Ordinary Heroes

by Joseph Pfeifer

Toward the end of the concert, Firefighter Mike Moran spoke to the audience, explaining that his brother, Battalion Chief John Moran, was killed on 9/11. John and I had been firefighters together. Mike ended his remarks by saying, “In the spirit of the Irish people, Osama bin Laden, you can kiss my royal Irish ass!” The audience erupted in loud applause.

  A year later, the mood was more somber. It was a rainy fall day, as if the heavens were crying with us. We packed 19,000 people into Madison Square Garden, with tens of thousands of firefighters from departments around the world lining New York’s streets. Millions of people watched on TV.

  For several hours, we listened to music, heard messages of hope from religious leaders of every faith. The names of our fallen brothers were read as their photos flashed on big screens. Each of their families received a polished wooden case with four medals, including the FDNY Medal of Valor, presented by white-gloved firefighters.

  We received condolences from political leaders. Mayor Bloomberg spoke, followed by former Mayor Giuliani. As Giuliani concluded his remarks, he said, “Let’s give all our heroes a round of applause.”

  The arena erupted in a standing ovation that got louder and louder, lasting for over ten minutes. This was not merely a way to honor those who had sacrificed their lives; it was a catharsis of emotion for everyone in the arena. The applause continued in the street. We released that pain as we remembered our fallen heroes.

  19

  IGNITING CHANGE

  If I am going to order firefighters into danger, they must be well equipped and prepared. I vividly remember an experience commanding at a third-alarm fire in the Bronx when a firefighter with maybe seven years on the job ran up to me.

  “Hey, Chief, I’d like to talk to you,” he said.

  “Of course,” I said.

  He looked me in the eye and said, “Chief, I want to let you know that I will follow you down any hallway.” Those words meant a lot to me, and I thanked him. The hallway at a fire is one of the most dangerous places to be. It acts as a chimney, with smoke and heat concentrated in a narrow area—indeed, a hazardous location to get through. For a firefighter to have the confidence to follow me into danger is the highest possible compliment any fire chief can receive. It is also a tremendous responsibility. It could mean the difference between life and death.

  I felt that burden in September 2002 when, as a newly minted two-star chief, I began tackling my job implementing the radical changes facing the FDNY. We had to imagine better ways of managing large-scale events and getting agencies to work with each other while under extreme stress.

  Frank Cruthers had replaced Dan Nigro as the chief of department. Cassano continued as chief of operations, with Hayden as the assistant chief of operations. We held several meetings with deputy commissioners and senior staff. People were anxious to cooperate but had no idea how to begin. Nor did I. But I started knocking on doors, having quiet conversations with my colleagues about what they saw as potential challenges and changes in their command.

  Though some chiefs remained tentative, the chief of special operations, Michael Weinlein, seized the opportunity. The division had lost experienced members of the Rescue, Squad, and Hazmat units, and they had to rebuild at the same time they were responding to biohazard threats.

  My own tasks—developing counterterrorism response plans, designing the Fire Department Operations Center, pushing for an urban Incident Management Team, finding new technologies for managing large fires, and writing the strategic plan—seemed immense. Not to mention responding to third alarms or greater when I had the Citywide Command. Then I got an unexpected visit from Firefighter Ray Pfeifer, whom I first met years ago when I was a covering captain for nine months in Engine 40.

  His firehouse was one of the hardest hit. They had lost twelve men. I’d worked with most of these guys in Ray’s firehouse, which was right next to Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. There was no need to go to Lincoln Center for a show; there were plenty of characters in the firehouse, and Ray was on center stage.

  After 9/11, Ray had worked down at Ground Zero nearly every day to recover the firefighters from his Engine 40 and Ladder 35 who were killed. Not only did Ray dig on the Pile, but he also took care of the families with young children. He was always upbeat, but I could tell something was bothering him.

  “I love my firehouse, but there’s too much grief,” Ray said. “I need a change. Can I be your aide?”

  I was delighted. I needed an aide, and Ray had excellent people skills. He became my driver, full-time aide, and confidant. Ray was always thinking of how he could make the job better. He could work a room, knew who to talk to and how to get things done, and always had his ear to the ground. When possible, he solved problems before they got to me. Ray was like the character Radar O’Reilly in the sitcom M*A*S*H; he knew what I thought before I told him.

  We started throwing around leadership ideas when multiple agencies were involved and came up with some core principles of “connecting, collaborating, and coordinating.” But we saw daily reminders of how people in various agencies, including the FDNY, tended to turn to their own group when under stress. It’s human nature. I told Ray, “We’ll have to work on breaking down these barriers one at a time.”

  The NYPD was creating a Counterterrorism Bureau with hundreds of officers. They attracted retired generals and other experienced people with impressive résumés to work for them. They expanded their presence at the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) and had a powerful voice in the mayor’s office.

  Scoppetta placed two of our fire marshals for the first time on the JTTF. But the FDNY’s preparedness team had no big names or staff; it was just me. My knowledge of 9/11 and my work on the McKinsey Report gave me a unique perspective on preparedness. But, having worked in firehouses for most of my career, I was clueless when it came to headquarters and government politics.

