458 9/11 Hero Tim Brown

0:00Thanks for pressing play. This is Christopher Lochhead, Follow You Different, and I'm your host. And this is one of the most extraordinary podcasts I've ever been a part of. I've been podcasting for almost 10 years. And this is a very special episode. You see, September 11th, 2026th is the 25th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks in the United States. Approximately one-third of people in America today were either not born or too young to remember 9-11. And sadly, too many don't really remember 9-11. So today, one of the most extraordinary conversations I've ever had the privilege of having, our guest today is the legendary Tim Brown.

0:53And Tim is a career-long firefighter. and he was serving that day in the mayor's office of emergency response in the Twin Towers. He's got a new book out. It's called The Greatest Love, Lessons for Living with Extraordinary Courage, Even After the Worst Day of Your Life. And what you're about to hear is exactly what happened that day from Tim's perspective, the heroes that he worked with and sadly lost that day and everything that he has done since then to take care of first responders, their families, and ultimately New York and our country. In my opinion, Tim Brown is a legendary American hero.

1:43And he's come on this podcast and written this book to share the stories of who he believes are the real heroes of that day. Again, his book is called The Greatest Love. I encourage you to listen to this entire episode. It's incredibly inspiring. Some of it's difficult, but it's something we need to hear. And at the end of this conversation, I promise you, you will be left in a legendary place because Tim is, in spite of everything he's been through. An incredibly inspiring man. And that's why he wanted to title his book, The Greatest Love. And so now, to quote one of New York's greatest bands of all time, the Ramones, hey-ho, let's go.

2:46Well, Tim, it sure is great to see you. How are you, brother? I'm good. How are you, brother? I'm great. I'm very excited to have this conversation with you. It's great to see your face. It's great to be able to look in your eyes. I tend to be an emotional guy, particularly around topics like what we're going to talk about today. And let me just say off the top, thank you so much. Thank you for who you are. Thank you for my life. I'm not stupid. I know because of you, I get to live. As we were just talking before I hit start here, I have two friends who are retired fire chiefs. I love our fire leaders and our fire service.

3:23Thank you. I also know you lost friends on 9-11, didn't you? Many. And while I don't know that experience, one of my closest friends was murdered in a 3 a.m. home invasion. So I do know that pain. Anyway, I just want you to know I'm very sorry for your horrible losses. Yeah. God bless them all. God bless them all. Yeah. Now I have some ideas for how we could start Tim, but really I want to know, is there anywhere in particular you'd like to start this conversation? I'd just like to make a statement of truth. Okay. And, and I look, I was on national news programs an awful lot back in 2010 around, around that year.

4:08And I got a lot of, criticism. And I was called a lot of names. And I was called an Islamophobe, a hater, a racist, all of those things, un-American. And I then and now was and is now never anything in my heart. So I had to learn to choose my words very carefully and make sure that every word that I speak about is factually true. So the statement is, and this is factually true, true, on September 11, 2001, 2 ,977 innocent human beings were intentionally murdered by radical Al-Qaeda terrorists, period. The other word we use for that is Islamist, right? So that would be part of that statement too.

5:20Every word I said there, Chris, is factually correct. What I did not say in that statement is 2 ,977 Americans. And a lot of people make that mistake because that would not be accurate. It was 2 ,977 innocent human beings who were intentionally murdered by Islamists. And those human beings that were murdered, those innocent human beings that were intentionally murdered, were of all colors, all faiths, all beliefs. They were intentionally murdered no matter who they were. and they were murdered intentionally by very, very evil people. I have sat in the courtroom in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where we hold some of the terrorists that planned September 11th, and I have witnessed them say, I did it, I'm proud I did it, and if you let me out of here, I'll do it again.

6:36And that is the truth of their ideology. And it's very, very dangerous for the world. Thank you for that. And I know we're just getting to know each other. I really appreciate your statement, Tim. I also want you to know I'm a Christian. And. As am I. I have many, many Jewish and Muslim friends. Same. As you know, I spent 40 years as an entrepreneur in a tech ecosystem. In the last two or three years, I personally invested in my own money into two Muslim founders of companies here in the United States. And so my point of view is this is not necessarily religious. This is evil. You said it. Yes, sir.

7:30And we both know, I mentioned to you that before we started, one of my best friends was murdered. My best friend was, one of my best friends, Tushar, was murdered by four young men who were Baptist Christians from the Lancaster Baptist Church. Two of them are brothers, one's a brother-in-law, and their father is a Baptist missionary minister connected to the Lancaster Baptist Church in Lancaster, California. I personally do not distinguish between radical Christian evil. My friend Tushar, in his words, was a brown guy, Indian. And this was a racial killing. We know it because one of the murderers took the stand and he told us.

8:19So, just to be clear, right? I don't care where the radical, murderous, rapist evil is. and if they wear the cross that I wear and they are evil, then I'm going to stand against that evil, period. Yes, sir. And when I meet legendary Muslim entrepreneurs who are great younger people wanting to build incredible businesses, that inspires me. And so is there part of extreme Muslim beliefs that are horrifying to me and I think to what I would broadly call Judeo-Christian values? Absolutely. And me, like you, I'm trying to be very careful not to paint a too broad of a brush because I stand against Christian evil.

