4 Long Islanders inspired by 9/11 to a life of public service

The Sept. 11 terror attacks claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people, including hundreds of firefighters, police officers and other first responders, but they also stirred a call to service that had not been seen in the United States since the attack on Pearl Harbor 60 years earlier. 

 Across Long Island, New York City and the rest of the nation, countless numbers of young people who watched first responders rush into the fiery buildings while everybody else was trying to get away were inspired to pursue lives of public service by enlisting in the military or pursuing careers as firefighters, EMTs and law-enforcement officers.

Here are some of their stories.

Matias Ferreira

Matias Ferreira wanted to join the U.S. Marine Corps when he was just 7 years old, after seeing a recruiting officer, his uniform covered with medals and service ribbons, while visiting relatives in Atlanta during the 1996 Olympics. His parents, impressed with the opportunities available in the United States, moved their family from Uruguay to Georgia not long after the Summer Games ended, seeking better lives for their three sons.

Those first few years in Georgia were all about surviving in a new environment and learning the language, said Ferreira, an outgoing, high-energy man with a linebacker’s build and a friendly demeanor. But he was also making friends, playing sports and having fun.

Ferreira watched the Twin Towers collapse in lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001, on a large-screen TV in his seventh grade science class. That moment, he said, cemented his desire to serve the nation that had provided his family with financial stability and opportunities to improve their lives.

"I think there's a difference between good and bad," Ferreira remembered thinking after the attacks. "And I always just wanted to be on the side of good."

He enlisted in the Marine Corps immediately after he graduated from high school. "This is an opportunity for me to prove myself," Ferreira remembered thinking when he enlisted.

By September 2010, he said, he was a soldier in the War on Terror, serving as a machine-gunner in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. During a raid on a compound in January 2011, Ferreira stepped on an improvised explosive device. The blast took both legs below the knees, broke his pelvis and shattered his femur.

The injuries left Ferreira feeling fearful, lost and depressed at times, he said, but in many ways, the loss of his legs was just another challenge for a man who loves challenges. In the months after he was fitted with prostheses, the double amputee ran several 5K and 10-mile races, and then a half marathon in May 2011.

Ferreira moved to Long Island after he met his now ex-wife while playing on an all-amputee team in a softball tournament. He worked as a steamfitter for a while — a job he said he loved — before a friend encouraged him to take the Suffolk County Police Department test. Police academy instructors and department officials told him the same thing: "We are not going to cut you any breaks, and we will welcome you gladly if you can meet the physical requirements, including running a mile and a half in 11 minutes or less," he recalled.

Ferreira aced the test, including the physical screening. His fellow recruits elected him president of their class. In 2017, he became the nation’s first double-amputee patrolman. He has been with the Suffolk police department for nearly 10 years, still running toward danger — on prosthetic legs — like the firefighters and other first responders who were at the World Trade Center 25 years ago.

At a time when some of the nation has soured on immigrants, Ferreira said New York remains an inspirational place. Born in Uruguay and raised in Georgia, he now calls himself a proud New Yorker and hopes the nation can look past differences and become unified like it was in the months after the terror attacks. 

"There are so many different types of people here in the state, and I just love that you can meet people from all sorts of walks of life and experiences," Ferreira said. "I think that’s a beautiful thing, and we just need to keep working at being better."

Aaron Edwards

NYPD Assistant Chief Aaron Edwards made headlines in March when he vaulted over a barricade during an anti-Muslim rally outside Gracie Mansion to pursue ISIS-inspired counterprotesters who had tossed homemade explosives into the crowd.

Edwards said his run toward danger — captured in a photo that exploded across social media earlier this year — and the rest of his 23-year career with the NYPD were inspired by the firefighters, police officers and other first responders who rushed toward the flames, smoke and chaos that engulfed the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001.

"That day was tragic," said Edwards, a Huntington resident and the commander of Patrol Borough Manhattan North, "but it also inspired a lot of people to go into public service. What Sept. 11 did was, younger people like myself at the time, we had a moment in our lives where we said, ‘What kind of life do I want to lead? And what does that mean to me?' And for me, it was a life of public service: How could I help?"

Edwards wasn’t thinking about a career in law enforcement before the towers collapsed 25 years ago. He was a biology major at York College in Queens, pursuing a career as a physician assistant or in pharmaceutical sales. He was getting ready for school on the morning of Sept. 11 — and looking forward to celebrating his 21st birthday later that week — when he heard a radio report about a plane hitting the World Trade Center.

"One of my favorite rappers was dropping an album that day, and it was just a normal day, full of excitement," Edwards said. "All that had changed. It was fear. It’s 'What's next?' "

Like millions of Americans, Edwards was glued to his TV that day. One detail from news broadcasts chills him to this day.

"Some of the reporters were at the hospitals with their cameras, and they’re setting up the emergency rooms and they’re getting the staff ready," Edwards remembered during a recent interview at his office in Manhattan’s 24th Precinct. "And one thing that struck me was that we didn’t see injured people coming in, and that hit me hard, because I knew that so many people, so many lives, were lost."

Edwards watched as New Yorkers cheered the police officers, firefighters, EMTs, construction workers and others who rushed to the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center in the days after the attacks to search for survivors. Like the first responders, he wanted to be one of the people who runs toward danger. He took one of the first NYPD tests offered after 9/11, graduated from York College in May 2003, and entered the police academy two months later.

