Firefighter [Patriot Day Monologue]
Cast
FIREFIGHTER – male
Production Notes
Props
fire jacket, fire helmet
Script / Monologue
Lights come up on FIREFIGHTER.
FIREFIGHTER:
When everyone else in Manhattan was running to safety, we were running the other way, to the very heart of disaster. In all my years as a firefighter, I have never, ever seen such pain and fear etched in so many faces. Grown, strong men with their heads in their hands running, weeping for cover. Children clutched to their parent’s chests in an attempt to protect not only their bodies but their fragile memories. Wounded in doorways and underneath cars helpless against the debris and smoke. The elderly reliving memories of wars they suffered and survived through years past.
My heart ached with certain knowing for the wounded, the dying, the missing, and their families. Every emotion I had welled up inside me to overwhelm my senses and and my reason. I was scared, angry, broken and oh, so patriotic all in the same instant, but I could not entertain the demons that toyed with my mind. I pressed on as straight and determined as I could.
My city needed me.
In the days that followed I labored hand in hand with some of the greatest heroes of our generation. Men and women that not only gave of their time, or their energy, or their emotion or money, but men and women that gave of their lives.
FIREFIGHTER pauses overcome with emotion.
343 firefighters were lost . . . 343 too many.
Lights fade on FIREFIGHTER. He exits.