9:07I stand against atheist evil. I don't care where it's coming from. yes sir and and like on the opposite side of that because i don't want to just talk this we have to speak about it we have to speak the truth which we just did but i want to talk about the other side of it and and it is what i named my book the greatest love right because this is the This is the beautiful side of humanity. And again, take religion out of it. The greatest love is what every New York City firefighter, police officer, Port Authority police officer did that day on September 11th as the last act of their lives. individually, every one of them chose to perform an act of the greatest love at the end of their life.

10:06And that is that they were willing and actually did give their lives for people they didn't know. And that's why I wanted the name of my book to reflect their actions and to tell the truth about what those 343 firefighter 72 law enforcement emt paramedics and some others former military who just happened to be in the buildings i wanted the title of the book the name of the book to reflect every one of them and i i did before I found the publisher that I went with, some of the other publishers kind of looked at me sideways and said, what does that name have to do with 9-11 and you and firefighting?

11:02And I was like, well, if you don't get it, you don't get it, you know? And I moved on, but I wound up finding a very, very, very good publisher. Her name is Katie and, and she immediately got it. And I knew I wanted to work with her and it turned into quite a testament to the real heroes of 9-11 and that's those firefighters and police officers. Thank you for that, Tim. So if you don't mind, and again, I don't want to go anywhere. You don't want to go. I don't know if you saw it. I was getting Misty while you're speaking. These things that happen in the world have always affected me. I remember 9-11 myself like it was yesterday.

11:49I remember the pain of it in the moments, and of course I wasn't there. And I remember what it was like the few days after and a few weeks after, very, very clearly. I also, as somebody who loves New York, I've done tremendous business in New York. There was a point in my life where I was in New York every two to six weeks on business for many years. I've been to meetings at Cantor Fitzgerald and many other, Aon and many other companies that were in those towers. I've been to special events in those towers. And so my personal pain is extraordinary. I can't imagine what yours is. all that said if it's okay if it's not that's fine i understand can you take me back to that morning tim yeah of course i was a new york city fireman um for 15 years when in 1998 i took a job to go work for mayor giuliani you guys might have might have heard of him and and he had become a friend of mine over the years, and he had created a new office under his authority called the Mayor's Office of Emergency Management.

13:06And so I took my fire helmet off and I put on a tie and I went to work Monday through Friday at Seven World Trade Center in an office building, which became my new work. And from 98 to 01 in those years, I got promoted to be a supervisor in that group. And I would supervise field operations. And what that meant basically was that I had a group of about 15 first responders who would be available 24-7. And if something happened, they would jump in their kind of undercover car and go to the scene of big emergencies and things like that. And basically I was the admin guy. I was the guy that did the scheduling and all that for them.

13:57And so that's what I was doing on the morning of September 11th. And I went into work. I went to the third floor of Seven World Trade where the cafeteria was. And I got my Cheerios and my orange juice and my hot tea. and I sat down and I say this with a smirk on my face, but I sat down and read newspapers, right? Because a lot of the younger generation really doesn't use them anymore. But back then, that's all we had to get the news, right? And so I was just going through the newspapers and the power went out in the building I was in, the Seven World Trade Center. And for a modern high-rise building in New York City to have a power outage like that all at once is concerning.

14:52But I didn't hear or see anything. And in five seconds or so, the power came back on and I knew we were on our emergency backup generators. And in that five seconds, the people who were facing the glass that was facing the North Tower, jumped up and started running by me to the exit. And they were screaming. And I grabbed one young lady by the shoulders, and I stopped her, and I looked in her eyes because I had to kind of shake her back to reality. And at this point, Tim, you have no idea what's happening? Is that right? No, no idea. All you know is the fear that you've seen and the power outage and then the power coming back.

15:40That's right. And when I got her to look at me in the eye, I was like, what happened? And she said, a plane hit the tower. And so that was the first that I knew of it. And, you know, it's what we call the big one. It's what we practice and train and drill for. And it's a big deal. but we had had this before you know we'd had helicopters and planes hit buildings high-rise buildings in new york city before so it wasn't completely unheard of but you know it was concerning for sure now you know i had no idea did you think terrorist at the time or no you thought no no no no i mean when my radio my my alarm had just gone off and the radio came on It was playing, I actually remember it was playing a John Mellencamp song.

16:32And the DJ broke in and announced that a plane had hit. And I said to my wife, oh, that's crazy. And I immediately felt like a small biplane, you know, a small pilot screwed up. Yeah. And then I turned CNN on. Yeah. And so there you are in that moment. A plane's hit. Then what do you do? Well, a few things happen. we don't have time for the whole story or I don't have a time for the whole story, but, um, my job as a professional emergency manager was to go to the command post and the command post was in the South, in the North tower lobby. Right. Um, and, and we had had disasters in the world trade center before.

