NY 1

The whining sadness of bagpipes is nothing new for New York's Bravest, and last week, when the FDNY buried two of its own killed in a fire, the scene was eerily reminiscent of the weeks and months after the World Trade Center attacks, when funeral after funeral took place, the department burying its oldest and youngest members.

"On September 11th, we lost our oldest member of the department, First Deputy Fire Commissioner Bill Feehan, who was a mentor to all of us, and we lost the youngest members of our department; we lost seven probies," says FDNY Chief of Department Salvatore Cassano.

"So that fire on that Sunday, the first thing that came to my mind is we lost a probie like we did on September 11th and we lost a 20 year veteran," he continues. "So the similarities are there, but also if you saw that tremendous showing of support from this department to those families, that's exactly what happened after September 11th."

Forty-four hundred years of collective experience lost in a single day, 343 lives and five years to think about it all, even as the department continues to do what it does best, fight fires.

Countless promotion ceremonies move firefighters up the ranks, making leaders out of nearly 2,300 new officers.

Cassano is one of them, becoming Chief of Operations only days after the attacks, a post he's held until this past June, when former Chief of Department Peter Hayden retired and he became the department's highest ranking officer.

The promotion was a natural fit for Cassano; he and Hayden worked side-by-side since the attacks, training the Bravest in counter-terrorism, making technological improvements in communication and enduring the release of dispatch calls from firefighters inside the towers.

"It was difficult to listen to their voices, but it was also good and uplifting to hear how well they handled themselves," says Cassano.

Among Cassano's chief concerns is the health of his members after spending so much time at the site in the rescue and recovery. Only months after the attacks, the FDNY began its own monitoring program to keep track of its members' health. That registry continues, even as reports of cancer and leukemia in first responders make headlines.

"If we see a rise in those types of diseases, we will look at it; we're going to track it; we're going to trace it. We really don't know yet, but we have a good record, a good data base," says Cassano. "The retirees are going to be on this program for the rest of their lives, if something comes up."

"This isn't only for now, this is for future events, so we need to at least say we've looked at it thoroughly, that we've investigated. And we either find a conclusion or we don't find a conclusion, but the department is going to be very proactive. We're going to take the lead," he continues.

A memorial wall goes up at Ladder 10 Engine 10, the department's own shrine to its deceased. Here, there's no controversy about the listing of the names, because each member is identified by rank and company. Here, Chief Cassano doesn't think about the differing opinions about the planned memorial at the site.

"There's over 2,700 people there, and you're going to get 2,700 different opinions," he says. "We'd like the names of our people to be listed together if they can. We've expressed our desire to have it that way."

The department will host a memorial mass for its members Sunday at St. Patrick's Cathedral, hoping to remind the families that even though five years have passed, their loved ones have not be forgotten.