Firefighter James Dowdell was in Brooklyn’s Rescue Co. 2 quarters when he learned that justice had finally caught up with the most wanted fugitive in the 9/11 murder of his father and 342 other members of the FDNY along with 2,977 others.
“Thank God for the military,” he said. “They still make it.”
The news that Ayman al-Zawahiri had been killed came just as the younger of the fallen FDNY Lt. Kevin Dowdell felt that those not directly affected by the attack had all but forgotten.
“It seems like a distant memory these days,” said James Dowdell. “It’s not for us, but for the rest of the world it seems like it could be.”
His older brother, Patrick Dowdell, had been in the military, visited West Point, and then enlisted in our longest war. He now works in sales and cybersecurity. He was at home with his young family when a friend called to make sure he had heard from Zawahiri.
“We always say, ‘Never forget,'” Patrick said. “The government as a whole, it’s good to see that they don’t. They’re still after the bad guys.”
The news did not include the drama of Osama bin Laden’s death in 2011, which had prompted the Dowdell brothers to go to Ground Zero and join a crowd and chant, “USA! UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!” Zawahiri was the lesser-known MP, and his death more than a decade later sparked no spontaneous celebrations.
But a year after the disastrous evacuation from Afghanistan in which a suicide bomber killed 13 US soldiers, Patrick Dowdell was reminded not to lose faith in his nation’s ultimate resolve.
“We’re not giving up,” he said. “We’re not just going, we’re not going away.”
The son and namesake of fallen Fire Marshal Ron Bucca, he enlisted in the military in response to his father’s murder and has been repeatedly used as a Green Beret. The younger Ron Bucca was training with his special forces unit on Monday when he received a call about Zawahiri’s death in Kabul from a drone strike that appeared to have killed no one but the intended target.
“He was the last lingering out there of the old regime,” Master Sgt. said Bukka.
Bucca had joined in hopes of catching bin Laden, but he had been in Iraq with his team when the Navy SEALS got there first. Others have followed Zawahiri year after year, demonstrating a quality that is becoming increasingly rare these days.
“A little persistence,” Bucca said. “If it’s not that, I don’t know what is.”
The overall conflict had lasted much longer than he had imagined when he logged on what seemed like a very long time ago.
“Twenty years of war,” he said.
But now, as he starts contemplating retirement, comes proof that we can still be who we’re meant to be.
“That definitely made my day,” Bucca said.