In September 2003, Edwards and other recruits participated in a tribute to those who had died in the attacks. The grief and pain on the faces of his instructors and other NYPD veterans that day, he said, was palpable.

"It was personal. You could see the pain in their faces," he said. "I knew the cops that worked there and the people who were there that day were forever different."

Edwards didn’t know the homemade explosives tossed into the crowd outside Gracie Mansion earlier this year would not detonate. He didn’t think about it. His job at the moment was to apprehend the suspects — and keep people safe.

"It’s training, it’s instinct, and some determination," Edwards said. "At the moment, I wasn’t thinking about the dangers involved."

Joseph Potucek IV

Technical Sgt. Joseph Potucek IV of the New York State Police dreamed about becoming a military pilot ever since he was 5 years old, when he visited the Air Force Academy outside Colorado Springs, Colorado, with his grandparents.

Potucek’s grandfather had served in the U.S. Army during World War II, and he often talked about the value of public service during long weekend walks, about the importance of being part of an orderly, rule-based society. Those conversations, Potucek said during a recent interview, convinced him that his future was serving his country as a Navy or Marine pilot.

"I wanted to be in the air," said Potucek, who grew up in Mastic. "I wanted to fly and fight."

The 9/11 terror attacks — and the death of a mentor who was an FDNY firefighter — grounded that dream, Potucek said. He was a senior at William Floyd High School in Mastic Beach, a member of the Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, and he wanted to get into the fight against the terrorists responsible for the Sept.11, 2001, attacks. He wanted to punch back at the people responsible for the death of his hero, FDNY Firefighter Kevin Smith, he said.

Pursuing a career as an officer and a pilot would take seven years, Potucek remembered thinking back in 2001. "The conflict might be over by then," Potucek said. "So my opportunity to serve was to join the Marine Corps right away."

Potucek’s public service began the summer before the 9/11 attacks, when he joined the Mastic Fire Department at 18 years old as a volunteer ambulance driver. Kevin Smith was also a member of the department. His son, Chris, had been Potucek’s supervisor with the NJROTC before enlisting in the Marines.

"He always had that inspiration and dedication to service embedded in him, which was instilled in me as an underclassman," Potucek said of Chris Smith.

Kevin Smith was well known in Mastic and the surrounding communities as a hero dedicated to public service, Potucek said. He was a decorated member of the FDNY who received nine citations for meritorious acts, including rescuing a woman trapped in a plane that had gone off the runway at LaGuardia Airport and wound up underwater in 1989. His daughter, Josephine Smith, became the FDNY’s first female legacy firefighter — someone who followed a family member and joined the department — in 2014.

Both Kevin and Chris Smith inspired Potucek to serve for 22 years as a Marine reservist. He was a master sergeant when he left the Marines to be with his family and spend more time with his three children. He loves his job with the state police and said he is awed by how the tragedy of 9/11 paved the way for him to have a fulfilling career and life.

For Potucek, the 25th anniversary of the attacks is a time to remember those who were lost on that day, those who died of 9/11-related diseases, and the families who have been missing loved ones for a quarter of a century, he said.

"It’s a time to reach out to those family members, just let them know that we’re constantly still with them," Potucek said. "It [9/11] sparked our generation to serve and to promote peace and order, and to detect and deter terrorism, just to be out there, like my fellow troopers who are out there on patrol every day."

Dylan Hever

Suffolk County Deputy Sheriff Dylan Hever was a second grader at Pines Elementary School in Hauppauge on Sept. 11, 2001, but even at that young age, he knew something historically horrific had happened that morning. His mother’s face was streaked with tears and fear. The death, dust and debris that rained down on lower Manhattan when the Twin Towers fell was broadcast live on television.

Hever’s father, NYPD Officer Michael Hever, had been called back to work even though he had worked an overnight shift the night before. His family did not know if he was dead or alive.

"I didn’t know if my dad was coming home," Dylan Hever said in an interview with Newsday. "Thank God he did."

Hever said his father has called 9/11 the worst day of his life, but for the deputy sheriff it was a turning point: That was the day he decided to pursue a career in law enforcement. He wanted to be just like his dad, he said.

"I always knew, ever since that day, I knew that I wanted to be a police officer," Hever said.

"I think there’s a lot of people out there, like myself, who did what they did because of 9/11." Hever said. "So growing up, I’d be a police officer every Halloween. ... I would walk around the house with his uniform on."

Hever said he studied videos instructing viewers how to pursue careers as police officers. He took the NYPD exam at age 18. At 21, he joined the department, where he served for 5½ years.

Hever said he was excited to join the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office a few years ago — and not just because he wouldn’t have to commute to New York City. He worked for several years in the department’s community relations bureau.

"It’s more meaningful when you actually have a direct impact on a community that you live in," Hever said. "Coming back to Suffolk County, having a direct impact on my family’s life, my neighbor’s family’s life ... it’s kind of a way to pay it forward."

Hever’s father spent weeks at the site of the World Trade Center after the attacks, assisting in the recovery efforts. His father’s circle of friends has shrunk, Hever added, as his friends die of 9/11-related cancers and other diseases. Like many others who spent time at the site, his dad has struggled with 9/11-related health issues, Hever said.

"To honestly have him still here today, knowing what can potentially be there, having it happen to other people, is a blessing to me," Hever said.

He’s also grateful for the example his father created for him.

"I live my dream every day," he said. "It lit a fire in me to now be that person to run toward danger."