17:18So it was a fairly well known procedure at this point. so I went to my car I put on a helmet I put on a windbreaker that said mayor's office on the front and on the back and my heavy leather boots and that was kind of my uniform it was different from being a firefighter uh because I didn't put on all that gear that firefighters put on um and I but I knew from my training and experience that I wanted to look at three sides of the tower before I went into the tower. And I wanted to get a current size up of that building that was under destruction. And in order to do that, I had to go from the street level to the World Trade Center Plaza level, right?

18:07So I had to go up one, one and a half stories. And I took an exterior concrete staircase up to the plaza of the World Trade Center. This becomes important later in the story because the museum winds up preserving that stairwell and it becomes known as the survivor staircase. But I'm very early in the incident. I'm doing what firefighters and police officers and military do. When there's danger, we run toward it. Right. And very early in the morning, that's what I was doing. I was running toward what became a very, very terrible day. I went into the tower at that level, and now I had seen some of the destruction, and I started to question my original assumption, like you, that it was a small plane.

19:00I mean, how did it look the first time you saw the hole in the tower? How did it look from your vantage point? I couldn't see it. Could you see smoke? What could you see, Tim? Yeah, I could see smoke. Black smoke, white smoke. I could see strewn over the plaza between the towers was strewn with debris. People were not, I didn't see any human beings or body at that point, but I did see a lot of debris that was on fire, black smoke and white smoke and all that. And I kept moving forward. So I went into the tower at that level, and there were hundreds of office workers. So I just want to be clear.

19:45You went into the tower that was hit. Yeah. Yeah, that's where the first command post was. So you made a decision knowing full well that a plane had hit. You had seen the debris, which suggested maybe it was not a small biplane, like I had thought when I heard on the radio. And yet you ran into that tower. Sure. That's what we do. you know. Is there a moment where you think, maybe I shouldn't run into this tower? No. No. So what, and I want to get to the story, of course, but this is something that fascinates me about you, fascinates me about my military friends, my Navy SEAL friends, my Marine friends, my firefighter friends.

20:30Yesterday I had lunch with the sheriff of our county who I'm friends with. What is it about you, Tim, that makes you run into that building knowing you might not run out? For me, it's a pretty easy decision. I had done that my whole life since I was 15 years old. I was a fireman and people needed our help. I mean, I knew people needed help. And we're really good at that. You know, we, we, uh, not only do we train to a very high standard, we have a lot of experience, um, in, as a New York city fireman. And, uh, I knew that people were in trouble. Uh, and that's, that's all that matters to me is that people were in trouble and we were the ones they were counting on to help them.

21:26Okay. So you're in that stairwell, you see what's going on and you go into the building. Yeah. I go in, I go in at that level, the plaza level and the command post is kind of one level. So now I'm inside the building and I have to go back down one level to, to the street level where the command post lobby in the lobby was. So there's an escalator right in front of me. And there were hundreds of office workers who were trying to get into that stairwell to go down, to go down again, underground and escape. That's the way they were being directed by the Port Authority cops. And to get underground, not to get out on underground because they could escape underground.

22:13I see. So if I go under, because at that point I had never been underground at the Trade Center. I always been in meetings in the buildings. You could go down underneath and then get out through the mall? Yeah, exactly right. Through the mall. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. There was a huge mall. Huge shopping mall down there. One and two stores, that's right, under the World Trade Center. And so wisely the Port Authority cops knew that was the safest way for those people to escape. And you guys, of course, are not making this shit up on the day. You have trained for this. It's like, you know, we were at the World Trade Center every day doing some kind of emergency, whether it was a medical emergency or a stuck elevator or, you know, a fire, a small fire or, you know, we were very familiar with the World Trade Center.

23:01I mean, it's 110 stories times two, right? So it's two towers, 110 stories each, each floor an acre big. So it's 110 vertical acres in the North Tower and 110 vertical acres in the South Tower. Each tower was a city by itself. Right. Roughly how many people on a regular workday in both towers? On a regular work day, I think what they said is 125 ,000. That's a bigger city than the one I live in. Yeah. This day was different because it was a primary election day. Was it a Tuesday? Remind me what day it was. Yeah. It was a Tuesday. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I thought. It was the first day of school.

23:54Right. It was right back after Labor Day, right? Yeah. Yeah. So a lot, the towers, we believe the towers were about half full on that morning. And that's one of the places that the terrorists didn't anticipate because they wanted to kill a lot more people than they killed murder. And so anyhow, those people are like a funnel getting onto the escalator. And what I noticed in that moment. And is there panic or is it orderly or sort of describe the scene that you're in at that point? In that moment, I noticed something that struck me in my heart because they were not pushing each other, trampling each other.

24:47In fact, for every person who was obese, pregnant, disabled, injured, there are four or five office workers, not cops or firemen, office workers helping that person. Right. And what I saw was the truth of 99 % of humanity. because if you go outside right now and somebody trips on a crack in the sidewalk, watch how many people, I just saw it yesterday morning here in front of my building, watch how many people try to help that person just as a natural human reaction. And that's what was happening in this crowd in front of me. People were helping each other. So Tim, I, and I don't want to compare my life to yours in any way, But from the day they murdered Tushar, there was four killers.

