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You are listening to the FDNY Pro Podcast featuring members of the New York City Fire Department. We want to share stories from the field, best practices, lessons learned and Help Save Lives.
In the aftermath of 9-11, when 343 members made the ultimate sacrifice, the FDNY grappled with the inconceivable loss of life while at the same time rebuilding their decimated department. Processes were in place to handle line of duty deaths, but not for this unthinkable number of members. In the days, months and even years that followed, the FDNY faced the enormous challenge of grieving,
honoring their own fallen and their families, all while beginning the long path to recovery.
During this time, the department's ceremonial unit took on a critical role, not only helping to manage hundreds of funerals and memorials, but donation ceremonies and tributes were constant for many years thereafter. During those early years, the ceremonial unit began to formalize its structure and responsibilities and has evolved over the years into the dedicated professional team it is today. As a department, the FDNY always honors and remembers their fallen heroes. Post 9-11, the ceremonial unit rose to this challenging occasion, which is really unmatched in the history of the fire service. The intention being to honor our fallen and support their families on their darkest day in a dignified, fitting tradition.
Welcome to the FDNY Pro podcast. I'm your host, Elizabeth Cascio. Today we are talking to two key players from those early days when the Department was healing and rebuilding and the ceremonial unit coordinated multiple funerals and memorials per day, the most being 25 and one day. We'll discuss their experiences on 9-11 and how they became involved in the unit.
First Deputy Commissioner Mark Guerra was appointed to firefighter in 1988 and rose through the ranks to battalion chief before being appointed to his current position by Commissioner Robert Tucker in the fall of 2024. Lieutenant Joe Lapointe has been with the department for 35 years, 43 with the city having come from New York City Corrections and NYPD. And after this, September ‘s 9-11, he will enjoy a well-earned retirement. Welcome to you both.
Thank you. Thank you.
Can we start with a short bio from each of you on how you came to the FDNY, where you worked. And how about we start with you, Commissioner?
Sure. So, I came on the job in February of 1988. My dad had been a firefighter in Engine 201 and Ladder 114, and he had signed me up,
for the test, and I was on the list for years. Then, one day, a good friend of both of us, actually, Mike Moog, in September of of 87, he tells me that he's coming over to the fire department. He piqued my interest, and I went to candidate investigation, put in the paperwork that I should have put in, like, six years before that. And was appointed in February of 88. I was appointed to Engine Company 237 in Bushwick, East Williamsburg area. Spent two years there, transferred to Ladder 124, which was in, Bushwick. I was there till 94 when I got promoted to lieutenant. Went out to Queens for four years. I was, lieutenant in Ladder 135 and then transferred back to Brooklyn as a lieutenant to Ladder 112. I stayed there until I was promoted to captain in July of 2002. And then ended up as the captain of Engine 214. Stayed there till, 2019, when I was promoted to battalion chief, when I was assigned to Battalion three five. And I stayed there until, you know, last fall when I got appointed to be first Deputy Commissioner.
And how about you?
My career with the city started in 1982. I worked for New York City Department of Correction and then transferred to NYPD in July of 84, and then came to the FDNY in January of 90. My father also was a firefighter. He enjoyed being a cop, but was a cop in Times Square
when Times Square was kind of crazy during the 80s, and I kind of had mixed emotions. But, you know, this is obviously the best job, I think, anywhere. So,
And where did you work?
I was assigned to originally Engine 241 for one year. I went across the floor to Ladder 109. I got promoted the January before 9-11. And back then, new lieutenants got sent to the academy to teach the probies. So, we relieved a group. So if there was a group of 15, their year was up and we were their replacement. Subsequently, a bunch of those guys died on September 11th because now they got sent out to the field and were assigned to companies that responded that day. So
Where were you on 9-11? Were you working that day?
I was ah working. I worked the night tour on the 10th, and I was there for the day tour on the 11th in Ladder 112.
Were you assigned to the box from...No...Brooklyn?
We stayed in quarters. The engine was sent, Engine 277, was assigned to queue up at the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, but never made it through, because the South tower had come down. They kept units from going through that. We remained in quarters. We actually had a fire that morning, up the block from the firehouse. Because there were no engines in the area, our engine was already gone., we ended up stretching a line off of a hydrant to put out a basement fire in a row frame. Just the the crew from 112. And I remained there until the next morning when the relief came on the 12th. And that was, when I first went down to the Trade Center site.
So you went straight from your overnight tour to the site?
Yes.
All of the, fellows who came in that morning or had been working in 112 and 277, we jumped on a bus at the 15th Division and went down to the site. We got there and stood in line, you know, they had everyone queue up and they were calling companies as needed. It was basically just surreal—the destruction and waiting around for, for a very long time. And then they finally called us in. The whole crew of us went into one of the buildings with a group of ESU cops. It was the building, where the tip of antenna from one of the buildings had fallen through this particular building. I forgot what they call it was like the a custom house, I think they called it.
And the ESU guys that we were with, had been walking through the building. And when the when the needle came through, it passed by them with on the floor, they were and some of them went down with the needle and some of them remained up on the floor. And we went back in with them to the point where they were when that collapse occurred, and you could see their handprints on the
wall. And the guy that I was with said, I was standing right here, and he was at the edge of the floor from when the needle went down. And we were there to take a look to see if we could find any of their guys. And we basically went from that point down floor by floor until we got down into the basement to see where that needle was lying, to see if we could find any of the ESU guys. And we weren't able to.
