The FDNY’s Post-9/11 Dead

During the annual 9/11 firefighter memorial service at the Firemen’s Monument in Riverside Park, FDNY Chaplain Stephen Harding made a point of paying tribute to the 181 members of the department who he said had died after the rescue efforts at the World Trade Center from illnesses related to their work in the recovery efforts at the site.

In connecting their sacrifice to that of the 343 members of the Fire Department who died on Sept. 11, 2001, he was indirectly, and perhaps unintentionally, highlighting a continuing discrepancy in treatment when it comes to the memorial wall at the FDNY’s downtown Brooklyn headquarters. Those who perished due to the cumulative toll of toxins breathed in over what was sometimes months of laboring at the Trade Center site looking for remains—and in some cases are still dying from that long-ago work—are remembered on a separate wall from the 343, and others over the decades who perished immediately or soon after suffering grievous injuries.