Actions Not Words

Deputy Chief Ray Downey was chief of the FDNY's Special Operations Command. He pioneered techniques for urban rescue and for responding to terrorist attacks.  He was so respected and so beloved for what he did that those who served under him called him "God".  

FDNY Deputy Chief Ray Downey

Ray Downey joined the FDNY in 1962, after having served this country as a United States Marine. If Hollywood had created a firefighter character whose on-screen exploits approximated 25-50% of what Ray Downey did during his 39-year career at the FDNY, critics would likely have dismissed the character as unrealistic.  They would have been wrong.  

You might remember having heard his name for the first time several years before the September 11, 2001 attacks, either because of his role in leading the FDNY's response to the 1993 World Trade Center attack or, perhaps, because of his role in leading the FDNY's response to the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.   

On September 11, 2001, the FDNY Special Operations Command lost ninety-five men, including Ray Downey.  His body was finally recovered from the wreckage at Ground Zero shortly before the recovery operation at Ground Zero was suspended. Two of his sons, Joe and Chuck, served with their dad in the FDNY.  Joe Downey is now a Battalion Chief in the Special Operations Command.  Chuck Downey is now an FDNY Deputy Chief.  

Ray Downey died eight days before his sixty-fourth birthday. He was survived by his wife, Rosalie, his three sons, Ray, Jr., Joe, and Chuck, his two daughters, Marie Tortorici and Kathy Ugalde, and seven grandchildren. Earlier this summer, Rosalie Downey celebrated her eighty-first birthday.  

 Celluloid heroes never really die...

...sadly, of course, flesh-and-blood heroes do.  

We are all better for the fact that they lived.   

-AK