And what about you Joe?
I was, off duty work on a side job. I at the time had done body and fender. I worked in the shop, and it was on Staten Island. The guy came in, delivery guy, he’s like, a plane hit the World Trade Center. So originally, we thought, like, right across the...there’s Linden airport, so private, you know, Cessnas and stuff. So, I made an assumption that that's what it was. The second delivery guy comes, he goes, no, it is a plane. It's like. So, I got in the car, drove down to the block and seen a black plume of smoke. And, at the time, we were assigned to the Division of Training, you know, but that just happened to be a day off. So, we kept our gear with us because we were able to work overtime in the field on the weekends, so...
We parked down by rescue five. They had, busses lined up. You signed a journal, got on a bus, and a bus took you to the ferry. So, when we got on the ferry, there was clergy there that was giving everybody general absolution that if something should happen. So, as we were going across is when tower came down. I mean, I was on with three different guys who were no longer here today because they got sick, you know, from the aftereffects. But, you know, like you said, kind of surreal, you know, something you see in the movies, the priest is coming on giving, you know, general absolution. So
That's a sobering moment.
Without a doubt. And once we got there, you know, all the ash and dust was starting to settle. And we walked up; there was some chiefs there that we're trying to like.....Engine guys here. The truck, guys hear just like Mark said, there was a lot of downtime. Felt like, listen I got to be able to do something. So, guys kind of just broke off you know, teamed up with guys. You know, if you respond to down there with your members of your house, then, you know, you hung out with them and did whatever you could try and do.
So very quickly after 9-11 and starting to find the different people who had died, who had been killed, funerals start to be scheduled pretty quickly and now the department has to gear up to be able to attend and manage all of these funerals. Something that this large had never happened before. And so where does the Department begin?
And that's how you two now get into the ceremonial unit. Joe, I think you were in it first.
Yes,
So, you get detailed to the ceremonial unit.
So, in the beginning, just like the the whole world, the whole job was down to digging, you know, what I mean? So, at the time, the chief in charge of the academy was a battalion chief, a guy named Nick Santangelo. Good guy. Calls me and goes, I need you to come up here.
I got to talk to you. And that's when he said, listen, we're recovering more and more guys. And, we have to come up with a plan. So, he's like, I need you to run the Brooklyn-Staten Island funerals. I’m like, okay. I'm like, you got a book? You got something like and he goes, nah, you'll figure it out. He was a real these and those guys, Nick Santangelo... So, he was like, you'll figure it out.
I’m like, alright, we'll do the best we can. So basically, the city was split into....several. So what happens is they, they started a, like a funeral desk hotline up at the Division of Training where they had members manning the phones. And then, you know, what they started putting the words out that, listen, once you have you you have your loved one and then, you know, you’re going to call this number and we're going to start. And from there they started, you know, it was a little bit of a mess in the beginning like anything else. But, you know, things got...Originally they were sending Staten Island guys upstate and sending the upstate guys to Staten Island. It kind of got all worked out where they then broke it down, almost cut like into zones. And then if nothing was going on in Staten Island, then we'd go up to help the upstate guys or Long Island guys.
And how did you get involved?
So, you know, in the beginning, I was detailed down to the site for about a month. Then on your days off, you would go to the funerals,
you know, wherever you could. And when I was promoted to captain in July of 2002, I was assigned to go to the Rock to teach. And
Chief Santangelo assigned me to the special Projects unit, which was the de facto ceremonial unit at the time. So, I was part of that crew who, you know, taught ropes and extrication on regular days. And then on days when there were funerals, we would do the funerals or whatever other ceremonies they had. So, you know, it was sort of a happenstance opportunity to go there and ended up in with this group who did the funerals. And like Joe said, you go there and there's a whiteboard with guys who had passed away on 9-11. And whether they had a funeral or memorial service or whatever it was along the way, a box was checked or there was a question mark. And,
even in July of 2002, we were still doing 9-11 funerals, memorial services. If a guy had had a memorial service, and then they found his remains, we would then have his funeral.
We were beginning to do a lot of other type events, and things that had been done in the department before. They were kind of, you know, re-upping those things. And the first funeral that I ever, ever did as a member of the ceremony unit is the day that I met my good friend Joe LaPointe. That ...I showed up in the morning there. I'm a new captain. And, you know, just as he said, trying to figure this thing out. And,
one of the first guys, maybe the first guy that came up to me was Joe. And the first thing he said to me, I remember it was like yesterday, he says, Hey, you're Moog’s buddy from Farrell, right? And, I...you know, it was the beginning of a great romance, you know, and and here we are, you know, 24 years later or 23 years later. But Joe was, Joe had already been there for a while. And, you know, we we were still picking up the pieces.
Which also included besides memorials, which were for people who they couldn't find the remains, but the family needed or wanted some type of closure. When they would find the remains, there would then be a funeral. So there were many of these instances where it was a double ceremony. Yes. And then there were the donations, which came in hard and fast and steady for quite some time.
Vehicle donations.
Everything.
Right. We lost a lot of apparatus. Small towns would do like, kids selling lemonade and everybody collecting so they could, you know, get money together to purchase a rig. It was a couple of those rigs that came. But like, just like you said, the people were waiting and waiting to have a funeral. And then, you know, months go by and they're like, I think we got to do something. So they did memorials. They were done in all different ways. You know, there was not a, a template on how you're going to do it. They started doing these like flower boards,
like a flat board that they had a florist decorate so it could simulate pallbearers carrying it in and they would carry it in. Some clergy were not happy about that. You know, some were, you know, they’re like, Is if that's what the family wants to do, that’s what we're going to do.
