Hopkins County firefighters remember their fellow fallen

‘Never Forget’

DALLAS—Of the 2,996 people who tragically died in 9/11, 343 were firefighters. It’s been 18 years since the day of national tragedy in 2001, but Hopkins County firefighters are taking it upon themselves to remember their fallen brothers in arms as well as pass on this memory to a new generation by participating in the 9/11 memorial stair climb in Dallas this past weekend.

Participants included Rodney Caudle of Hopkins County’s station 20, his sons Bryan and Bradley, Jonathan Barth, a station 20 part-timer, Brennan Murray of Arbala VFD, and Duane Sprague and Joseph Evans from Sulphur Springs Fire Department.

Participants, outfitted in full fire gear, climb 110 flights of stairs to signify the total number of stairs in the World Trade Center. Bryan Caudle estimates it’s a total of 2,500 individual steps.

“It’s basically like you’re fixing to walk into a fire,” Bryan Caudle said.

Although Bryan Caudle trained by walking up the station 20 stairs every shift wearing a bulletproof vest and an airpack, he said it was still physically difficult.

Murray, at 19, was the youngest climber at the Dallas event out of more than 600 participants.

Murray also trained by taking some of his gear to the stair climbing machine to Snap Fitness in Sulphur Springs, although he said he didn’t take his air pack along so he wasn’t so conspicuous.

“Climbing isn’t something you do for the challenge, but for a time to remember,” Murray said. “You remember the people who climbed the same amount to save the trapped and never made it out.”

Murray said Arbala’s new black gear with yellow stripes caught the attention of other climbers, and even the Dallas 11 KVT news crew, who interviewed him.

“Those men went in there to save lives and not knowing if they’d come out,” Murray told the news crew. “I would do the same.”

Rodney Caudle is excited his twin sons are able to join him now that they are firefighters, Bryan Caudle says. This is the first year they’ve all been able to climb as a family.

Bryan Caudle says he is also looking to pass along the legacy of what happened that day to his sons, who were only three years old in 2001.

“We get into it [the stair climb] because as the first plane was to fly in, they timestamp that and everyone would set off their PASS [Personal Alert Safety System] devices. When the second plane hit, they time-stamp that. It’s a really cool memorial, because it teaches you a lot more about it.”

The bond among firefighters remains strong even across time and geography, Bryan Caudle says.

“There was a ladder truck that was going in and all that guys on that ladder truck, none of them came back. Every call you go to, you never know if you’re going to come home or not,” he said. “In that case, it sends chills up your back. But that’s part of the job.”

Murray said he feels similarly. Although Murray was only 1 year old when the planes struck the towers. It’s having a mentor like Brian Fairchild, Arbala’s volunteer chief, that’s brought him to a deeper understanding of what it means to be in the fire service, he says.

“His [Fairchild’s] experience is more rich than anything in a textbook could ever teach. I don’t know where I would be without him,” Murray said.

“It goes with the history of tragedy. …It’s learning lessons,” Fairchild said. “It takes the older generation to teach them everything we’ve been through and done.”

Sprague started his day normally on Sept. 11, 2001, as he went to work as a firefighter for the city of Sulphur Springs where he had been employed, at that point, for four years.

Now 18 years later, he commemorates that day by climbing every year, and this year twice. He climbed once in Dallas, and earlier this year, he and Rodney Caudle climbed in New York at the World Trade Center site.

“Those guys are just like me,” Sprague said.

In Dallas, Sprague climbed in honor of Ronald Bucca, the only New York fire marshal ever killed in the line of duty.

Sprague is also now a fire marshal. Bucca ran marathons. Sprague is an experienced runner himself. By the time Bucca was one of the responders who made it to the highest floors in either tower, he had served 22 years on the force, just as Sprague finds himself in his 22nd year of service on this Sept. 11 morning in 2019.

“Their sense of duty to their citizens is what drove them to go,” Sprague said. “That’s the same thing that drives us here.”

The feelings that come with the climb are complicated, Sprague says.

“It’s really a range of emotions. You’re proud to be there. You’re sad that you have to be there, but then again, I think for me, the pride and the honor is the driving force each year. The ‘Never Forget,’ I took that as an oath,” he said.

Sprague says he will continue to do memorial stair climbs “as long as [his] body is able to.”

“It’s kind of my duty and my responsibility to carry on the memory of those who died in the line of duty doing what they loved,” he says.