  Then Scoppetta brought in a young attorney, Kate Frucher. She had emerged from the subway into the chaos of lower Manhattan in the middle of the attacks and thus had a personal connection to events of that day. When Kate first told me that she was there at the moment the second plane hit the South Tower, I realized this was more than just a job for her.

  While excited to join the FDNY, Kate admitted that she was no counterterrorism expert. But she knew how to get things done in government, having worked in the Clinton White House to help create the AmeriCorps national service program and previous government reform efforts in New York City. She had okay credentials, a bachelor’s from Harvard and a law degree from Stanford.

  At the time, the real threat from al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups had not disappeared. Believing that another horrific event could happen at any moment, we were propelled by a sense of urgency through many endless hours of work and sleepless nights as we tried to set the FDNY on a stronger foundation. We were concerned about biological and chemical attacks, radiological dirty bombs, and attempts to use improvised explosive devices.

  One day, Kate announced that she had put together a Terrorism Preparedness Task Force to advise the FDNY on the types of threats that had historically been beyond our core expertise.

  In headquarters, some were wary about Kate’s crazy plan, before we learned that she had recruited an impressive international team. It included former CIA Director James Woolsey; former Director-General of Israel’s Mossad Shabtai Shavit, to advise on counterterrorism; Commissioner of Israel’s Fire and Rescue Authority Shimon Romach; the Nobel laureate in medicine Joshua Lederberg; onetime NYC Health Commissioner and FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, to advise on biological threats; and Greg Canavan, a division head at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, to advise on radiological and nuclear events.

  As chief of planning, I found it an enlightening experience to have people of such national and international stature counsel us on the types of threats we now faced and on how we should think about planning for multi
ple kinds of terrorist attacks. It opened my eyes to a whole new world of terrorism and response to mass casualty incidents.

  Dealing with weapons of mass destruction was a reality none of us wanted to hear. But after digesting their high-level input, I realized that it was not a matter of if we would be attacked again, but when. The critical next step was to imagine some of these ideas in a real-world context and prepare the department to respond.

  Enter another 9/11 survivor to develop a preparedness plan for biological terrorism and pandemics: Dr. Kerry Kelly, chief medical doctor for FDNY’s Bureau of Health Services.

  Dr. Kelly had treated the first firefighter who died on 9/11, Danny Suhr of Engine 216, as well as dozens of other firefighters and civilians. She nearly lost her own life in the collapse. Though she was not a firefighter, Kerry’s actions on that day were nothing less than heroic. Her devotion continued with her concern for firefighters’ health and the work we would do together for preparedness.

  At the time, we were concerned about an aerosolized anthrax attack, a planted smallpox outbreak, and SARS pandemics. We checked on local stockpiles of personal protective equipment (PPE) and appropriate medication.

  It was critical to making sure firefighters, police, and health care workers would be in a position to respond to any such event. I traveled to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta to discuss prioritization for vaccines. CDC staff agreed that first responders would be included with health care workers in the second priority level for vaccinations, medication, and PPE, after the military.

  Dr. Kelly, Kate, and I had to figure out a way to distribute medication or a vaccine to on-duty FDNY members without interrupting our response to fires and emergencies.

  The result was FDNY’s Bio-POD plan, which identified point of distribution (i.e., POD) sites throughout the city that would be staffed by FDNY medical teams. Firefighters and EMS would be called to these locations to receive medication or a vaccine. Starting in 2003, we conducted annual full-scale Bio-POD exercises throughout the city with all on-duty members of the FDNY. To make it more than a simulation, we offered every on-duty member the flu vaccine. This meant we needed a medical staff, vaccine, needles, PPE, computer records, and an incident management team. The FDNY would later use the Bio-POD model during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure first responders’ health, so that they could serve the public.

  One of the hardest parts of our job, post-9/11, was to imagine what the future would bring. The FDNY was the world’s best at what it has always done: putting out fires. Many in the top ranks thought we should focus on that.

  “I promise you that there will be tons of first alarms, second alarms, third alarms, even complicated four- and five-alarm incidents in the next few years,” one irate chief said to us at a staff meeting. “But there’s only been one 9/11 in all of our history. And you’re telling me we’re going to change everything because of it?”

  There was merit to his viewpoint. Many longed for the days of routine fires and emergencies, using skills, instincts, and knowledge we’d already possessed, rather than accepting the vulnerability of facing something new. But we needed to better understand the threat environment firefighters were now operating in. The Terrorism Preparedness Task Force did that at a strategic level for a few of us. But we had to make that available to firehouses.

  From 2001 to 2003, there were multiple anthrax letters, the failed shoe bomber attempt to blow up a plane from Paris to Miami, shootings at LAX Airport in Los Angeles, the Beltway Sniper, a dirty bomb attempt in Chicago, plots to sabotage the Brooklyn Bridge, and dozens of terrorist attacks throughout the world—not to mention NYC’s experience with the massive blackout of the Northeast. This weighed on firefighters, and I had to get FDNY’s chiefs and company officers to understand the threat environment we faced. They had to comprehend that terrorism was more than what they saw on the news. It is a strategy that uses tactics, like suicide terrorists, to advance a political agenda. For the FDNY to increase preparedness, we had to educate our people about the expanding role of first responders.