But also, first time in the history of the FDNY is more than a half our guys were never recovered. You know, so that’s never ever occurred before in the 160, it’s 160 years. The Blood Center had contacted the FDNY when, you know, when they come in to do the blood drives and stuff when you’re in Probie school when...and said, Listen, we have vials of blood. Here's a list of individuals. So, we know our good friend Gerard Chipura, his brother John. He was from Engine 219, working in Ladder 105. That's what they wound up burying. That
blood. That vial of blood that they got. And, you know, it meant a lot to the family. You know, it was symbolic to some, but they felt that's a part of John and we're going to be able to. So, they, you know, they were a family that was waiting, waiting, waiting. And then after they got contacted by the Blood Center saying, you know, we have this vial of blood.
And thank you New York Blood Center.
Yeah. Yeah. It was amazing.
Joe, can you explain how the, 25 services in one day was managed?
So basically, it came down to doing it with two-person teams. In the beginning, everybody tried to do everything, meaning just attending, like Mark said before, guys you know, working, you know, where you’re working a 24 or whatever you’re doing. Some were assigned, you know, down to work in the recovery. But guys in the beginning tried to do everything. And then eventually it got to the point where it's it's just not feasible. So, it was the same thing here. Now, 25 funerals, in the beginning they were trying to, when they had the funeral desk, you know, Mark said that they had to dry board and try and, you know, coordinate., okay.
And then it just kept coming in and they're like, Listen, families were like, We've been waiting for three months. And this is when we want to bury our loved one. Alright, we're going to make it happen. To this day, you know, we have conflicts. And ultimately, we tell
families that's the same thing; your wishes are paramount. A lot of things that we do today is we learned the hard way. A lot of trial and error, things that went wrong, you know, a little notes, ah we can make sure that we don't do that next time.
Do you remember your first funeral?
I do, I remember, first of all meeting Joe. The guy who was in charge at that time was John Byrnes. He was a captain. He had got promoted in May of 2002, just a month before me or two months. And because he was head of special projects, he was the ceremonial guy.
He was the lead. And things were much different than what they are today.
You know, John was a wonderful guy. And, you know, we were kind of taking those lessons that the guys had learned from, you know, September 11th, 2001 until 2002. And we were beginning to kind of build the structure about, you know, having different assignments, different people, keeping the folks outside of the church, bringing them in, you know, uniform on one side, family on the other, and all the things that we we kind of have as a standard plan today. We were beginning to build.
So, you had to learn. And I was lucky enough to, to come right to the front of the church. A lot of guys would start out in the formation,
lining them up. But I got to be involved with the family and, you know, getting people into the church almost from the beginning. And, you know, it was a great awakening to come to this that, you know, one day I was a fire lieutenant in Ladder 112 and then, you know, a couple of weeks later, I'm at a funeral. And learning from these guys who have been doing it about how, how we're coming about. And it was
awe-inspiring to be part of it, but it was also a little bit of a wakeup call that all of this was still going on, because it was it was a lot. And, we were doing, you know, funerals for guys that had died a year ago.
And then some. Right? As time goes by and then. As time went on. Yeah, sure.
So, as you start learning what works best in these memorials and funerals, and we're moving up to the first anniversary after 9-11 How does that impact the Department? Every June we have Metal Day. Every October we have Memorial Day. How are these annual ceremonies impacted by all of these funerals, and this is still an ongoing incident?
So, what happens is, I was still pretty new at the Rock at the time when Chief Santangelo had decided that we were going to create a more formal ceremonial unit, right. That we would have a roster. We would have members try out. We had a meeting to talk about how we would
change the uniform a little bit to identify ceremonial members. And that's how we came up with the idea of the white rope over our shoulder. And we decided to put it on our right arm, rather than on our left arm, where the patch is that has the twin towers on it, to keep it away from that patch.
So, that decision was made, and then what they decided to do was put something on the department order, asking for members of the Department who had military experience, we preferred, right? Not the only way. And that they were going to show up for a tryout.
I think it was like in August of 2002.
Why did you make that preference that people were going to try out, and your preference was a military background?
So, with the ceremonial unit and the fire department in general, we're a paramilitary organization. We have a rank structure., we have commands, we have rules of deportment that are based upon the military. And to have someone with that kind of military deportment, the bearing that you have that you come with when you when you were a member of the military, the ability to march, to stand at attention for a long time, to get other people to stand at attention, how to salute properly. Those are all the things that lend the honor and tradition to the funerals that we have. That we want the visual of a militaristic but, you know, disciplined fire department who are honoring our fallen members in the greatest tradition.
And I remember, I didn't I personally did not submit an application. And I was walking past Chief Santangelo’s office, and he yelled out to me, Hey, Mark, he says, How come you didn't put an application in? And I, you know, would’ve expected you. You've been doing this stuff for a while. And I said, Chief, I wasn't in the military. He says, You're a fire captain. He says, Put an application in. I expect to see you at the at the tryout. We had this great day. All these members from across the job, EMS, fire, who showed up for the tryout, military people, non-military people, came in their class As. We had a bunch of drill instructors from the military, the Marine Corps, the Army show, and the D.I.s put them through their paces. Some weren't able to march so great, two left feet. And we whittled the group down to what was the really the first formal group of people in the ceremonial unit. And our goal was to have that in place for the first Memorial Day after September 11th, which was held in Madison Square Garden in October of 2002. I don’t know if you remember, it rained, that day it rained sideways. You know, they all the departments from all over the country that came. They marched up Eighth Avenue and then marched into Madison Square Garden.
