News /U.S. news
In Dad's Footsteps: Daughter of Fallen 9/11 Responder Joins FDNY
Josephine Smith told her
father, a firefighter, she would work with him one day but it wasn’t
meant to be: He died while responding to the September 11, 2001, attacks
on the World Trade Center.
But Smith carried on
with her dream, even stronger after the death of her dad, Kevin. Now, 13
years later, she has become the first daughter of a 9/11 responder to
join the ranks of New York City’s fire department.
“I've made it a mission
to make sure that I fulfilled my dream of becoming a city firefighter
and following in my father's footsteps,” she said Tuesday, when she
graduated from the FDNY academy. She started to cry, noting though it
was a happy moment she was also “sad that my father couldn't be here.”
Some 340 firefighters died responding to the attack on the Twin Towers.
“Kevin was a part of one
of the units hit most hard that day: Hazmat 1,” Mayor Bill de Blasio
told the academy graduates. “Josephine out of that tragedy devoted
herself to service.”
Her mom, Angelina Clay,
said Kevin would be proud of his daughter, “but most important, she's
made herself proud about what she's accomplished today. And that's our
goal with her.” She noted that if he were still alive, Kevin would have
told Josephine: “Do a good job. Keep your head straight. Your heart in
it. And love your job.”
Smith, who said she used
to play with fire trucks and tag along with her dad to work, carries a
memorial card of her father in her cap and wears his bracelet. She
visits the 9/11 memorial on Father’s Day, on the anniversary of the
attacks, and stops by it while jogging. Her dad, she said, is with her
constantly.
“There's not a second
that goes by I don't think of my father. There's so much that reminds me
of him,” she said. He’d be proud of her, she added, but worried, “being
a firefighter himself, he knows what comes with the job. But he would
know it I'd be able to handle it, he knows how strong I am.”
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