9/11's Flag-Raising Firefighter Heroes

9/11's Flag-Raising Firefighter Heroes
Carl Limbacher Jr.Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2002

Even a year later, the image of the three New York City firemen hoisting the American flag at Ground Zero just hours after the worst-ever attack on U.S. territory remains the most enduring image from that horrific day - and may be among the most inspirational tableaux in the country's history.
The historic photo, taken by Thomas Franklin of The Record of North Jersey, conjures up two of America's most moving battle icons, the victorious World War II flag raising at Iwo Jima and the National Anthem's defiant lyric celebrating the country's resiliency under attack: "… the bombs bursting in air, gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there."
But a year after those three firefighters rallied a stunned nation with their real-life proof that our flag was still there, few Americans even know their names.
In fact, the FDNY's Dan McWilliams and George Johnson, who raced to the burning Twin Towers that day from Brooklyn's Ladder Company No. 157, along with Billy Eisengrein, who headed to the same destination from Staten Island's Rescue Company No. 2, have shunned the spotlight ever since that week.
Their only public comments about the events that led up to the famous moment appeared in The Record three days after the attack.
McWilliams said he spotted the flag hanging from a yacht docked on the Hudson River after he and his crew were ordered to evacuate Ground Zero because of the imminent collapse of a third tower, the World Trade Center's Building Number Seven.
Ordinarily, the fall of the 47-story behemoth would have been a momentous event in and of itself. It's a measure of the magnitude of the events of that day that Number Seven's disintegration barely rated a footnote in the next day's news coverage.
Sitting in the kitchen of their Brooklyn firehouse two days later, McWilliams and Johnson recounted the sequence of events the led up to the legendary photo.
"Gimme a hand, will ya, George?" McWilliams recalled shouting to his buddy Johnson, in an interview with The Record.
"I knew exactly what he was doing," Johnson added.
Standing nearby was Billy Eisengrein, who, as luck would have it, just happened to be a childhood friend of McWilliams when the two lived on Staten Island. "You need a hand?" Eisengrein shouted.
The three firefighters quickly found a perfect spot -- a single flagpole anchored in the rubble about 20 feet off the ground on West Street.
As they were raising the flag, the trio of heroes were completely unaware they were being photographed, they told the paper -- let alone marching into history.
Though few of their fellow firemen remained in the evacuation area at that moment, Johnson remembered hearing a smattering of cheers after the flag went up. "A few guys yelled out 'good job' and 'way to go,' " he said.
Since that fateful Tuesday, it's been a busy year for the three firemen who helped a devastated nation recover its spirit.
They've seen their images adorn countless replicas of the flag raising, on everything from dime-store trinkets to a model for a racially altered statue that was to be displayed at New York City's FDNY headquarters.
A firestorm of protest erupted after NewsMax reported the plan to obscure the firefighters' true identities to make the trio racially diverse, including a black and a Hispanic. A surge of outrage forced the department to scrap the plan.
Through it all McWilliams, Johnson and Eisengrein have remained remarkably silent. An FDNY spokesman told NewsMax that the flag-raising trio had instructed his office to decline all interview requests.
But according to their lawyer, William Kelly, the months since 9/11 have been anything but uneventful for his three clients.
"They've been trying to keep as low profile as possible so they could get back to work," Kelly told NewsMax, explaining that Johnson and McWilliams have since been promoted to lieutenant.
As demand skyrocketed for the famous flag-raising image, Kelly helped the firemen set up a charity, The Bravest Fund, to which 100 percent of the revenues they receive from licensing agreements are donated.
The money goes to aid the families of firefighters, police officers and emergency service workers who were killed or injured on 9/11.
Despite stories about large payments to some victims, the truth is that many of the firefighters, police and others had families, and payments will not replace the real financial loss suffered by these families.
Though the flag-raising trio's public appearances have been few, they were honored by a ceremony aboard the USS Teddy Roosevelt after the ship sailed into the Afghan war zone carrying the Ground Zero flag .
"The guys were taken aboard, and the U.S. Navy presented the flag back to them in a ceremony that was shown on the Today show," Kelly said. "Then there was a ceremony at City Hall where the flag was presented by the guys back to the City of New York."
The office of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, which currently has custody of the flag, will likely donate the 9/11 icon to the Smithsonian Institution, he said.
The three firemen have also been honored by the Seagraves Company, which has the contract to replace the fire trucks lost in the 9/11 attack. The first replacement truck off the assembly line featured the image of McWilliams looking up at the Ground Zero flag that he and his partners had just raised.
Kelly said that even Seagraves' management was initially unaware of the tribute, explaining, "They told me it was a spontaneous effort by the guys who built the truck."
The flag-raising truck now operates out of Ladder 10 in New York.
Since 9/11, the flag-raising image has become among the most popular in the world. However, over 500 companies have used it unaware that it's a copyrighted image co-owned by The Record and the three firemen.
Still, the image has appeared in unauthorized form on everything from motorcycles to music boxes to pocket knives to guns, Kelly said. All over Manhattan, renderings of McWilliams, Johnson and Eisengrein raising the flag appear among the cityscapes and celebrity portraits hawked by streetside artists.
The image might seem a natural for that icon of American pop culture, the Wheaties box, which parent company General Mills usually adorns with inspirational sports images. But, Kelly explained, "I've been told that a lot of corporations are steering clear of associating their corporate name with 9/11."
However, representatives from both Major League Baseball and the NFL have expressed an interest in the flag-raising image, he revealed.
But since the image of the three firefighters came to symbolize America's resiliency under attack, the highlight of the year was the trio's visit to the White House in March for the unveiling of a U.S. postage stamp bearing their likenesses.
It's the only time in the history of the Postal Service that the agency has issued a commemorative stamp featuring the images of still-living Americans.
Kelly gave NewsMax a behind-the-scenes account of the flag-raising trio's visit with the president of the United States.
"I went down with them to the Oval Office," he told NewsMax. "We spent about 20 or 30 minutes with President Bush," who had reportedly personally chosen the image from several submissions approved by the Postal Service.
Unnoted in most press accounts of the event, however, was the gift the three firefighters brought with them.
It was a wooden box originally carved for the famous flag, given to Johnson by the family of a cancer-stricken 8-year-old boy in Kentucky whose life the fireman saved in 1997 when he donated his bone marrow.
"The box had an American flag on it, this beautiful little wood box," Kelly said. "And when we were in the Oval Office, George gave that to the president."
After Bush learned the story behind the gift, Kelly recalled, "He put the box on his desk and said, 'The next time you see me on television in the Oval Office, you're going to see this box sitting here on my desk.'"