And filled it.
And filled it, they did. It was the dividing line between the old and the new. So, John left in 2005. He was the carryover boss from the old to the new, right? He had all the new folks, and I was more or less his number two for quite some time. Eventually Joe Minogue got in there,
and he was number two when John retired at or about 2005. And then Joe took over his as number one Joe Minogue? Joe Minogue, yes.
And he got sick.
And then and then he got ill.
9-11?
Yeah, Yeah, he had throat cancer. Yeah.
He's still with us.
Oh, he's still with us. Yes, he is, thank God. But yeah. And then really another bright line from the old to the new was when Firefighter Daniel Pujdak of Ladder 146, died in the line of duty in June of 2007. It was a, you know, crucial moment for us in the ceremonial unit.
Joe Minogue was in charge. Joe Lapointe was the number two. I was around there, number three. Sal Cassano was the Chief of Department. And, I'm going to let Joe talk about the Pujdak funeral and how we went from a certain way of doing things to what we do now.
The story of Daniel Pujdak. He had the roof in Ladder 146, was going up to the roof with the saw and the rope and everything. And, as he was getting from the aerial to the roof, he slipped and fell and wound up falling six stories fell to his death. So his funeral, that day they were predicting that it's going to be 90 something degrees. We don't really have any, I don't have water, you know, bottled water for individuals. It might have been one of the first times that we're actually getting a dedicated EMS, you know, medical branch. You know, because of the heat and everything. So, So you had an ambulance assigned, a supervisor. We have and ambulance. They have a, you know, a lieutenant or a captain, basically. So, you know, we're talking to the lieutenant, the captain, and saying, listen, I go, You have to stay here. You can't leave. You know? I mean, like, you’re going to dispatch guys. I go, we got it set up.
We have mobile command. At the time, we don't even have a PA system. We have enough to go, say, 100ft in each direction. And through channels, we called a friend in PD. The cop shot vehicle that rides around. It's basically a van with giant speakers. That's our secondary PA. We don't have any water. So the cop from the 9-0 comes over, the community affair guy, and I'm like, You know, they’re predicting 90-something degrees out. I have no water. I don't even have...Nowadays we have a budget. We have a credit card. We could purchase water. I didn't really know what the Foundation was back then.
The FDNY Foundation.
He's like, I'll take you to a guy. He takes me down to the waterfront. I want to introduce you to Mr. Schwartz. So he goes, I got water. How much water you need? I'm like, I don't know. I'm figuring that's, 10,000 people will attend this. Four bottles per person. I need 40,000 bottles. But I have no clue how I'm going to pay you. He's like, I'm not worried about getting paid. You know what I mean? So
what day you want to pick it up? We got trucks, but we don't have trucks that we could. So he delivered the water to us. This guy, you know what I mean? We didn’t...we didn’t pay him...
He's just a local store owner?
He was a local businessman that…Well, he owned a warehouse where they supplied. and then the local cop, the community affair guy, he knows all his businesses and his residents. He goes, I'm pretty sure this guy is going to take care of you. He was right. So that day, you know, I think 80-something people went down. Guy in a pipe band, one from the older reitrees...
From the heat, you mean heat exhaustion, yes.
So, at the time we were under the umbrella of Training. Tom Galvin was the Chief of Training. So, you know, Pat McNally was the Chief of Operations. So at the end, you know, I'm hot and cranked up. Radios, we don't have radios. I got radios because ‘Liz works in the radio shop, and she lent me 25 radios, you know what I mean? Like,
So, you’re just leveraging relationships. Exactly.
So, you know, I say, Chief, this is, you know, we got to have a meeting. We got to get this straightened out. You know what I mean, like. So he's like, Alright, calm down Joe. Might be on the verge of being insubordinate, you know what I mean? Been a long... I'm out there since five in the morning, four in the morning. On a really hot day in the sun. So he's like, schedule a meeting next week.
In the meantime, he's like, Listen, put a list together., what you need, what you think, you know what I mean? So, we started. We didn't have our own vehicle. We had nothing. How would you get there, with your own personal cars? the Division of Training
Would have a couple vans that we, any time we had an event or a funeral, we definitely took them.
We would have to ask. We would have to schedule a van. Right.
And we used to keep all our stuff with the sets of flags that we had. I say stuff. In a broom closet. We had a, we had a closet on the second floor on Building 9 at the Rock. And the members used to have to come to the Rock with their personal cars. We would sign out a van, go up to the second floor, pull everything out, bring it down and put it into the van, go to the event, do the event and come all the way back, bring it back upstairs, put it in and turn the turn the van in. That was our home base and that's that's how we did things. We eventually had
Bob Martens become our sole full time employee. Yes.
He had a little closet at the Rock where he did all of the scheduling, and he was really our first full time guy. And then what happened was, they kept moving us around the rock, taking off space from us little by little. And Joe finally asked, and we were granted the, the right to have a building out at Fort Totten. And, that was really when we began to greatly expand. We had room, we had office space.
We were able to get some more full-time people up there and, and the events were coming in hand over fist, with just more and more things. And Bob created this system of clipboards that we still use to this day, very, you know, 1980. But, each event would get a
clipboard (...it works... ) with the sheet on it with all the members.
