I had graduated Firefighting Essentials in Rockland County, New York in August of 1993. "Essentials" was a shorter course provided by the state of New York, and the credits did not transfer to Maryland where I was stationed. In order to volunteer it was necessary for me to start my training all over. "Essentials" was fun, and I reasoned that the Maryland course would be as well. Not that it would be as much fun as being in a class with Joe Stein, Bill O'Connor, Brian Martinez, and the rest of the guys. I wasn't very excited about all the additional training that I'd have to complete after I finished Firefighter I. I thought the hazerdous materials and counter-terrorism training courses were a little unnecessary for a volunteer firefighter helping out a few hours a month in company that had several full-time, paid firefighters.

After the class I waited to meet with a friend, who didn't show. We were supposed to watch the Giants on Monday Night Football. I stayed up until around six in the morning, in order to get my body ready to begin a set of midnight shifts on Tuesday night.

A few hours later my roommate, who separated from active duty the day before, pounded on my bedroom door. There was something on the television he wanted me to see. My first guess, as I stumbled into the living room, was that the Mets pulled off a triple play or something similarly unusual, and that he wanted me to see the replay. That's the sort of thing that Dave would urgently wake me to see. It literally took me several minutes to figure out what was going on.

"Both towers down?" I didn't understand. Communications down? The towers are shut down? The power is down? It wasn't until several minutes later when they replayed the video of one of the towers collapsing that it finally registered. Both towers are down! The next thing I remember, a sergeant from work was calling to advise me to wear my dogtags to work that night.

It seemed like a no-brainer that I'd probably be missing a great deal of class in the following weeks. I could still make the classes that coincided with my days off, but there was no way I'd be cut loose from work for any off-duty education. By the time I returned to class again, I learned that Andy Fredricks had died in the collapse of one of the towers. Andy was a New York City firefighter assigned to Squad 18, and was my instructor for Firefighting Essentials.

Andy was an excellent teacher, respected not just by the volunteers who appreciated his knowledge and experience from FDNY, but he was also held in high esteem by paid firefighters across the country as a writer and instructor. Some glipses of how many saw Andy can be seen here.

I really don't know what else to add. -- jp