25:41Yeah. We're the only family in modern California history to suffer four trials for the murder of one person. Wow. It took 2 ,407 days from the day they murdered Tushar to the day the final killer was sentenced to life without parole. So, I know what that feels like. And one of the residual effects... is it can really make you feel like the soul of humanity is not what you're describing. And so, and I want you to take me back to the day, but before you do, when you see hundreds, thousands of people doing this, not trampling each other, but helping older people, disabled people, et cetera, maybe just tell me a little bit about your reflections on that.

26:37And yeah, I mean, it's solidified in my soul that people are good and people want to be helpful. People want to show their love for their fellow human. And, um, I, I look, I look, I've been visited by evil, evil in my life for sure. But by far, most people are good and they want to help if they can. And so in that moment, and of course you couldn't know it at the time, but would it be fair to say, Tim, in that moment, in the moments then that followed, you are uniquely experiencing the extreme of human evil and the extreme of human love at the same time. Is that what you're telling me? Yes. It was a battle we were in, and we didn't know it, but we were in the, right at the center of the battle between good and evil, love and hate.

27:46and every action that every one of those civilians took and firefighters and police officers took, that was the beginning of love overcoming evil on a biblical scale. And it was happening right in that place. And we were a part of it. We didn't even know it. But in the end, we had God on our side, and it is the battle between good and evil. I saw it with my own eyes. I saw the horror and the terror of it, and I saw the beauty and the love of it. And that, again, comes back to the title of the book, right? Because it was the beginning. This word love, Tim. This word love that you're on. Yeah. Yeah.

28:41Yeah. And that's exactly what was happening in front of my eyes, in front of my heart, in front of my ears. And my friends would soon pay with their lives to overcome evil for the world. So let me go a little bit further in the story and it'll explain what I'm saying. I got into that crowd, right, that was getting on the escalator and I was going down the escalator. And as I'm going down the escalator, I begin to see the lobby of the North Tower. Huge, huge lobby. And what I do, I look out over the lobby and I can see hundreds of firefighters in their protective gear with 100 pounds of equipment each on their backs.

29:39And they're wearing the fireman uniform, right, with the yellow stripes, with the yellow reflective stripes. Had you ever seen so many firefighters in an emergency like that before? I mean, to see a sea of them like that? Not like that. What did that tell you about what was going on? Because you still didn't have full knowledge. Well, I knew that it would be a massive response from the fire department. It is up to them to go save those people. And they're awaiting their orders, right? Not one of them is walking the other way out of the lobby. You know, they're all standing there like men, like professionals, like heroes.

30:27And they have the reflective stripes on their gear, the coats we call bunker gear. And I had to laugh because I finally saw that the cops called us bumblebees and I could see it because they all had their yellow reflective stripes and there were hundreds of them. And it looked like a hive of bumblebees. And I laughed. I was like, for once, the cops were right about something, you know?

31:03Once in their entire careers. That's it. Just once in their career. But no, they were right. And I understood what they were saying. And I got to the bottom of the escalator. And at the bottom of the escalator was a bumblebee. And I looked up at his face. and it was my very good friend, firefighter Chris Blackwell, from the Bronx Harlem Heavy Rescue Special Operations Command, kind of the elite of what I call the Bronx Harlem Fire Department. And I had worked with Chris there for seven years. Is this your SEAL Team 6 kind of a thing, your Army Rangers, that kind of? Yeah, I guess you could say that.

31:42We were certainly the best, you know, of the New York City Fire Department. and you know i worked with chris for seven years and in law enforcement you would call him your partner right he so he would be my partner because we were on the same shift we did everything together and chris was just not just an incredible firefighter but he was also a paramedic in his hometown in connecticut so all he did with his whole life was save other people and how old was Chris on 9-11? 30, 40, probably right around 39, 40. Yeah. And I, we always greeted each other the same way, no matter what the disaster was.

32:29So we, we both came to attention. He reached with his hand and he took an unlit stub of a cigar out of his mouth, which he always had. And he put it down at his side. Like he actually had one or he was mimicking that he had one. No, no, he actually had one. So he had an unlit nub of a cigar in his mouth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's part of the character, you know. And, you know, it's a little bit like Popeye or Brutus. Sure, sure. And so he took this stub out of his mouth in a big sweeping motion, and he put it down to the side. And when he put it down to the side, we both bent at the hips. and kissed each other on the lips.

33:16And then we came back to attention.

33:21And he put the cigar back in his mouth. So wait a minute. I just want to be clear. This man who was your partner, who you worked with for many years. Yeah. You're a big, burly firefighter. You're not exactly a little unimposing dude. I'm sure Chris was not exactly a wallflower, right? And you guys bent over and gave each other a kiss on the lips. We did. Every time. We did. Again, that word love, right, Tim? Yeah. Yeah. He was like a real brother to me. I love this man with all my heart. We had done so much together over seven years working together. And we did it because of that love for each other.