And it kind of goes back to the day when we used to sign up at the Rock, there would be a sign-up sheet. And now we began to have a staff at the office, and we began to use email and texting, and Bob was really the center of that. And when we moved out to
Fort Totten, and they gave us half of one of the buildings, Building 135, we were able to establish a place to store stuff. We began to get vehicles. We got a donation from the Brooklyn Borough president. That was the first vehicle. Marty Markowitz gave us our first sprinter, right? There's a picture myself, Joe, and Bob Martens picking up the the sprinter from Marty Markowitz at the steps of Brooklyn Borough Hall. So, but that's that's how we began to build.
What we know that our listeners don't necessarily know, is that while all of this was going on, we're still rebuilding the department,
right? We're recruiting to replace people. There had been massive promotions to replace people who were killed. There were vehicles that needed to be replaced. And all the equipment that comes with them. It wasn't only this ceremonial unit that required massive attention,
creating a blueprint, In essence. There were many things going on all over the Department that had to be fixed or replaced or rebuilt at the same time. In the early days of the funerals and memorials, what were some of the challenges that you faced that now no one would even know existed based on how the Ceremonial Unit operates?
Vehicles to transport equipment and transport members. Radios for communication. Actually, after September 11th, a group of us basically went to Costco and bought these talkabouts, you know, the little Motorola radio. You could buy two of them for 50 bucks, whatever. Just
didn't have cell phones yet. So, you know, I mean, like, you know, they're down the end, trying to get that, you know, started.
If you did have a cell phone, it was just a flip phone or a brick. It wasn't exactly.
It was not cutting edge cell phones as we know today. it really was everything. And and staffing, having enough people to do whatever we had to do. It was everything, you know what I mean? And when we got to finally for him to sit down with the chiefs upstairs. basically told us, give us a list. What you think you need. One was a, you know, to start a vehicle, radios. Slowly but surely, like he said, initially,
we didn't really get everything right away. And then the Deutsche Bank occurred, fire. And Chief Galvin went in and said, listen,
This is what they really need.
Within, a couple of weeks, we were issued a credit card to purchase stuff that we needed.
But the resource that we had that we were rich in is people, right? People. Right. And, I'm just going to run through a quick list of names of people who meant a lot to us, Joe LaPointe, of course. Mike Moog was one of those names that keeps popping up. Todd Haney, Timmy Helf, Mickey May, Craig Silvino, Joe Minogue. You know, these folks were so so committed to what we were doing and believed in the mission of the ceremonial unit. And that is just a small sampling of who was really part of all of that beginning stuff. But an amazing group of people who just were so committed to making things right and making making our honoring tradition, clear to everyone.
Not always were you a fan favorite amongst everybody. You know, when you sometimes have to be the boss. Our tradition is we line up all the uniforms on one side of the church, you know, as the families approaching, and then once they go inside and whoever doesn't go into the church, we move them to the opposite side. That used to be the monumental task. I mean, now it's pretty much everybody that's on the job has been in modern ceremonial times. So it's not even a question. You ask, Ladies and gentlemen, can you move down to the opposite side of the church? In those days it was a fight.
You know, a famous line. And the fire department is, we always do it that way. Doesn't necessarily make it right.
Or the best. Or the best.
And I think, the depth of emotional reaction that people are having during these first few years because we're still carrying the grief
of 9-11, in particular, because you can't get through these ceremonies and funerals unless you put it in a box to deal with later. Right? The emotions, I mean. How did you manage that? I mean, this couldn't have been simple or easy to face every day, sometimes multiple times a day, going from one service to another. How did you manage maintaining your own mental health?
So, the important thing, and I think how we got through this, all of us, is the idea of doing the right thing by our families and the department and the membership, that the mission was critical and that you didn't delve down into each death. Right? You took it, you processed it, and we put on the best possible ceremony that we could for the family because we have a saying in the Ceremonial Unit that you don't get a second chance to give someone that funeral, that you have to be right the first time, and the only time that that family gets one time to grieve and that you don't you don't get a second chance.
So when you have that kind of laser focus on the mission and on the outcome, it is, I'm not going to say easier. It's different to deal with the emotions of, of each, each death. And each of us is buried friends who were very close to us. And, you know, you're there. And even though that's your great friend, somebody that you work with for years, you focus on the job because you want to do the best possible thing for that family. We would never not be in that room with our a member of our, a firehouse or a close personal friend. We would want to be in that room to put our mark on the funeral, to make sure that it was done right, and they felt supported by us. And I think that's really how you get through it.
I agree. I've been doing this all these years, you know, sitting down with a grieving family. And I consider it a great honor that collectively, everything we do, you know, all the little attention to detail is try and make the worst day in their life just a little bit better. We're going to take care of it. And, you know, we know, you know, not everything goes 100%. But usually we're the only ones who noticed that this went wrong or that went wrong.
So, one of the other guys that I should have mentioned earlier who was a big, you know, ceremonial person was Lieutenant Bob Poncel. He said something to me after the first event that he did. It was one of the anniversaries, either the fifth or the tenth at Saint Patrick's Cathedral. And he had come up to me and I had given him his instruction. This is what you're going to do. And he said, I'm going to do my best. And I didn't even recollect it after he told me this, but he came up to me afterwards and said, he said I stopped him and I said, no, you're not going to do your best. You're going to do what's right. I don't want you best. I want you to do it right. And I sent him on his way. And it always stuck in my head because he would always remind me of that, is that was our approach. You know, we didn't want you your best. We just wanted it to be right every time, you know?
