Tagged: 9-11 Tenth Anniversary

September 11, 2001 changed the way firefighters and first responders think about and do their jobs. One who's experienced this transformation firsthand is Tim England, a captain with the Poudre Fire Authority in Fort Collins. England led a Colorado task force at Ground Zero for the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the days immediately following the terrorist attacks. As we approach the 10th anniversary, England shares his thoughts on the way 9/11 altered his profession – and the country.

When planes hit the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, Father Mychal Judge ran into the North Tower alongside the firemen he served. Not long after, he became the first recorded victim of the terrorist attacks.

But 10 years later, his friends and colleagues remember Judge as vividly in death as they knew him in life: a gregarious, irreverent man wholly devoted to God, whom many considered a saint, in large part because of his own personal struggles.

Priest On A Fire Ladder

From the first, Mychal Judge loved to be where the action is.

Thousands of government organizations and private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence. Last December, The Washington Post reported that this "top-secret world ... has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work."