At
Ground Zero, a Call for Heros
September 14, 2001
When
Jimmy Boyle, retired city firefighter, first heard on Tuesday morning
that
a plane had hit the World Trade Center, he knew his son, Michael, a city firefighter,
was supposed to be off-duty.
Michael,
37, loved politics almost as much as the fire department, and he was planning
to go out to Queens from Manhattan to work on a City Council primary campaign.
But
his father also knew that many firefighters look on their occupation as
more
than a job, and he remembered what happened when Michael fought his first fire
six years ago.
He
stayed at his post in the fur vault of a burning department store even
though
the heat got so intense it left burns all around his face mask. "He
came
out exhausted, beaten," said his father, who lives in Westbury. "He
said, 'It was hot, but I couldn't leave, Dad, because I wasn't supposed to.'
I said, 'Mike, you did a great job.'"
Jimmy
Boyle, head of the firefighters' union during the 1980s and '90s, was in Brooklyn
on Tuesday, and what he knew about his son and his son's colleagues made him very
worried. He set off on foot across the Brooklyn Bridge toward the World Trade
Center, hoping not to find Michael.
He
was right to be worried. Michael Boyle was among the 300 New York City firefighters
still missing yesterday. Among them were two other firefighters -- and probably
many others -- who also didn't really have to be there, but wound up inside the
doomed towers because of their sense of duty.
One
of them was David Arce, 36, who grew up in Westbury with Michael Boyle. The two
had been best friends since childhood, served in the same fire company and worked
together on political campaigns. Arce, also off-duty on Tuesday, had planned to
go to Queens with Michael.
Marjorie
Ginobbi, who lives next door to the Arce family and watched the two boys grow
up, wasn't surprised David wound up in a job that involves helping people.
"Anything
I needed help with, he was always there. Cutting the grass,
painting, anything
that needed to be carried -- he was just a wonderful kid."
When
he grew up, she said, "It was like he had been born to be a firefighter.
He loved the work - always smiling." Arce's father, Dr. A.G. Arce, died of
diabetes in February. His mother, Margaret, a geriatric nurse, said her son and
Michael Boyle "were like twin brothers."
"David
grew up playing with fire engines, and the desire to be a firefighter
never
went away," she said. "It's a typical fireman story. It was the love
of his life. There's such a closeness with firefighters, a beautiful thing to
watch, and the families have to accept whatever is dealt."
Perhaps
the best-known firefighter who didn't have to be in the World Trade Center was
Capt. Timothy Stackpole of Brooklyn. He was fighting a fire in a city-owned building
in 1998 when the floor collapsed, dropping him and two firemen 10 feet into a
roaring blaze. The flames burned more than 30 percent of his body.
The
city agreed to pay the three $4.2 million after their lawyers argued that the
city hadn't heeded warnings about the building's structural flaws. Court records
don't specify the individual payments, but it was clear Stackpole could have retired
with a large nest egg and a lucrative disability pension.
Instead,
after two months in a hospital, he spent many painful hours in the gym rebuilding
his body and went back to work as soon as he could pass a physical.
"He
came back when someone else would have retired happily," Msgr. Thomas Brady,
a former fire department chaplain, said. At his church, Good Shepherd Roman Catholic
Church in Marine Park, Brooklyn, Stackpole taught children and counseled couples
about to marry. "He was a very religious man in the best sense," Brady
said.
So
far this week, the monsignor said, he has heard of about eight or 10
missing
firefighters whose fathers were also firefighters. "Every day I hear of more
-- it's in the blood."
As
Jimmy Boyle searched for his son on Tuesday, he reached the World Trade Center
just as one of the towers collapsed, showering the street with debris and temporarily
blinding him with dust. He narrowly escaped injury by groping his way into a doorway.
Finding out nothing at the scene, he went to his son's firehouse nearby and opened
Michael's locker.
He
found what he hoped wouldn't be there -- Michael's car keys and wallet. Later,
he learned that Michael and David had jumped on a fire engine at the last minute
in their civilian clothes. "If they had to die, it was fitting that they
died together," Boyle's father said yesterday.
As
Michael Boyle and his friend rode toward the World Trade Center on
Tuesday,
the burn marks from Michael's first fire six years ago were still
visible
on his face.
--Brian
Donovan (Newsday)
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