"It's easy to say 343, 344. But it's really one loss, three hundred and forty-four times."

Frank Leeb spent nearly thirty-two years in the FDNY and retired as a Deputy Assistant Chief in June 2024. He is now Managing Director of the First Responder Center for Excellence. He is also the only person we asked to come back.

This conversation was recorded just after the twenty-fifth anniversary of September 11th, and Frank told us something we did not expect: he had not talked about his day anywhere else. Not in an interview, not on another show. He walks us through all of it, hour by hour. The six a.m. train into the city with his son-in-law and a member of his volunteer department. The moments of silence outside quarters at 76 Engine, where he was captain. The firemen's memorial five blocks away, where firefighters from Florida, Texas, Italy, London, Vermont and Oregon had come to stand. Headquarters in Brooklyn at two in the afternoon, because when you make staff chief, headquarters becomes your last firehouse. The bagpipes at sunset outside Ten House, and the band leader calling into the crowd for people to shout the names of who they were honoring. And then, near eleven at night and running on nothing, a subway ride to Queens to stand in a kitchen for a friend's last tour, because that is what you do.

He got home at one thirty in the morning. He left at six.

Frank also does the arithmetic the fire service has been doing quietly for twenty-five years: 343 lost that day, 344 counting the fire patrol member, 453 since from occupational illness, and 152 more added to the memorial wall who were already retired on September 11th and came back to help anyway. Approaching a thousand people. The FDNY ceremony could not be held at St. Patrick's Cathedral this year because the cathedral is not big enough.

Amy, who was living in New York that morning, asks him the question underneath the whole day: does it fill your cup, or does it empty it? His answer is the reason this episode exists.

He also talks about his friend Tony Mastrelli, who died at fifty-eight of occupational illness in November 2024, and whose memorial shirt Frank is wearing while we talk.

This episode is dedicated to Firefighter Anthony "Tony" Mastrelli, FDNY Ladder 56 and East Farmingdale Fire Department. 1991 to 2024.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Frank Leeb's books, including In the Mouth of the Dragon: Toxic Fires in the Age of Plastics, second edition, co-authored with Deborah Wallace. https://fireengineeringbooks.com/search.php?search_query=leeb

"The Story of the List" by retired FDNY Captain Frank Leto, on how scribbled names on yellow legal pads became the department's official missing and deceased list. Frank calls it the one must-read piece on September 11th this year. https://www.firerescue1.com/fdny/the-story-of-the-list

First Responder Center for Excellence, free online training: https://firstrespondercenter.org

Unseen Exposures is presented by SPOKE: https://www.spokemovie.com

Music: White Mountains by Zambolino Source: https://freetouse.com/music Royalty Free Music (Free Download)

"I never realized until I was doing this presentation how much marrying him really contributed to me being a therapist."

Maggie Riback is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor. She is also married to a volunteer firefighter, and she has been learning the fire service from inside a marriage for sixteen years.

She is not a first responder. She does not currently have first responders in her caseload. That is exactly why this conversation goes somewhere the others haven't: Maggie is the person on the other side of the door, the one who watches someone leave in the middle of the grocery run with no idea when he is coming back or who will walk in when he does.

Greg and Amy sit down with Maggie in Iowa to talk about the early call that lasted three hours, when she was too new to the relationship to ask if he was okay without feeling dramatic. They get into the way "I'm fine" functions as a complete sentence in the fire service, and the routine she and her husband built so she can read the answer without asking the question. Greg shares the percentage system he uses with his wife, and the two of them work out why the deal is different when you meet someone before the academy versus after.

Maggie also does the thing almost nobody does on a podcast: she explains how to actually find a therapist. What to ask on the free consultation. Why some of what surfaces in a directory search is paid placement. Why not every therapist works with trauma, and why you should ask that out loud before you book.

And she answers the fear underneath all of it, the one that keeps firefighters out of the chair. Not that therapy won't work. That it will, and that what it finds will take the job away.

This episode is dedicated to Chief Patrick Walsh, East Farmingdale Fire Department. A legend among legends. Gone, but never forgotten.

This episode discusses mental health, trauma, and alcohol use. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline), or call the Fire/EMS Helpline at 1-888-731-3473. You are not alone.

"I work in a business where I see line of duty death reports all the time. I'm like, I don't want you to die."

Nicole Prorock keeps the books for the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation and the First Responder Center for Excellence. She is also a volunteer firefighter, EMT, and station officer with the New Market District Volunteer Fire Company in Frederick County, Maryland. The person who accounts for America's fallen firefighters spends her nights riding the ambulance, and she has one goal: fewer names to count.

Greg and Amy sit down with Nicole at the FRCE Mental Health and Wellness Symposium in Iowa to talk about the losses that hit closest to home, including suicides at her own fire station, and why you can never tell from the outside what someone is carrying on the inside. Nicole shares her path from CPA to firefighter, the brother she lost to leukemia at 21, and the promise she is keeping on her fiftieth birthday: racing the Ironman World Championships in Kona as a fundraiser in his memory.

She also explains the volunteer fire service most of the public never sees: the unpaid overnight crews, the fundraising for gear and apparatus, and what it takes to keep a suburban community covered when the career staff goes home at six.

And she says the most radical thing anyone has said on this show: that she wants FRCE's prevention work to put the Fallen Firefighters Foundation out of business.

SUPPORT NICOLE'S IRONMAN FUNDRAISER https://ironmanfoundation.donordrive.com/participants/4273

This episode is dedicated to Battalion Chief Joshua D. Laird, Frederick County Division of Fire and Rescue Services, who died in the line of duty on August 11, 2021. "Just do the right thing."

This episode discusses suicide and mental health. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline), or call the Fire/EMS Helpline at 1-888-731-3473. You are not alone.

LINKS National Fallen Firefighters Foundation: https://www.firehero.org First Responder Center for Excellence: https://firstrespondercenter.org Battalion Chief Joshua D. Laird memorial: https://www.firehero.org/fallen-firefighter/joshua-d-laird/

Unseen Exposures is presented by SPOKE, a documentary about occupational cancer in the fire service. Learn more at https://www.spokemovie.com

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