And when you talk about the accumulation of grief over, you know, this time. To put this all in a little bit of perspective, we're sitting at the table with Joe Lapointe, right? There is nobody on the face of the earth who has buried more firefighters than this guy. I want to say I'm probably number two? But number one. It's not a great title. But that's the perspective.
But I understand the, the sense of duty recognizing a greater purpose than just living your everyday life or drowning in your own feelings in the moment, is this greater purpose of wanting to achieve a goal that makes something a little bit easier for the people who are grieving the family, right? The children, the spouses, the parents, the siblings.
And the longer you’re around, you have a personal connection to pretty much everybody you bury. Whether you knew them, you knew their father, uncle, you know what I mean? I consider it a great honor. I mean, there is a sacrifice like to your family. You know, you've carried a department phone. Once you have one of those phones it either rings, or you get an email, you know, whether it's, you know, a retired member's wife calling me. And, you know, the retired member just passed away, and I don't know what to do. You know, how do I even go about making arrangements? I never made arrangements, you know? So my poor kids see, my wife's that was a hospice nurse for 25 years. So between the two of us, they heard a lot about death. For our listeners who are not familiar with the process of how a department, funeral or memorial service is organized.
How is it that you even come face to face with the family of the deceased in the first place?
Traditionally, if it's a line of duty death, there's a response. You know, they're removing the member injured, member of the fallen member to the local hospital. And then us, along with family assistance. So family assistance is a unit that was created after September 11th. So, we both to respond the hospital and our plan is when we're going to move the fallen member from the hospital to the medical examiners, they call it the dignified transfer, which is a military term.
So, we would respond to the hospital, get to talk to the family. That's usually a two-part procedure. We're moving the deceased member from the hospital to the medical examiner. And then traditionally the next day the family's going to choose a funeral home. And then part two is that is we're moving them and we would sit and we would have a planning meeting.
So...with the family? Funeral planning meeting.
So basically, it's the funeral director along with us, Family Assistance. We make recommendations to the family and also we’re there in a non-emotional state. Families are grieving. We're helping them make decisions. And ultimately their wishes are paramount. So after the funeral director is done, we explain to them fire department traditions and tell them, we can either do all this or we can do you know, some that you don't want to do? As Monsignor John would say. You know, it's not a fire department funeral. It's the family's funeral. So,
we would explain, you know, all the fire department traditions and, you know, a lot of times, I'm sure these poor families are, you know, so distraught. So basically, walk them through step by step and, you know, be with them, and then, you know, Family Assistance stays in touch, you know, with the families to keep them updated. Like on the one, approximately the one-year anniversary we, you know, there's a plaque dedication either in the firehouse or EMS station and, you know, all the things that come to honor their fallen member.
What, what we do all of that, what Joe says is that the first thing that we would say to them is we're going to take care of all of these details. You don't have to worry about the details, because most of these folks have probably never planned a funeral before. And now they're in the midst of planning a line of duty funeral where up to 10,000 people. The mayor, the fire commission, all those folks.
But what we would tell them is, we're here so that you can grieve and not worry about these details. You focus on your family and what you have to do. We're going to take care of everything else. We're going to make sure that your loved one gets sent off with the dignified ceremony that they deserve.
So. you spend a lot of not just quantity of time with the family through this process, but it's a very deep quality of time. You're really helping them get through a very difficult moment in time in their lives. Do you ever hear from them after the ceremony?
Yes, there’s letters that go to the Commissioner's office that, you know, they want to thank people. And we do the same thing to the station and the firehouse. Prior to September 11th, so much more was put on the captain of the station or the captain of the company and, you know, coordinating. And basically we tell them, we got everything. Your job is to look out for your members, You know what I mean? If you see Joe, who's normally, you know, a very outspoken person and he's kind of in the corner and you're not hearing much from. Joe may need some help.
So, the relationship that you have with a family, a widow, spouse, whoever it might be when you do this, is a very strong bond, right? Because you're there at their darkest moment. And when you are able to provide all of those answers and just fill in all the blanks, all the things that are running through their head, right? And that you take care of this for them and the strength that our unit shows and everybody, you know, chips in and does the right thing. The relationships that are formed are forever. When we see people, it's not just the
plaque dedication a year later. It's when we go to, you know, memorial ceremonies in Emmitsburg and in Colorado Springs and Washington, DC and all these different places.
When we see these folks time and time again, and they often become, you know, regulars at fire department events, you know, throughout the year. These are very strong relationships that that you maintain over the course of, of, you know, your time. It's just, just a natural result of being there for that moment. But also not just for the family, but also for the firehouse. One of the things that we do immediately after
we have gone to the funeral home and made the arrangements is we go to the firehouse or EMS station and we sit there with the counseling unit, with family assistance, with one of the chaplains, and we take the firehouse or EMS station through everything that they're going to go through, through the course of the funeral. We put in all the details and we always say, we're going to allow you to grieve. We're going to take care of all the details. But the one thing that we say in the firehouse or the EMS station that we don't say to the family, is that one year from now, there's going to be a plaque dedication in this building for your fallen member.
You work with many other units that help to make it the professional, dignified service that we've come to expect now. Some of those units developed right alongside of the ceremonial unit, family assistance being one that you mentioned—The Pipers, Fire Family Transport, Community Affairs, Special Events. How do you work hand in hand with them? Can you explain to our listeners what that experience is like?
