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Ahearn, Brian
Lt. Brian
Ahearn, Bat.13
Brian Ahearn, 43, of Huntington, was a lieutenant at Firehouse 230 in Brooklyn. He was last seen in the lobby of the south tower.
Ahearn "became a perfect American citizen," said his mother, June Ahearn of Palm Bay, Fla.
But he didn't start out that way.
"I don't know if I should say this, but when he was younger he was a rip out of hell," she said.
There was the time when he was 3 years old that he sawed the leg off the family's couch. As a teenager he hung out with "dumb kids," despite his 140 IQ, his mother said.
But that all changed, she said, when he followed in his father Edward's footsteps and became a firefighter, married and had two children, Lauren and Christopher.
"He was a wonderful father, a little laid back," she said. "He was very serious - like his father - and a good saver - also like his father - which was all to his benefit."
He loved baseball, played with the fire department, and took good care of himself physically.
"As a man he was almost perfect," she said.
Both of his children, 9 and 5 at his death, are honor students and his wife, Debracq, still close to her in-laws, is engaged. But the toll on all of them was a heavy one, June Ahearn said. "It's something that never leaves you. You want it to, but it doesn't."
The parents, who had lost another son two decades earlier, said they "talk to them both everyday, no matter what happens."
And she said she finds herself peering into the faces of men who would be her son's age. "I study their faces. I wonder if what is happening to their faces, would have begun happening to him. He's in a better place. I'm sure they all are." - Ridgely Ochs
https://projects.newsday.com/feature-grid/block/brian-g-ahearn/
Allen, Eric
Eric
Allen, Sqd.18 (D)
Eric Allen was diligent, determined and headstrong. He was so tough, so capable, that it would never occur to people to look down on him, a 5-foot-5 tower of gym-rat power.
He knew how to size up potential trouble quickly and dodge it adroitly. Once, while driving cross-country with his buddy Joe Ruggiero, the two walked into a bar on the Texas-Oklahoma border and, in the blinding daylight, saw half a dozen oversized cowboys playing dominoes.
"Drinks for everyone on us!" shouted Mr. Allen, buying a barfull of friends.
The short guy cast a long shadow: Mr. Allen, 44, was a ubiquitous, modest Mr. Fix-It for friends and the elderly in his Bay Ridge, Brooklyn neighborhood.
His motto was "Do the right thing," which for him meant taking extra courses to be eligible for the hazardous duties of Rescue Squad 18 of Manhattan.
He was a sweetie with a crust, a shy man who loved acting.
As he drove on jaunts to the country with his wife, Angelica (whom he nicknamed Schnauzer) and their 3-year-old, Kathleen (whom he nicknamed Mouse) he would make up songs about how much he loved them, yelping happily.
Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on March 10, 2002.
https://www.facebook.com/106918920961900/posts/eric-t-allen-44-firefighter-fdny-squad-18-allen-took-extra-courses-to-qualify-fo/124585192528606/