By Luis Perez
Newsday (New York)
Copyright 2006 Newsday, Inc.
As the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks comes and goes, the story of a tiny dog tag bearing Firefighter Thomas Casoria’s name might be told as one about the universality of the tragedy.
The dog tag is smooth and clean, but made to appear worn by fire and water. It hangs on the living room wall in the Whitestone home of Casoria’s mother, Judy, on the edge of a picture frame that is part of a memorial to the fallen firefighter. But it had traveled halfway across the country and been held by many hands before making its way to Whitestone.
“It’s so amazing that I got this, all because a guy lost it,” Judy Casoria said yesterday, after learning about the origins of the dog tag.
It was found in early July by a Kansas teenager at a Super 8 Motel in Riverside, Mo. “F.D.N.Y FF Casoria,” it read. “Engine 22, Badge 6259, Age 29.”
Cody Anschutz, 16, thought it was real, and gave it to his mother, who, also fooled by the make-believe patina, determined to get the tag to Casoria’s family.
When Judy Casoria received it in the mail, she noticed that the details on it were correct. Casoria checked and double-checked with her son’s friends, but could not confirm that he owned the knickknack.
Newsday reported at the time how she figured it was a fake, not clear who owned it or why. Nonetheless, she kept it. “Anything with his name on it, I’ll keep,” Casoria said at the time.
She put the mystery behind her, casting it off as another unfortunate example of phony 9/11 paraphernalia sold on the Internet.
But it recently came to light that the memento was part of a set given to firefighters from four states who gathered at a July meeting of the International Association of Firefighters across the street from the motel.
“I just wanted her to know that there was a firefighter that was carrying her son’s name around his neck,” said Bob Palmer, a retired fire captain from Kansas City and union officer who read about Casoria’s dog tag and wanted to settle the mystery. “Nobody wanted her to cry,” said Palmer, who carries a tag with the name of Battalion Chief Oreo Palmer, another fallen firefighter, around his neck.
Chicago Firefighter John Alaniz, who made the tags and created bronze castings of a firefighter’s helmet, boots and coat from a reforged World Trade Center beam a few years ago, was traveling and could not be reached.
“It’s a very nice thing they did,” Casoria said of the members of the firefighters’ union. “It’s so weird, though, how it happened to be his name. It could have been anybody.
“I still have it, if somebody wants it back,” she said. “If it’s very near and dear to his heart, I could return it to him. I have it right with the rest of his other stuff.”
Hundreds of miles away, Palmer said: “I’m glad she has it.”