Im usually posting fishing reports and pictures of the great times people are having on my boat. Today is alittle diffrent for me. I never forget 9/11 it's like it was yesterday in my mind. I was living and working in Alaska at the time, I was just pulling into the harbor at 5:30 am from a long 3 month trip away from home when I heard the news. At the time my main concern was how were we going to ship our fish south, our last load gone!! because there was no air service..It wasn't till I got home that it really sunk in what was going on and how much family I had that worked in the financial district in New York and around the World Trade Center. I guess having been gone from home for 3 months I was still in that state of funk, just kind of out of it, just watching the tv as though I was watching another episode of Law and Order or something like that, just another day in the lower 48 how great it was to be in Alaska, so I though.
I received the call around 6pm Alaska time, none of my family had heard from my cousin, 25yr old Firefighter Michael Kiefer FDNY, In my mind he was just out there saving lives and doing what he loved to do, help people and fight fires and calling home was not an option at the time. It wasn't till the next morning that reality sunk in, still no phone call but that knock on the door that no one wants to here or answer when someone in your family works in that career field. Yes it was the FDNY informing my family there worst nightmare, that Michael and his whole company were missing. It was from that moment on that mine and my families live were changed for ever. Michaels body was never recovered, all that was found was the door to his fire truck which sits in his old room in Franklin Square, New York out on Long Island. His empty coffin was laid to rest on July 18, 2002.
People always say, it's time to move on, let it go. Well thats easier said than done. Michael and I shared alot of the same passions, Surfing, Fishing, Diving ,the Ocean so forgetting for me is impossible, I make my living from the Ocean so I guess Im the lucky one in my family, I get to spend everyday with him, because in my heart he is the Ocean. Capt. Kenneth Mullen



Michael V. Kiefer
Firefighter
Ladder 132
Laid to Rest
on
July 18, 2002