Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Erin Bossen | Capt. Robert Schapiro, Task Force Javelin liaison and volunteer fire fighter honored...... read more read more
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KUWAIT - A Task Force Spartan soldier honored 343 firefighters who lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001, by walking in his fire fighting brothers and sisters shoes for about a half hour, Sept. 6, 2019, at the Camp Arifjan gym.
Capt. Robert Schapiro, who serves Task Force Spartan as the Task Force Javelin liaison, wanted to memorialize those civil servants who wore fire fighting suits and breathing apparatuses while climbing 110 stories in response to events on 9/11.
Schapiro serves as a volunteer firefighter with two volunteer fire stations, Savage Volunteer Fire Company and Calvert Advanced Life Support in Maryland.
The self-contained breathing apparatus and firefighting suit weighs approximately 60 pounds, just under a third of Schapiro’s body weight, but he’s willing to take on more to memorialize those lost in the twin towers.
“The firefighters at Ground Zero were wearing the same equipment I wore for the 9/11 memorial stair climb when they had to climb the twin towers of the World Trade Center. The elevator cables had snapped when the jets hit the tower,” said Schapiro.
In addition to Schapiro pushing himself to honor the 343 fallen firefighters, he donated $343 to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation and $110 to each of his volunteer fire stations.
Schapiro has volunteered with the Savage Volunteer Fire Company since before 2001 when their station back-filled units that responded to the Pentagon.
The events that day unfolded when 19 al-Qaida terrorists coordinated a series of suicide attacks by hijacking four airplanes and flying two into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. A third plane targeted the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C. and the passengers on the fourth plane thwarted an attack resulting in a crash in a Shanksville, Penn. field.
No one survived the plane crashes.
The terrorists caused 2,996 deaths and more than 6,000 injuries at the World Trade Center’s towers, also known as Ground Zero, with additional deaths at the Pentagon and on the flights.
The casualty rate continues to grow due to health related conditions attributed to the aftermath of 9/11.
Only six people in the towers survived the final collapse of the World Trade Center buildings from the two jet airliners that flew into them.
On that day firefighters, paramedics, police officers and other first responders risked their safety and lives. Eighteen years later Shapiro honors 343 firefighter's who were willing to climb 110 stories to help save lives.
| Date Taken: | 09.06.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 09.10.2019 15:05 |
| Story ID: | 339328 |
| Location: | KW |
| Hometown: | SAVAGE, MD, US |
| Web Views: | 55 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Task Force Spartan Soldier memorializes 9/11 firefighters, by SFC Erin Bossen, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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