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you rooted hard for him. Stackpole, 42, by all accounts was a regular guy doing what he loved. Stackpole had the heart of a lion and unparalleled bravery. I am not ashamed to admit he is a hero of mine.

Fire Marshall Ronnie Bucca. On September 16, 1986, Westchester County resident and New York City Firefighter Ronnie Bucca broke his back as a result of falling five stories during a rescue attempt at a burning West Side tenement. He was not expected to live, yet one year later he returned to Rescue One.

Bucca, an ex-Green Beret paratrooper was preparing for an Army reserve course in Virginia. He would be leaving September 15, 2001. On September 11 the Fire Marshall would actually make it up to the 78th floor of the South Tower where United Airlines Flight 175 had cut a gaping hole into the building. Bucca found a standpipe and began fighting the inferno along with fellow fireman Orio Palmer. Amazingly Bucca took off his flame-retardant turncoat and used it to cover some crash victims huddled in a corner.

Ronnie Bucca had also worked as a US Army Reserve Warrant Officer in the 3413th Military Intelligence Detachment. Bucca, a bit of a whistle blower, was snubbed by the FBI when he reported the shady dealings of an Egyptian accountant in the FDNY, who among other things had stolen some floor plans of the WTC and was part of terrorist Sheik Abdel Rahman's inner circle.

Bucca had investigated the 1993 WTC attack and had studied the threat of Islamic terrorism with great vigor. He warned for years that New York City was still not safe and that "they" would come back again. According to author Peter Lance, Bucca believed that the Islamic militants were willing to wait one thousand years for revenge and that the time was nearly up. He was quoted as telling a friend that these radical Islamists sought revenge for the Crusaders' burning of the Muslim's castles in the eleventh century.

Ironically, their is a saying in the homeland of Ramzi Yousef who orchestrated the '93 attacks referencing this concept: "If it takes me ten centuries to kill my enemy, I will wait a thousand years for revenge."

In total Bucca spent 23 years with the FDNY and 29 years in the military. A true American hero.

John O'Neill. An FBI counterterrorism expert who left the bureau after being maligned for his "obsession" with Usama bin Laden. O'Neill, 49, investigated the bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Africa and the USS Cole. It was during the Cole investigation, in particular, that he was so harshly

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