Contributed for rrspin.com

Bruce Dimon remembers the shoes, shoes exchanged for boots and turnout gear, shoes that would ultimately be reminders of lost firefighters on September 11, 2001.

Dimon was there and today he told his story at a September 11 ceremony at Centennial Park in Roanoke Rapids.

Dimon, a firefighter of 28 years in Long Island, was working with the Hauppauge Fire Department when his company was dispatched to New York City that morning.

The entrance to Centennial Park | Contributed

It was uncommon to get that call, he said, because New York has an abundance of equipment and manpower.

As he drove the heavy duty rescue truck into the city he remembered his captain got the U.S. flag attached to the back of the truck. “Today the flag is the department’s most prized possession.”

As they approached the city the skyline was missing two familiar buildings and he realized, “That the TV horror was reality.”

Ready to save lives, Dimon said by the time they were deployed to the building all inside perished. His department would spend three days at Ground Zero. “That was a hard reality for the search and rescue personnel, nobody was rescued.”

The Ground Zero landscape was surreal, he recalled, “Like watching Neil Armstrong walk on the moon in ankle deep fine powder.”

All the firefighters from the NYC 1010 fire station across the street from Ground Zero were lost, he said.

Ground Zero | FEMA 

The Patriots Day ceremony was sponsored by AMVETS. Dimon has retired to Henrico and is a volunteer with the Roanoke-Wildwood fire department.

Dimon told the audience the importance of remembering September 11. “I felt honored and privileged to serve if only for a few days. I never tell anyone that I was at Ground Zero and haven’t even told my wife of 31 years of the details of that time of service.”