Greg, what stood out as you conducted your research?

The thing that stood out, and it's, it's what's, what makes the book the book, uh, really is, uh, uh, two big things.

One is the fact that 40 people were willing... first responders were willing to talk to us about, uh, not just the day, and that's to the second point, but the arc of what happened in the FDNY as a result of this.

And I say as a result, it was a chosen result.

The FDNY didn't have to change.

The FDNY entered September 11th as one of the premier, if not the premier, firefighting organization on the planet, and they could have come out of this, and they...

And the reviews of their, of their, of the, how they handled themselves, uh, they came out very well from those.

Uh, what kind of fundamental changes have occurred since?

I'll start with one of them, which caught my attention, is just the healing process that not only the FDNY, but the firefighters had to go through after this horrific event where so many of their brothers and sisters were killed.

It was fundamental.

And these are tough human beings.

I mean, you start with the fact they're New Yorkers, which moves you down the toughness scale right there.

And then it's FDNY, so they're fighting fires.

They came out of the war years, which is the 80s, 70s, 80s.

which was New York City had all kinds of problems, including lots of arson and lots of fires.

Tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah.

Um, it was, uh, and that's an understatement.

And so, um, they didn't have to talk to us.

Um, so I think I, I start the writing the book with the fact that, uh, how did the event happen? Well, the event happened because Andre Kotze, who is the, one of the authors of the book, um, somebody I'd known through the work at Arrestee and Executive Education, um, uh, as a, he does a, he's a executive, um, coach and facilitator of a lot of physical problem-solving kinds of exercises.

Uh, came down and just plopped down in front of me while I was trying to blitz my way through a lunch and said, "Uh, you wanna do a few interviews?" And I said, [laughs] uh, "Okay, uh, why are we doing them?" He said, "Well, w- we're gonna help Paul retire." And Paul Brown is, um, a close friend of his and a, a friend of mine, uh, and somebody who had worked for Andre and has, was winding up his career as a captain in the FDNY.

Uh, and so I said, "Okay, sure." And so I thought I was doing a couple interviews, um, uh, for purposes unknown, really, I mean, other than to help a friend help a friend.

Uh, so when we got into the conversations, then there was another one, then there was another one, then there was another one.

Yeah.