34:11But mostly we did it because it freaked out all the firemen and the cops around us and it made them all get freaked out. You know, this is a side note, Tim. One of my closest friends, his name is Flip. And he's a dad to two sons who are now young adults. And he's kissed his boys on the mouth his entire life. And so every time I greet him and every time we leave, Flip just puts one right on my mouth. And he's a very good looking guy. He's a very strong guy. And people who don't know us, you know, and I'm six feet and, you know, 210 pounds and bald and tattoos and the whole thing. And you see these two guys kissing each other.

34:53It's a beautiful thing. It is a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. One of my favorite expressions, and of course I always say it in jest, is, is it wrong for one man to love another man? Not in my world, it's not. so so you and you and chris kiss in that moment and then what happens to him and then he says to me uh he says timmy timmy this is really bad and i said which for us to say that to each other is significant because we do really bad all the time and i said i know chris be careful i love you and he said, I love you. And then he turned around and he went in the stairwell and he went up to save the lives of people he didn't even know.

35:41And that moment there, Chris, is the defining moment because he knew it was bad. He knew that when he went in that stairwell, he would probably never come back. I hate to interrupt you, Tim, but you really think Chris knew that in that moment? I know he knew it. He said it to me. He said, Timmy, this is really bad. And you think that's what he meant by really bad? Oh, I know that's what he meant. You know it. Oh, I know it. We, I mean, we did this a thousand times together before and, and, you know, every one of those guys knew it, but let me just finish the point is that he knew it and he still did it.

36:26Right? That's the moment. He knew it. He still did it. He still went up because people needed him. He could have, instead of going in the stairwell, he could have taken off his helmet and put it down and got on the train and went home to his loving wife and children and lived because we have free will. He could have done that, but he didn't do that because people needed him. Why? Well, 15 years earlier, he put his hand on the Bible and he put his hand up and he took an oath. And in that oath, he said, I'm willing to give my life for my family, for my friends, for my neighbors, and even for someone I don't know.

37:19But back then, 15 years earlier, those were just words. But in this moment, his words were tested to see if he would follow through in deed, in action. And he did. He went up that stairwell knowing he wasn't coming back because people needed his help. And I call that the greatest love because that's what it says in the Bible. And that is the greatest thing that we could do in front of God.

38:06and every one of those firefighters and police officers that day, every one of them practiced acts of the greatest love as the last act of their lives. They are the greatest of American heroes. they are the greatest of humanity and they faced evil right in the eye with the greatest love so now you understand a little bit more about why i had to name my book, The Greatest Love, in honor of them. And Chris went in the stairwell. I continued on. I saw my best friend, Terry, captain in the fire department. He hugged me tight. He kissed me on the right cheek. And he said in my ear, I love you, brother.

39:17I may never see you again. He actually said those words to me. And then he took his men and he went in the stairwell and he went up. He still did it. He still did it because that was their job. That's what they were trained for. That is the oath they took. And that is the truth of their hearts. They have, as Mayor Giuliani said, you know, they have a special place in New York City history, in American history, in human history, and we should revere them for that. I went, when the cell tower was hit, I went with Chief, Assistant Chief Burns to open up that command post in the cell tower. I got sidetracked and I went to an elevator where I saw some of the most horrific scenes I've ever seen in my life.

40:19And I saw, I've seen a lot of horror, but there were people trapped in an elevator car which had free fall in 70 floors because the cable was snapped when flight 175 crashed in the South Tower. So they took this horrific ride down the elevator shaft thinking they would be dead when it hit the concrete pit. Terrifying. 70 stories, Tim? That's our guess. They came from the elevator. Origin was the 78th floor, so somewhere in there. And how many people were in that elevator? I don't know for sure. It was, I think, at least a dozen, maybe more. And the emergency brakes worked on the elevator the way they were supposed to and stopped that car from crashing into the concrete pit.

41:11But now those brakes were holding on. They were doing their job very well. and they couldn't move the car because it was stuck at the top of the opening of the elevator shaft. So they couldn't get out. The opening wasn't big enough. That's right. And I could see their feet, and I could see the men's dress shirts and suit jackets as they were bending down, trying to open that opening up, right, more. And how many feet might that opening have been, Tim? Do you remember? Well, no, when I saw it, it was only inches. Oh, it was only inches. Eight or 10 inches or something. Or 12, I don't know. But it wasn't big enough for even a small lady to sneak out.

41:51And was everybody alive still in that elevator? They were. They were. Yeah, they were. I mean, as far as I could see. Right. So those emergency breaks at this point saves their lives. but they were screaming because the elevator, the concrete elevator pit below them was full of jet fuel that had leaked down the shaft and it was on fire. So now they were above it and they were getting burned and smoked. It was a terrifying. And jet fuel has a very specific smell, does it not? Oh, yeah. Yeah. You knew it immediately. You smell it when you go to the airport, right? Yeah, exactly. You smell all that jet fuel, yeah.

