By Bob Batz
Dayton Daily News (Ohio)
Copyright 2006 Dayton Newspapers, Inc.
I never met Louis Modafferi. I wish I had. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center that took the lives of 343 Fire Department of New York members, some of us in the fire service acquired metal bracelets bearing the names of the victims.
My bracelet, which cost $5, is engraved “F.D.N.Y. Capt. Louis Modafferi. Sept 11, 2001.”
The inscription is flanked on one side by a tiny American flag, on the other by the words “Fallen Hero.”
There is a bond among firefighters. When a firefighter dies in the line of duty in Baton Rouge, La.; or Grand Rapids, Mich.; or Keokuk, Iowa; firefighters in big cities and small towns all over America grieve for their departed brother or sister.
So it was for this 32-year volunteer firefighter that day five years ago Monday as I sat with other members of the Brookville Fire Department in front of the firehouse TV watching the death and destruction unfold in New York City.
After I received my bracelet with Modafferi’s name on it, I went looking for information about him.
Louis Joseph Modafferi, who began his firefighting career in January 1982 at Engine Co. 247 in Brooklyn, was 45 and a captain of the FDNY Rescue Co. 5 on Sept. 11, 2001.
Modafferi, who previously worked as a waiter and a chimney sweep, was no stranger to the dangers of firefighting, and search and rescue assignments.
In March 1992, he received a fire department citation after responding to LaGuardia Airport when an airplane careened off the runway into the freezing waters of Flushing Bay.
A year later, he was one of the first firefighters on the scene when a bomb exploded in the basement of the World Trade Center.
Modafferi wasn’t scheduled to work the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, but joined four other members of his squad after hearing reports that airplanes had slammed into the World Trade Center.
The firefighter - described by friends as someone who would shovel snow from a neighbor’s driveway without even being asked - was trained as a scuba diver and to handle hazardous materials.
He was captain of his gymnastics team while attending Lafayette High School in his native Brooklyn.
To make extra money, Modafferi fixed dents in cars.
Fellow firefighters depicted him as good-humored and fairminded. He loved playing softball. His favorite car was a Pontiac Trans-Am.
He spent much of his off-duty time with his wife, Joanne; his sons, Michael and Joseph; and his daughter, Christine.
Shortly after 9/11, Louis Modafferi was posthumously promoted to battalion chief.
“If he had to choose how he was going to die,” Joanne Modafferi said, “he would have chosen being a hero and doing what he did. That much gives me comfort.”
On Oct. 29, 2001, 350 people attended a memorial for Modafferi and fellow firefighter Alan Feinberg.
At that service, residents of Harway Terrace - a Bensonhurst co-op where both firefighters grew up - dedicated a new flagpole with a bronze plaque as a memorial to them.
At the close of the dedication, Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, a FDNY chaplain, said, “That flagpole reaches all the way into heaven.”
I never met Louis Modafferi.
I wish I had.