Sure. So, Family Assistance, I call them the angels of the fire Department. They, they are the folks that are with the family
for all the details that are outside of the funeral. The financial ones, the scholarships, making arrangements for pensions. any kind of funds that come in, grants, awards or anything like that. They're the folks that kind of, really they're hand-in-hand with us, partners in the funeral in that they're part of the planning process. They provide the transportation and they're, they're with the family holding their hands, you know, actually, getting them through.
After all, all of the, you know, pomp and circumstance is over, there are a lot of details in a firefighter, EMT or paramedics life that need to be tied up. And Family Assistance are the people that guide them through. There is a lot that they do. They have a very thankless 24/7 job and they also manage that Fire Family Transport fleet. They're incredible partners with the Ceremonial Unit with regard to, you know, all of these events so.
Yeah, we're so lucky to have them.
Without a doubt.
Particularly since the more recent years. And when I say more recent years, I mean the last decade in particular, of the number of WTC-related illness deaths that we've had to bear, active or retired, who have died of 9-11 illness. And so combined, you know, we're talking about over 700 funerals that have been managed by not just the Ceremonial Unit, but also the Family Assistance unit and the Fire Transport. And thanks to the FDNY Foundation, a lot of the needs for these groups are met financially to be able to meet the goal. Right? The mission.
Absolutely. I mean, I believe that our funerals and ceremonies are now like the gold standard. And they're only the gold standard
because of partners like those units. Whether it be Family Assistance, Fire Family Transport. You know, that was started just before September 11th, basically. And then after September 11th, like fraternal groups they bought the first vehicles.
And these vehicles from the Fire Family Transport are used to take our members to World Trade Center medical appointments, take families to funerals.
I also would like to specifically mention the Pipers, of both fire and EMS as being great partners of ours in all of these events. You know, they are committed bunch that turn out for funerals, everything, Patty's day, they come out for the plaque dedications. No matter what events we have the Pipers are there with us.
Street namings. Street namings, whatever it is, they’re there. And, you know, they’re our forward…Medal Day...face of the fire department. And they, they're just amazing partners that make great sacrifice to be out there in all of that hot, cold weather wearing their kilts.
So, you also have partnerships with agencies outside of the FDNY, for example, the NYPD, or the borough president’s office.
Probably in each borough.
The mayor's office, mayor's office, DCAS, they have their own ceremonial unit. Like when we have the major events, they come in and build the stage for us. They lend us chairs, you know, like we don't have that that much equipment. And we have built a relationship with those guys. And NYPD. NYPD highway is there for every dignified transfer. Nassau County, you know, if we're going out to Nassau County, they have their own motorcycle unit. Suffolk County, New Jersey and New York state troopers. So, we have members that would wind up, you know, their interment will be in new Jersey. And we pick up the phone and...
This is a tremendous legacy for both of you that you have helped to create such a professional operation. This is going to be a difficult question to answer. But if you had to pick one memory, over the past 24 years, of all the ceremonies and events that you have participated in, is there any one thing that stands out the most that either touched you the deepest or made you the most proud, or, you know, you pick
what that best moment was.
So right before the 10th anniversary, Chief Kilduff asked the ceremonial unit to send a few of us out to Pueblo, Colorado. Myself, Mickey May, Mike Cook, Joe couldn't make it that year. He made the next year., right? You came. So we flew out to Pueblo, Colorado, not really knowing what we were getting ourselves into., but it turns out what they were doing is they were having this celebration in August before the 10th anniversary. And they wanted us there to be part of it.
We go out there, they put us up for the for the weekend, and everything centered around this event on Saturday night at the bandshell in the Riverwalk in downtown Pueblo. And we went out there and when Lieutenant Dan Band was playing, they introduced us. And we came out on stage and aren't in our Class A's, and there were probably somewhere between 3 and 5000 people there for this concert. And when we came out, the people went crazy. After they were done with us, I said, you know, why don't we just go walk amongst all of these folks from Pueblo?
It was an amazing experience. People coming up to us from, you know, really the center of our country, people who were very far away from New York City when, when 9-11 happened, telling us their experiences about what they lost on 9-11. And what it brought to me was that this event that we took on so much, 343 members died and it really brought home the idea that everyone was something that day.
When it was over, I said to the guy who was in charge, this guy, Drew Dix, he was a Congressional Medal of Honor winner. What can we do to pay you back for this moment? We really owe you. And he goes in is very Clint Eastwood-like, you know, stare, says to me, I’d really like to get my hands on a piece of that 9-11 steel. Right? So, we came back and we went to Commissioner Cassano and Chief Kilduff and said, we got to get these people a piece of steel. And we did. We, we sent a nice big piece of steel out to them, landed it in Denver airport, and they had a caravan of fire departments from Denver to Pueblo, about a 2.5-hour ride. Each town as they went along, the fire department
would take it from the other fire truck very ceremoniously, and they went in a little caravan all the way down to Pueblo and they put that there, and they built a memorial, a 9-11 memorial with all steel. And they invited us all out, and Joe came the next year, and we went out there for the dedication of this memorial.
And when we went to the memorial, the guy Drew Dix said, take a look at how that that steel is pointed. He said, the way that it is made and whatever it is, latitude and longitude from this point points directly to ground zero. So, if you follow in a straight line from where that thing was all the way to New York City, you would land at Ground Zero. Blown away, blown away. And every time I go back to Colorado now, I drive down to Pueblo, I go to the Coors Tavern and I have a slopper, and we go by that memorial and say a prayer. But that moment and that relationship and that moment in time gave me that great appreciation for how much this has affected everyone and how much we as a department mean to everyone else.
