The Dying Firefighter

I saw the plane hit the building
The flames and the billowing smoke
I saw the glass, paper, metal and stone
Everything shattered and broke
I was there with my people
Engine Company 24
We rushed into the building
Got as far as the 35th floor

The black smoke and the heat was like nothing
I'd seen in all of my years
With each step in that blazing inferno
You could feel destiny near
In the midst of the falling girders
The sheet rock and God knows what else
I tried to find the survivors
Those who made it to the stairwells

I carried the wounded to safety
If that's what you might call the street
With bodies and boulders and metal
All crashing down by your feet
As #2 was collapsing
When only ten floors still stood
Everything was falling around me
Like it was made out of cardboard and wood

It was just then I heard someone
Trapped underneath the debris
I started pulling at something
And that's when the fire got me
I was pinned 'neath the rubble
And the flames were licking my coat
And the pain, the unbearable agony
And then that was all that she wrote

But I just wish I could tell you
Before I am taken away
That I've seen a lot of this world
And there's something that I gotta say
I don't believe in politics
I believe in the human race
I believe in the goodness of people
In New York or some far-away place

I believe in my daughter
And I believe in my wife
And may nobody's father be taken
To avenge the loss of my life
People may call me a brave man
And this may very well be
But the firefighters of Kabul
Are just as brave men as me