Wearing the Cross of Their Calling

 Good days.  Bad days. 

Up days.  Down days. 

Sad days.  Happy days. 

But never a boring day on this job.

You do what God has called you to do.  

You show up.

You put one foot in front of another. 

You get on the rig and

You go out and you do the job -

Which is a mystery. And a surprise.

You have no idea when you get on that rig. 

No matter how big the call. No matter how small.

You have no idea what God is calling you to do.

But he needs you.  He needs me.

He needs all of us.

Father Mychal F. Judge, FDNY Chaplain

September 10, 2001

(Mass at Engine 73/Ladder 10)

One day later, Father Judge died at the World Trade Center with 342 other members of the FDNY. 

The FDNY has always been a generational organization.  It is an organization into which children have followed their parents.  The tragedy of September 11, 2001 did not change that fact.  As of this time last year, on the 20th anniversary, there were sixty-five active duty members of the FDNY who lost a first-responder father either in the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 or due to the toxic smoke and debris at Ground Zero in the months that followed.  Sixty-five. 

Each of them is an extraordinary story.  Perhaps none more so than the Asaros (Matt, Carl, Rebecca, and Marc) whose father Carl Asaro, Sr. was one of the fifteen members of Midtown's Engine 54/Ladder 4/Battalion 9 who responded to the World Trade Center that morning.  All fifteen of them were killed.  

This morning, a couple of hundred runners will toe the line at the Fallen Heroes 5K in Lake Como, New Jersey, including Yours truly.  We run to honor those who were killed that morning.  We run to honor their families.  

They deserve nothing less.  

-AK