  Through contacts, Kate found a young U.S. Army major in the social science department at West Point, Reid Sawyer, who was in the early stage of helping to create the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at the military academy.

  There were striking parallels between the post-9/11 Army and what we were grappling with at the FDNY. There was tension between those who were experts on fighting the last war and the next generation of new leaders who were sure the future would be different. Both organizations craved the skills, expertise, and perspective that understood the threat and challenges ahead.

  But things could have easily ground to a halt right there. Not long after Kate started talking to the team at West Point, she was called on the carpet by Scoppetta. Someone thought she was out of line representing the department on her own to the Army and had complained to him.

  Frustrated and feeling very misunderstood, Kate came to my office. She and I brainstormed. We needed to give the commissioner more context and decided that bringing me into the West Point relationship would ease some of the concerns. It worked, and on our first trip to West Point, I saw the potential she’d been describing.

  We decided to bring the senior leadership from the FDNY to see the possibilities for themselves and cement a relationship with senior leaders at West Point. But asking them to take a day away from the office was a big ask and a gamble.

  On a perfect fall day, after being greeted by West Point’s superintendent, our group was ushered to the mess hall where all 4,000 cadets eat simultaneously in a matter of minutes, a real logistics phenomenon.

  Major Reid Sawyer took us to a balcony called the “Poop Deck” overlooking the mess hall, used to introduce generals and heads of state to the cadets. They called the cadets to attention, and all was quiet. They then introduced the FDNY chief officers from 9/11. In the tradition of West Point, the cadets started to bang their plates in a standing ovation that echoed across the campus and would not stop.

  “It’s rare for even presidents and generals to get such a reception,” Reid said. “The cadets recognize your sacrifices on that day.” We were all stunned and moved.

  It was a pivotal time for these cadets; they knew that they would be going off to war when they graduated, some to fight al-Qaeda, maybe to hunt down bin Laden. The cadets and firefighters share a common willingness to run into danger. It was an enormous privilege to be honored by them.

  After that incredible morning and briefings later that day, we had a mandate to move forward.

  It’s easy for “partnerships” between institutions to stay high level, to sound great in press releases but not amount to much. We wanted the partnership between West Point’s CTC to impact firefighters. Over pizza late one night at Brooklyn headquarters, where Reid, Kate, and I were pushing ourselves to define what that could look like in practice, Reid jumped out of his seat.

  “Wait, this is obvious. We’re an academic institution that trains leaders to understand threats. Why don’t we just train your up-and-coming leaders the same way? And you can train cadets on state and local preparedness and crisis leadership!”

  From that conversation, the Counterterrorism Leadership Program was born. This forty-hour executive education program, taught by West Point professors and other experts, combined the latest understanding of the strategic motivation and tactical methods of terrorists.

  To teach about leadership and the Middle East, we brought in General John Abizaid, who was in charge of Central Command (the U.S. military commander of the Middle East and later the ambassador to Saudi Arabia). After briefing FDNY senior leadership, we drove the general to the fire academy to teach his class. We heard a second alarm transmitted for a fire in Harlem, not far away.

  Immediately, my aide, Ray, asked the general if he wanted to take in the fire. He said yes, and Ray flipped on the red flashing lights. General
Abizaid watched the firefighters quickly extinguish the fire, and then he talked to each of them. We got back to the fire academy and told the class that Ray had kidnapped a four-star general.

  This course was the first of its kind in the nation designed exclusively for first responders. Over fifteen years, Reid and I taught the Counterterrorism Leadership course to more than 450 FDNY fire and EMS officers, many of whom went on to hold senior leadership positions in the FDNY.

  Many of our members said this was the best course they had ever taken. “It changed my life,” said one battalion chief. “I was ready to retire, and the course gave me a new purpose to work even harder in the FDNY.”

  The course dramatically influenced the design of our new $28 million fireboats. By understanding the threat environment, and the possibility of a chlorine attack, we constructed our fireboats to have a pressurized military specs cabin. This meant the fireboat could disperse a drifting vapor cloud with its large-caliber water streams without it killing everyone on board. We also made sure that the water stream of the fireboat could reach the top of the tallest bridge in New York Harbor in case there was a terrorist attack to destroy the bridge with fire. The combination of knowledge and leadership skills was used to protect our Marine Company firefighters and the public.

  The CTC invited us to attend an all-day conference for senior leaders, including the FBI. The focus was on understanding the evolving threat environment. Both Major Sawyer and Colonel Russell Howard, founding director of CTC, knew that I needed a security clearance to receive material that would give me, and thus the department, a full and accurate picture. But since I was not law enforcement, there was hesitation. That day, Tim Herlocker, FBI assistant special agent in charge of Intel in the New York Field Office, was present and gave a talk on current threats.

  In the Q&A session, Colonel Howard put Agent Herlocker on the spot. “Tim, since FDNY suffered so much on 9/11 and needs to prepare for the next event, would you be willing to sponsor Chief Pfeifer for a security clearance?”