“3-4-3”

It’s funny how people remember us
From that fateful day
As the heroes who climbed the towers
Passing workers on the way

They see the footage of us in the lobby
Preparing for the haul
The look on our faces, they say
Surely says it all

“They knew they were going to die“,
They tell each other
“You can see it in their eyes as they
Greet a fellow brother”

They fail to realize it’s not uncommon
For us to show our fear
But we never allow the fear to stop us
We just keep each other near

We may be proud, we may be brave
But suicidal, we’re not
We take many risks to do our jobs
Giving all we’ve got

They think we know it’s a death sentence
As we enter the lobby door
Unaware that not a man here among us
Had not been here before

As we walk through the valley of death again
That old familiar place
We can’t accept that we’ll leave our souls
And feel death’s cold embrace

If we had known we would never come out
We’d have never gone in
Fearing and knowing are two different things
So we hold our doubts within

As we climbed up the stairs floor by floor
Searching zone by zone
It was saving lives that was on our minds
Not giving up our own

The Angel of Death is our frequent companion
A feared and lethal foe
But when he’s here for one of our own
How are we to know

We’re trained to push things to the limit
On each and every call
We’re well aware that lives are on the line
And we may sacrifice all

We live with this throughout our careers
Through every single shift
It hangs in the air like a shroud of fog
Which we can never set adrift

Some think it’s merely words when we say
We risk our lives for you
But we take this fact into account
In everything we do

That day in September in 2001
Was no different in our eyes
We could not have known what devastation
Was raining from the skies

We look down from above as our brothers
Desperately search “the pile”
They have no idea that we’re finally at rest
They’re still in denial

Our bravery that day seemed beyond belief
In the eyes of humanity
But the fact is we’ve faced our mortality before
Though you may question our sanity

We were merely men doing the job we loved
Down to our last breaths
We remain merely men in the scheme of it all
Even after our deaths

Copyright 2007 - Tom Kenney