On Sept. 11, 2001, Joshua Wiener was in the field with his Marine Corps regiment near California’s Yosemite Valley, where the men were training for wilderness warfare. While Wiener and his fellow Marines did not learn of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon until hours after they occurred, the events of that day would soon shape his life.
Wiener, 32, went on to serve two tours in Iraq as a gunnery sergeant in the infantry. He became a New York City firefighter in 2005. This year, he joined Squad 252 in Bushwick, which on 9/11 responded at 9 a.m. to the fifth alarm at the World Trade Center. Six of its members died there.
“When you go to Marine Corps boot camp, they teach you history,” said Wiener. “The connection between 9/11 and now is how I feel about the Marines in World War I or Korea. If you know where your tradition comes from, you are more likely to defend or honor it.”
As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, Wiener and several other members of Squad 252 have an outlook shaped as much by fighting wars as by fighting fires. For them, and a generation of firefighters like them, the Sept. 11 attacks and the two wars that ensued blend together to inform their experience of that day.
Squad 252 is one of seven companies that make up the Fire Department’s special operations command. Special operations units respond to fires and other emergencies that demand technical proficiency. If someone working on the exterior of a building falls and hangs from his safety line, or the earth collapses on an underground electrical worker, or hazardous chemicals spill, Squad 252 responds if the incident has occurred in Brooklyn’s eastern half. Special operations units also rescue other firefighters, which makes such units a fire department for the fire department. “There’s nothing a squad can’t do,” said Lieutenant John Ceriello, who joined Squad 252 in 2007.
Special operations units suffered significant losses on 9/11. While about two percent of city firefighters that day belonged to special operations companies, 96 of the 343 firefighters who died at the World Trade Center worked in special operations.
At lunch on a recent August afternoon, six members of Squad 252 talked over pizza that they picked up in Queens on their way back from a run. Samson, a 76-pound, black-and-white mixed-breed dog that lives at the firehouse, padded around the kitchen.
Jason Brezler, 32, recalled that he always wanted to be a New York City firefighter. Growing up in Baltimore, one of Brezler’s favorite books was “Fireman Jim,” which depicts a typical shift for a fireman who drove a ladder-rescue truck for Ladder 3 in Manhattan. Brezler keeps a copy of the book in his locker. “Why play for the Orioles, when you can play for the Yankees?” said Brezler, a third generation firefighter.
Brezler graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 2000 and began active duty in the Marines Corp. On 9/11, he was training with his fellow Marines in North Carolina when they learned of the attacks. “We’re like the class of 1940, which spent most of its service in World War II,” said Brezler.
In the fall of 2001, Brezler and his platoon were sent to the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they built cells that would house prisoners suspected of being members of Al Qaeda. Brezler later led Marine combat troops in Fallujah, Iraq and Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, and ascended to the rank of major.
For Brezler, the tenth anniversary of 9/11 reminds him of more than just the lives lost at Ground Zero. One of his best friends, a former journalist and U.S. Senate staffer who joined the Marine Corps in 2003 at age 34, was killed by enemy fire in Afghanistan two years ago last month. “Firefighters talk about how many they lost that day,” said Brezler. “I think about how many I’ve lost since 9/11.”
To Brezler, firefighting and war fighting correlate closely. He has created a leadership training program for firefighters that teaches tactical discipline, operational decision-making, and other combat concepts for use in a firefighting setting. “The bottom line is that there are a lot of similarities,” said Brezler. “They include fluidity, chaos and pervasive uncertainty.”
The similarities also include looking out for the guy next to you. “You don’t even have to like the guy or be best friends,” said Brezler. “You may not be invited to his wedding, or be his child’s godparent, but you trust in his level of proficiency and willingness to put his life on the line for you.”
Wiener wanted to join Squad 252 since attending the fire academy, where he first saw the squad’s emblem, which features a bald eagle against an azure background. In its beak, the eagle holds a banner that reads “In squad we trust.”
The motto resonates with Wiener. “Some people want to join the Marine Corps or the Fire Department for grandiose ideas like serving your country, honor, courage and commitment,” said Wiener. “Then when it comes down to it, those things go out the window and you end up fighting for survival, pretty much for the people around you.”
Squad 252 began as Engine 52 of the Brooklyn Fire Department in 1897. It joined the New York City Fire Department a year later, when the borough became part of the city. Since its inception, the company has operated continuously from a landmarked Flemish Revival style building that has a facade of brick and red sandstone.
On an inside wall near the firehouse door, a blackboard lists the firefighters on duty for the 6 p.m.-to-9 a.m. tour that began on Sept. 10, 2001 and ended in disaster the next morning. Lieutenant Timothy Higgins was the officer on duty. Below his name are the names of firefighters Pete Langone, Pat Lyons, Tarel Coleman, Kevin Prior and Tom Kuveikis.
Coleman had recruited Sean Goodridge, 43, to join Squad 252. They met as teammates on the Fire Department football team. Coleman played cornerback. Goodridge played running back. Lyons played quarterback.
Goodridge was born in Trinidad and raised in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, where he now lives with his wife and their four children. After high school he enlisted in the U.S. Army, and later served as a tank commander in the first Gulf War. He joined the Fire Department in 1995.
On 9/11, Goodridge was in the second week of a two-week vacation when a friend called his cell phone and told him about the attacks. Goodridge ran into a laundromat, where he watched on television as the second plane hit the towers. He rushed home, and then to Engine 234 in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, where he worked at the time.
Goodridge and the other members of his company grabbed their gear and boarded a city bus, which took them to the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge. There they massed with firefighters from other companies as they watched pedestrians stream across the bridge out of Lower Manhattan. “It was hard to describe the look on their faces,” Goodridge recalled. “It’s like being in a dream and you don’t believe you’re dreaming.”
Eventually, Goodridge and his company crossed the Manhattan Bridge and made their way to the World Trade Center site. There they spent most of the day putting out fire at the Deutsche Bank building, which later was dismantled completely.
The 105th Infantry Army National Guard unit in which Goodridge still serves labored at Ground Zero as well. Goodridge later learned that his fellow reservists were looking for him amid the wreckage. “It was reassuring to know they were thinking about me,” recalled Goodridge.
In 2003, Goodridge deployed to Iraq, where for nearly two years he served as a staff sergeant assigned to the city of Balad, about 50 miles north of Baghdad. There Goodridge, who had switched from tank fighting to infantry, led a squad of eight soldiers on door-to-door raids. “It had its moments,” recalled Goodridge, who lost one soldier under his command to enemy fire.
Goodridge also sees parallels in the camaraderie that both firefighters and combat troops develop. “You don’t want to let down the guy next to you,” said Goodridge. “You both want to go home.”
Last year, Goodridge spent several weeks in Thailand, where he and other U.S. soldiers taught their Thai counterparts how to operate in areas infested with improvised explosive devices. “A lot of my friends say I’m an adrenaline junkie,” said Goodridge, who commutes to work on a Honda sport motorcycle.
Goodridge says that if Coleman were alive, Goodridge would like him to know how good he feels to be part of Squad 252. “It’s an honor to be part of this company because of the sacrifice he made,” said Goodridge. “That pretty much goes with all these guys.”
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