42:40No, I mean, I knew what it was. But what they needed was a real fireman, not a mayor's office guy with a windbreaker on. And in my horror, it seemed what was happening to them and me not being able to help. If I was a fireman, I could help. Because you didn't have your gear with you. My gear, my tools. That's not your assignment. That's right. That's right. So you didn't have an axe. You didn't have tools. You didn't have things that you would have had in your prior life. I had a two-way radio in my hand. That was it. Right. And so I turned to my right and started yelling to people to bring me fire extinguishers because in my career, if you put the fire out, it gives you time to save the people.

43:27Right? and so I wanted to try and fight that fire and so I screamed at people go find fire extinguishers and bring them to me and when I turned to my right someone had come up behind me and I hit a person behind me and I looked and it was a bumblebee and I looked up at his face and it was firefighter Michael Lynch who I knew who I had worked with in 1991 and with all the confidence in the world, he squeezed my shoulder and reassured me. He being the young fireman, me being the senior guy, but now he was comforting me because he saw the look on my face. And with all the professionalism and training and confidence and heroism and courage in the world, he's reassuring me.

44:25Because he sees the look in my face. He sees those people and what's happening to them that they're getting burned. And he is a thorough professional who's going to save the lives of those people. And he's already thinking in his head how he's going to do it. And he says to me, Timmy, I got it. I later tell his widow, Denise, that when he said that to me, he had angel wings coming out of his back. because he was the angel sent. He just appeared out of nowhere to save the lives of those poor people. In the end, before the big collapse of the South Tower, we know he saved three women out of that elevator car because they identify his photograph.

45:16And then they find his body next, I think, in March of 2002, and he's exactly where I told them he would be with the hydraulic jaws that we use in car crashes which he was using to open that opening up right this we call them spreaders they're very powerful hydraulic tool and so they found his body with the tool and with those people that were still that didn't get out in time. But we know he saved three women out of that elevator car. I had to leave him at that scene because we had been told by the FBI that the third plane was coming to crash into us. So at this stage of the game, both towers are hit by both planes, and the FBI is now saying they think a third plane is coming.

46:09Yes. Yeah, Flight 93. and um so i i had to run to the command posts i i had to think of the the safety of the whole scene not and actually the safety of the city that was my job right i had i had to have a bigger approach and so i i none of the we had next tells and blackberries back then and none of them were working. Because the communications were down, right? Well, it was the beginning. Or was it the overloading of the network? Yes, the overloading of the network at that point. Because everybody was trying to find everybody that they love everywhere in Manhattan. That's right. Yeah. That's right.

46:56So you guys couldn't communicate? My two-way radio worked, but I had to make a phone call outside. No, I had an actual two-way police radio. Got it, got it. That was working. But I had to make a special kind of phone call. I had to call the White House. So I found a landline that worked, and I dialed zero for operator, and I said, I'm with Mayor Giuliani in the World Trade Center. I need to speak to the White House immediately. And she tried to get through the White House, and she couldn't get through. I said, the Pentagon. and she said, the Pentagon's under attack, which was the first we knew of it.

47:36I spoke with New York State Emergency Management, who we did get through to, and I begged them for military fighter jets overhead. And they told me that they had already scrambled them and that they were coming for us as fast as they could. So I felt like I had to check that box. That was my job. That was my responsibility. Because you had heard from the FBI there was likely more coming. That's right. And we didn't know and we couldn't do our jobs if the planes kept crashing into us. Right. So we were desperate and we were under attack and we couldn't fight back. One of the fire department chaplains in recent years said something very wise.

48:24He said, the firemen went to war with only tools of rescue. And it is the truth. We went to help people, and these terrorists were intentionally trying to murder us. And to some extent, were successful. The lobby was filling up with people that were badly injured. So Michael lost his life, and you knew exactly where and how and why? Yeah. And it took that long for them to find his remains? Yes. They got pushed seven stories underground all the way down to bedrock. But I knew it, and I knew where they would find him, and I kept telling people that they would find that hero, firefighter Michael Lynch, at that scene with the elevator and the Jaws of Light, or the Spiders.

49:22Right. Did you ever meet the women that he saved, Tim? I did not meet them. Someone is currently trying to find them to have a reunion. I'm not sure if that'll happen or not. And if this is inappropriate for me to ask, that's fine. But how is Denise and his family now? Good. So we say, okay, so just to set the stage for me to answer that, in the weeks after 9-11, I wanted to go out to Firefighter Michael Lynch's home in Long Island because I wanted to tell his widow, I wanted her to hear from me what her hero husband was doing at the end of his life. And not to listen to noise. I wanted to tell her I was with him.

50:20and so I went to their home. I sat on her couch, on their couch, in their living room, and she had a brand-new newborn on her lap and a one-and-a-half-year-old crawling on the carpet in the living room. Fuck! And I told her the story of her hero husband, and I told her the story of he may as well have had wings coming out of his back because he just appeared out of nowhere and that at the end of his life he was performing an act of the greatest love by choice and the professional and the courage and the bravery and the experience and the coolness under pressure that he showed. It was a horrific thing to see, those people burning to death.

