The man who led the New York City Fire Department on Sept. 11 criticized the use of the word “hero” to describe professional athletes and other celebrities on Sunday, saying such references are “just sickening.”
“We had people who were safe out into the lobby who went back up to help other people. … When you knowingly put yourself in harm’s way like that, that’s a heroic deed,” former NYFD Commissioner Tom Von Essen told radio host John Catsimatidis.
“To give that title to a sports figure or a politician or a businessman — it’s just sickening,” he added. “And it happens every day. We see it in our military, we see it in the police risking their life every day to try and help us, and now we are criticizing them when they make a mistake.”
“It’s outrageous,” Von Essen said.
On the 15th anniversary of Sept. 11, Von Essen paid tribute to the victims and recalled what it was like to cope in the aftermath of the terror attacks.
“For me it just got worse as the days went by because we started to deal with the grief and the families and the pain and suffering that all of them went through,” he said. “But for me it was the grief and looking at those folks and not being able to give them what they wanted. Not being able to give them back their loved ones. They wanted their loved ones back, and we couldn’t do that.”
