Michael Kiefer

When the towers came down, the Pentagon was in flames, we weren't quite sure that my mother in law was safe or when my uncle would be able to fly back home, I gathered my children and reeled in shock at an evil I couldn't understand.

Five years later, I still don't understand it. I think of those men, praying to their God as they planned to kill thousands of innocent people, and I can't see how anyone could make that choice and think it was a moral one.

Fortunately for all of us, there is decency and strength, bravery and commitment every bit as incomprehensible as the worst of humanity. And we saw it, every one of us, on that same day.

Michael Kiefer is listed, by some, as a victim of the 9/11 attacks. But the truth is more than that. As a firefighter with FDNY Ladder 132 in Brooklyn, Michael Kiefer was one of those who made a heroic effort to save lives that day.

He was twenty-five years old, looking forward to marrying his sweetheart in 2002. He had every reason to be selfish, and yet he was not.

Perhaps, devout Catholic that he was, he prayed to his God as he ran into those towers, to save innocent people. That, I can understand. A little bit. And honor, and praise, and be thankful for, on the behalf of all those he lost his life to try to save, and all the rest of us who are still inspired to tears by his bravery and sacrifice, five years later.

Thank you, Michael. Your honor, your decency, your bravery in the face of unspeakable horror, are all still remembered. YOU are still remembered. God bless.