51:20And he stayed in the fight and he didn't leave. And I told her, and I gave her my business card, mayor's office business card, because I didn't know her before. and I said one day when those boys are older and they want to know about their dad tell them to find me and I'll tell them about their hero father 20 years later I get a phone call from Michael Francis Lynch Jr. who is now about 22 years old and he said my mom said I'm supposed to talk to you about my dad and you're going to tell me about my dad and I said meet me at my favorite pub is O 'Hara's down at the World Trade Center I said meet me at O 'Hara's and we'll have a couple beers and we'll talk about your dad and so we went and sat down he is the

52:32he is the spitting image of his father. He's 6 '4". When you say tall, dark, and handsome, it's his photograph.

52:48And we drank all the beer that O 'Hara's had to give us. And we laughed and cried. I told him about his dad. And you know what he said to me, Chris? he said please never leave me

53:07he had to hold on because he didn't have his dad and other men had come in and out of his life and left him and that's all he wanted from me he's like please never leave me and I promised him that I would not

53:28and i'm i've been mentoring him and i want to be clear i am not his father and i don't ever say that i don't pretend to be if he wants me to be uncle tim that's fine i prefer that i'm just his friend tim you know and we mentored him a whole tribe i introduced him to my world of military and intelligence community because he wanted to go into the military and and that's what his dad would have done for him right his dad would have helped him yeah and open doors for him and of course of course this is what we do for our children right and he didn't have that right he didn't have his dad was taken from him yeah so i took him into my world i i have had an interesting last 13 or 14 years in in the federal government and I've met a lot of people and, uh, some American heroes took him under their wing and mentored him.

54:33And, um, uh, he is now, he, he, he hates when I talk about it, so I can't say where he is, but he is, uh, we got to go watch his graduation a few weeks ago and, uh, he is, uh, he is, um, himself an American hero now. Um, and you know, I'll, I'll go back to when we say never forget, it means never forget, never forget. And this is why it's, I mean, obviously it's hard for me emotionally to do these pod podcasts and stuff. Right. But it's important that we do them because the younger generation needs to hear these stories. They need to take the baton. They need to take the torch and move forward or we're not going to have an America anymore.

55:30And people have to know these things. So never forget means never forget. That means take care of the children of the fallen. It means tell the truth about the evil and the good. Um, this is why I wrote the book. I found out in, in, I mean, I found out I have cancer from nine 11 two years ago and that's what, yeah. But what kind of cancer can I ask? Just, yeah, just prostate cancer. I mean, it's like normal man cancer. Yeah. But they think it's because of all of the toxins and. Yeah. I, I breathed a lot of really bad stuff. So, um. Anyhow, we found it early and I'm okay. I'm fine. As one of my docs told me, you might walk out of my office and get hit by a bus.

56:28And I'll be sad about that. But you're not going to die from your prostate cancer. So. Okay, good. Good. So I'm okay. um uh oh but anyhow that's why i wanted to do legacy stuff because i want i don't want this stuff to you know if my voice is cut short here i want my my story to be out there i want people to hear it yes i want people to read it i want to talk about the heroes of 9-11 um and what they did for humanity. And I want their children to be proud of their parents. I want their children to carry their legacy forward. And we've had so many of the children of the fallen become firefighters, police officers, military, intelligence community.

57:25So many of them have followed the legacy of their hero fathers and mothers. Seeing it from the inside is really a beautiful thing. Thank you for that, Tim. You know, my favorite superhero to this day is Batman. Yeah. From the time I was a little, little boy. Yeah. And there's something that touches the soul of people when you hear about a horrible evil committed to your parents. And then you dedicate your life to making a difference, to quote you, to bring the love where they brought the hate, where they brought the evil. yeah also please let michael francis lynch jr know if he wants to have a conversation with me at all about this i would love it if not of course that's fine i understand but thank you no he does he's welcome no he won't not not now not now in his life he's he's got to maintain a low profile with his i understand all of that and if there comes a day where that's not the case and he wants to talk, tell him, you know, at least one safe place to have that conversation if he wants to ever have it.

58:43Thank you. Thank you. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Thank you. And by the way, that's true for the children of all of your friends and loved ones who lost that day. If they want to come and have this conversation with me, they're always welcome. Thank you. And I will, you know, one of the programs that the 9-11 Museum started in the last two years is called the visionary network and it is the anchored by the children of the fallen and what we're doing is mentoring them training them educating them to carry the story forward both in the museum and um in the world really and so we've been helping them.

59:28We've been getting them used to public speaking, to writing, to doing podcasts, to doing all those things, telling stories of the museum of 9-11, telling the stories of their parents, choosing which stories they think as the new generation, the museum should be telling, right? And at some point we will hand the reins to them and they will carry the story forward. So So the Visionary Network is a brilliant idea. I'm including the bigger picture. I'm bringing our global war on terror heroes, the military heroes, heroes from our intelligence community who did the work over the last 25 years of serving justice and preventing another attack like this from happening.