So I'm going to have to stand outs. I'd say one, September 11th, we all lost a lot of good. We lost friends, we lost coworkers, you know, sons of, guys that we work with, but for me, John Martinson was one of my best friends. So, John died on January 3rd of 2008. So, I got to see a whole other side. You know, you think you know what the family's thinking or whatever. So that was a big learning lesson, and, you know, to see from the other side. Like, I remember.
It became personal for you.?
In my immediate circle, I didn't lose anybody on September 11th. So when, you know, John, this was a whole other thing. So, you know, we learned a lot of different things. And I would say one of the most solemn... I had the, the honor to be part of, Chris Slutman's dignified transfer from when he came off the plane in Dover airport. That was probably one, one of the most difficult and two, one of the most powerful. I mean, I'm saying how are we involved, you know, like. And and again coordinated with three police agencies.
We had the Maryland State Troopers, we had New Jersey State Troopers, and we had NYPD and New York State Troopers to take us up to the Bronx, seamless. Seeing ordinary people like, you know, a father and a son, you know, a kid maybe about 12, 10, 12 years old. They're both standing in the back of the pickup and they're saluting, you know, as the procession is going by. So, like, stuff like that hair on the back of your neck stands up. It's just, you know, just to think, like, how am I involved in this? Like, how did I, you know, become the ringleader or whatever? Never know where life takes you, you know., and who you meet.
So, Joe's leaving us, and it's hard, right? We've been through a lot together.
Absolutely.
We haven't always seen eye to eye.
Nope.
But we always have come back together.
Yep.
And I can't believe he's leaving.
You’re not alone.
But I'm going to say this because this is really important for everyone to know. We're going to be okay without Joe. Because he's done so much in the last 24 years to make sure that we're right, that all we're going to have to say is, what would Joe do? And we're going to be fine. I'm going to miss, but we're going to be fine.
Well said.
What's ‘never forget ’ mean to you.
It means a lot of things. We've done an amazing job here, creating the idea of never forget. It's it's almost impossible in this department to forget because of what Joe has built here. As you come into this department, you take a look at what is around you and what has come before you. Right? Because the most important thing in our department is there is never any one person. Right? There was never any one person that is more important than anyone else. Everybody can be replaced.
Joe is an amazing person. No one that I know could have done what he has done with this unit. He has given up his personal life. He's sacrificed from his family. He has given more to this department than almost anyone that I can imagine. And that is what never forget means to me. Because he has always been my conscience, I always think about Joe and think about what he's doing and the sacrifice that he's made. And I always make the joke that the night before a funeral, he sleeps in the pew in the back of the church. He doesn't. But he kind of does because he's always the first guy. And I'll tell you that when he put on my father's funeral, we're in the funeral home, and it's kind of coming to the end of the night.
And my dad had been retired for a long time, but Joe gave him a funeral that we’ll never forget. And I turned to somebody. I said, Where's Joe? And they said, I don't know. I go, he's probably outside on Victory Boulevard picking up cones. Right? The guy called Joe. Hey, Joe, where are you? And he literally said, I'm out on Victory Boulevard picking up cones. Right. And there's, there's 30 other guys there who are junior to him, less of a rank and who are not Joe LaPointe. But he was out there picking up those cones for my dad. And that's the kind of guy. And I always will tell people that, that's what you should do. Just, if you're not sure about what you should do, just look at Joe, because he's doing something. He never asks somebody to do something that he wouldn't do himself. And that has always been my guidepost. And he has been the definition of never forget.
Like I said, the importance, we're at a crossroads in this job where I think it's less than a thousand members that are active were on September 11th. So, a lot of them. Who are still on the job. Who are still on the job. So, the 1000., yeah, they were personally affected. They were working. They might have respond. They know, you know, people. And obviously, we have legacy that, they're directly affected. But we need to ensure the importance to, you know, tell people how important it is to. like you said, it's not just a saying to always remember and never forget.
It's not a bumper sticker, it's not a T-shirt. It's something you truly have to do. So in some parts of the, you know, department, you know, it's it's difficult. You know, you'll have a member that retired 20 years ago and maybe once they left the fire department, they really had no...they didn't come back for parties. So everyone that's in that company doesn't really know him or her. You know, this is what we do. We got to step up. And you know, in the not too near future, we'll have nobody that was on it September 11th , you know, as members retire. And we've had this discussion like the 25th anniversary is coming up.
You actually watched people grow up, down at the World Trade Center when they do the reading of the names, you know, you see what
were little kids, you know, now they're teenagers. Now they're in 20-something years old, or now grandchildren are getting up there and saying, you know, grandpa, I didn't get to know you, you know? So we just hope that, you know, the world remembers, you know, what I mean? It starts here. You know, you have to turn out you have to show up. You know what I mean? Those members, they earned it.
So that's what never forget means to you.
Yeah.
To show up.
I want to thank you both for coming here today. I think it's really important that we put on the record your legacy to the Ceremonial Unit and to the Fire Department of New York. Both of your legacies. Joe, just want to make sure I wish you well.
Thank you.
Thank you for listening to the FDNY Pro podcast. I'm your host, Elizabeth Cascio. For more training and information from our department's subject matter experts, go to FDNYPro.org.
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