Guiliani Remembers


"I remember one particular firefighter. He'd gotten hurt the day before September 11th, and that morning, just after the doctor informed him that he couldn't go back to duty for several weeks, he heard about the attack. And instead of going home, he raced to a nearby firehouse. All the firefighters had gone to the World Trade Center, so he put on some gear and wrote a note explaining why he had taken it. Then he wrote, "Please tell my mother and father that I love them very much and that I owe everything to them."

I try to recreate in my mind what he did. He drove across the Brooklyn Bridge - and to drive across the Brooklyn Bridge on the morning of September 11th, you had to feel you were driving into hell. You saw an inferno unlike anything I could possibly describe to you. He had every reason not to go. He was injured; he had been told not to report for duty - but he drove there. He went into one of the buildings and he saved people, twice, and then he went in again right before it collapsed, and he died.

Think of the courage that he had. It wasn't a lack of fear. Courage isn't a lack of fear. Courage is about being afraid, but being able to do what you have to do anyway. Courage is knowing you're going into the worst fire you'll ever face and that you may never return. But it is also understanding that you're a firefighter, that you can carry people down. Maybe I can't do that, but he could do that. That's what his life was about; that's what he swore to do.

Every once in a while, when I would give a firefighter or a police officer an award for bravery, he would come up to the podium and be very nervous. His hands would shake, and he would be unable to speak. And it never ceased to amaze me. How could this man, who jumped into the East River and taken out a 10-year-old child and put his own life at risk, how could he be afraid to speak? I finally realized it was because he hadn't learned how to manage that fear.

That's what courage is about, managing your fears. You have to do that all your life. If you want to be happy, you need a belief, and you need courage. You need to know what you believe in and have the courage to act on those beliefs. If you have both those things, there's no way on earth you're not going to succeed."

This is an excerpt from former Mayor Giuliani's commencement address at Syracuse University on May 13, 2002.

I wanted to share this with you. There were many heros on September 11th. Some wore uniforms, many were unsung men and woman who reached out to help family, friends and strangers. There are many television shows, and special ceremonies planned to remember the events of September 11, 2001. When you take time to remember how the world forever changed that day, please take a moment to remember the people who have been heros in your life.

When were you a hero to someone? It doesn't have to have involved a rescue as enormous as the gift of life this firefighter gave. Sometimes being a hero takes courage, sometimes a hero is someone who cares and helps a person find the courage or direction within themselves to change their life.

Thank you to all the everyday heros.