1:00:19and they have done this work for the last 25 years in silence. Nobody knows who they are and it has affected them. I met one woman who would be the equivalent rank of a four-star general who nobody knows her name, nobody knows who she is. Um, and when she realized my story was, uh, true because they're wary of people. Um, and then I understood that her story was true and, and honest, um, she turned to me in her office and when she turned around, I saw tears streaming down her face. and she said to me, Timmy, you are my why. And what she was saying is for the last 20 or 25 years, she had been doing work in the shadows for us, but she never met any of us.

1:01:23She was just doing it for America. And I was the first person from the attacks survivor that she met. And now we both realize how vital and important it was for our communities to know each other. And so we are now knowing each other and not just in our generation, but we're bringing the younger generation together, both military intelligence and the 9-11 children. We're bringing them together because it's so important for them to know each other. Yes. This is one of the things that, um, Admiral McRaven, Bill McRaven wrote the forward to my book, uh, for me. And it's one of the things he says in the forward of the book is that I pointed out to him and to the audience that I was speaking to how vital it is for the military to know the people they're fighting for.

1:02:30right? To understand that and to bring those communities together. So we've been working on that for the last few years. We've been working on bringing these communities together so that they know each other. Um, and the fam that like the families, the children now of nine 11 know the people who are out there fighting for justice, uh, for their families and, and paying with their lives and limbs and emotional in their heart and in their mind. Bringing these communities together is vital for both communities. Yes. Now, I also know, Tim, you've done a tremendous amount to try and support the families of our fallen heroes in what you're talking about here and in other ways.

1:03:23Is there more that you would like to shine a light on there and specifically ways that people can help? Yeah. So, I mean, there are many charities that I have worked with over time. Currently, I'm working with the Gary Sinise Foundation. Gary sends the children from like around eighth grade, ninth grade, 10th grade from the tri-state area. He pays for the kids to come to the 9-11 museum and to learn about 9-11. He does, I mean, as people know, he does so much for our military and our first responders. So if I was going to ask anyone to give a donation in my name or anything like that. It would be, I think, to Gary's Foundation.

1:04:18I'm going to send him a check this week, Tim. Thank you. Thank you. He's a good man. I'd love to meet him and let him know if he wants to come here and have this conversation. I would love to have him. He's an American hero. Thank you. And I will tell him that. And he is. You are right. He is an American hero. And he would defer that. He would say, no, he's like, I'm just an actor. But his humanitarian work for our protectors, the big group I call protectors, and he has dedicated his life to helping America's protectors. And for that, he is a hero. Yes. And if we're lucky enough to have earned some kind of platform, some kind of trust with some kind of audience, in my opinion, just my opinion, we can't just use it for whatever our own means are.

1:05:12We should use it for good things. And so it's very laudable. Yes. Tim, is there anything else you'd like to talk about? We could go for hours, man. I know. but uh i have to i actually have to run to a doctor's appointment because that's my life now so um um thank you and we can do this again i'm happy to do it again i would love to you're welcome back anytime um you still live in new york yes i do um i i'm doing a lot of public speaking so i'm around the country uh traveling a lot uh telling the story that you just started a part of? Well, if you're in Northern California, I'd love to see you.

1:05:52And I love New York. I love Manhattan. I spent so much time there. I almost moved there once. My heart for New York is extraordinary. The people, the culture, the food, the history, the entertainment. There was a point in my life where I had seen more Broadway shows than most people who lived in New York. I was there so much. And so, so I would, I would encourage people to go to the 9-11 museum. So it is one of the most legendary things you can do. Yeah, it is so brilliantly done. Um, the, the, the art of, I mean, they have thousands of artifacts that help tell the story, the true story of 9-11.

1:06:34They are thoroughly professional educators, um, bring your children so they can learn about 9-11. And then what I tell people, I'm giving a tour of, we have the Navy SEAL swim here in the Hudson River on Saturday. So I'm taking a bunch of them through the museum on Friday. And, you know, I'm going to give them an educational tour of the museum from someone that was there that day. and then I told them that they are required afterwards to come with me and debrief at the Irish pub at Ground Zero called O 'Hara's, which has probably 50 ,000 police and fire military patches and flags stapled to the walls and it is our place.

1:07:28So what I would tell people is go to the museum, pay your respects, learn about 9-11, read the names of the heroes, and then go debrief at O 'Hara's afterwards. That's my professional experienced opinion. Tim, I can't thank you enough. You know, I've had the privilege, I've been podcasting for almost a decade, and I've had the privilege of having many legendary conversations with legendary people. And I just want to say thank you. I also want to say I'm so fucking sorry. Thank you, brother. I'm so fucking sorry. And you are so laudable. How many first responders did we lose that day? 343 hero firefighters, 37 hero Port Authority police officers, 23 hero NYPD police officers.

1:08:23I believe it's eight paramedic EMTs, New York State court officers. So in the end, it's over 400 first responders who put their hand up, said, I will go because people need me and were willing to pay with their lives and did so. American heroes all teach your children about them Tim I know to some people what I want to say to you next will sound corny I don't care I love you I love you too brother thank you so much thank you Chris we'll do it again I can't wait for our next conversation God bless you too see you then