October 27, 2001

NYC firefighter remembered

Hagerstown

By ANDREW SCHOTZ
andrews@herald-mail.com
Lee Cherry popped a tape in the videocassette recorder. For about 30 minutes, his younger brother Vernon was alive again.

He was in a tuxedo, crooning "As Times Goes By" with a velvety voice. He was tapping out a rhythm on conga drums with his band, which performed at weddings and other functions.

As Lee Cherry talked about his brother - a New York City firefighter killed when the World Trade Center was attacked last month - the videotape ran, and Vernon Cherry sang.

It's been more than six weeks since terrorists crashed two jets into the World Trade Center. Vernon Cherry's body has not been found, but he's presumed dead.

A memorial service was held Oct. 19 in Queens, N.Y.

In place of a casket, the firetruck in the procession carried a bed of colorful flowers in the shape of an American flag. A helmet sat on top.

About 400 firefighters came to pay their respects, Lee Cherry said.

"They showed how much they loved my brother."

Joanne Cherry didn't go to her husband's funeral. She still held out hope that he would come home alive, Lee Cherry said.

The Oct. 5 front page of the New York Daily News showed a riveting photo of the World Trade Centers' twin towers in flames. At the bottom of the frame was Vernon Cherry's firetruck, from Ladder Co. 118 in Brooklyn, N.Y., rushing across the Brooklyn Bridge to get to the fire.

Vernon Cherry, who would have turned 50 on Oct. 10, was last seen on the 25th floor of one of the towers. He and the other five firefighters aboard the truck were killed.

Lee Cherry, 58, the oldest of five boys and one girl, had previously urged Vernon to move out of New York City.

As a Seventh-day Adventist, Cherry believes major cities will experience cataclysmic disasters before the Second Coming of Christ. The Sept. 11 terrorist attack may have been one such calamity, he said.

"I think God is pulling his protection back ... but God will protect the ones who believed in his commandments," said Cherry, wearing an FDNY baseball cap.

Asked if this means his brother was not a believer, Cherry said, "God knows people's hearts. Maybe they're better off dead. Maybe the firemen will be in heaven because they gave their lives.

"If the living are faithful, maybe they'll meet again."

Vernon Cherry, who was also a longtime court reporter, had considered moving south, possibly near his daughter in Springfeld, Va. But after 28 years with the Fire Department of New York, the last 18 with Ladder Co. 118, he hadn't committed to retiring.

He loved music and was usually whistling or singing.

His rendition of Bryan McKnight's "One Last Cry" was cheered at the Apollo Theater in the Bronx, N.Y., Lee Cherry said.

Besides his voice, Vernon Cherry was known at his fire station for his cooking. His colleagues called him "Mo," short for "Lasagmo," a whimsical nickname he earned for his lasagne.

Lee Cherry asked for the recipe when he visited the firehouse days after the terrorist attacks. All they could say was that it had plenty of mushrooms.

Lee Cherry described his brother as confident rather than fearless.

He wasn't sure why his brother wanted to be a firefighter. In the Cherry family, though, civil service was common. One brother became a sanitation worker and another a postal worker. Another worked for a telephone company.

In this way, Lee Cherry, an art director and graphic artist, didn't fit in, he said.

While working as a graphic artist in Manhattan, he said, he worked on Volkswagen advertising campaigns, coming up with the slogans "What you don't see is what you get" and "Different Volks for different folks," among others.

Lee Cherry and his family moved to Hagerstown in 1984. He worked two years for the Review and Herald Publishing Association, then switched to a position with the Michie legal publishing company. He now does freelance jobs.

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