easy job.
It's a job that demands a lot of you physically,
demands a lot of you mentally, and anything can happen

(01:18:23):
at any given time, and we saw that with the
fire in Brooklyn a few days ago. We saw that
in the case of paramedic Ramont. So we send our
deepest condolences to both of those gentlemen's families and their
and their companies and their service sacrifice will not be forgotten.
So thank you very much again, Kat for your time.
We'll talk off hear. Thanks to all of you who
tuned in. Coming up next to the Mike, the new
Aven podcast. Came on the job in nineteen seventy nine,

(01:18:46):
retired in two thousand and three, recently came out with
this first book. Also finished up as a captain in
the New York City Fire Department. That's Nick Cordiosi, who
will be here this Wednesday, seven pm. I'm not going
to be able to do the show Friday. I'm working
the ambulance eight to eight, so I'll be out of
twelve hour shift at AMR. But you'll get us Wednesday
evening at seven Best the Bravest Volume seventy eight with
Captain Nick gaudioc. In the meantime For those of you

(01:19:08):
listening on the audio side for tonight's outro song, they're
making their debut here on the Nighty New even podcast.
It comes from their nineteen ninety six album Enema Tool.
Playing us out with Stingkfest in the meantime on Behalf
of Behalf, I should say of Captain Steve Elliott, who
did thirty three years in the New York City Fire
Department on Mike Cologne. This has been volume seventy seven
of the Best the Bravest Interviews with the Ft Boys

(01:19:29):
in League. Thank you week, We'll see you next time.
Take care everyone.

Speaker 3 (01:19:32):
I'll see you ONSTA something kind of the change and

(01:20:08):
not all of them on BOT. I'm not a bird
in the manna.

Speaker 5 (01:20:13):
He wants you to be.

Speaker 3 (01:20:16):
Coping. Have you a lame comp me? But I would
not want you a man any of the word know anything.

Speaker 5 (01:20:30):
I'm satisfied. I got a way. I guess at the line.

Speaker 3 (01:20:45):
Show me that you done any other plays an together
three turn.

Speaker 5 (01:20:52):
Round and word no shame any moments and pleasure out.

(01:21:13):
We will be swelling way.

Speaker 3 (01:21:18):
They didn't help me.

Speaker 4 (01:21:23):
You will not want make many other way.

Speaker 5 (01:21:29):
No nothing, no fine, I got I got to know about.

Speaker 3 (01:21:43):
No name.

Speaker 4 (01:21:47):
This might have but it's something you don't get.

Speaker 3 (01:21:50):
Express man anything to me, not any do anything at all.

Speaker 4 (01:24:01):
He'll game with some boor line surely answer Army and
the pace beginning show as an alful line

Speaker 3 (01:24:15):
Roun

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 383: The Best of The Bravest: Captain Steve Elliott (Volume 77)

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Episode 383: The Best of The Bravest: Captain Steve Elliott (Volume 77)

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