In another costume [note the big 11 on his hat]:
Band of Dads
DENIS O'BERG
September 11, 2001
DENIS O'BERG
On September 11, FDNY Lieutenant Dennis O'Berg was standing in a cloud of ash when he radioed several times for his son, Dennis Patrick O'Berg, but heard nothing back. Lieutenant O'Berg would retire that same day and make Ground Zero and the job of finding his missing son his life's focus. His son, a Probie with Ladder 105, loved reading Harry Potter and was anxiously awaiting the release of the movie. Once, he even shot a self-portrait wearing some Potter glasses as a joke. The night before the World Trade Center attack, Dennis, Jr. was reading Harry Potter to his kids and was nearly halfway through when he put it down for bedtime. Dennis O'Berg brought the book with him for our shoot and earmarked the exact page his son had left off on before 9/11 changed all of our destinies.
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http://poohbeargs.blogspot.com/2008/09/ ... ering.html
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Revisiting September 11th...Remembering Dennis O'Berg
Again this year, I thought I would re-post my contribution to a memorial project that was initiated for the fifth anniverary of 9/11 in 2006 to post memorial tributes to all of those lost in the terrorist attacks on our country on blogs across the internet. On this day, I remember all those whose lives were lost that day, all those who have lost their lives fighting this war on terror, and Dennis O'Berg, who I wrote a tribute to for that project.
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At 494 Dean Street in the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn stands the building housing Engine Company 219 and Ladder Company 105. The two companies have shared that building since 1977. Prior to 1977, they were located in separate houses, about ? mile away from each other. Ladder 105 has its roots in a volunteer company, Ladder 5, from the Greenport section of Brooklyn that was organized in the latter half of the 19th century. After spending time as Ladder 5 of the Brooklyn Fire Department, Ladder 5 of the Fire Department of New York (FDNY), and Ladder 55 of the FDNY, Ladder 105 was organized on January 1, 1913 as a part of the FDNY.
One member of Ladder 105 who was lost on September 11th after responding to the rescue efforts at the World Trade Center site was Dennis O’Berg. Dennis was 28 years old at the time of his death. He was a resident of Babylon, on Long Island, where he lived with his wife of less than one year, Christine. Their first wedding anniversary would have been September 28, 2001.
Dennis didn’t always plan to be a firefighter. He graduated from the State University of New York at Geneseo with a degree in accounting and worked for the Big 4 accountancy firm Ernst & Young after graduation. However, he followed his father’s footsteps as a firefighter, entering the academy because he felt shackled to his accountant position. He graduated from the academy not long before the September 11th attacks and was assigned to Ladder 105. Being a firefighter changed him into a happy and smiling and easygoing person. On September 11th, he had been a firefighter for only seven and a half months.
Dennis’s remains were not found in the wreckage at Ground Zero, and his family held out hope that something would be found so that they could plan his funeral. After only his helmet, his jacket, and one of his boots was found, Dennis’s family held a memorial service for him on June 28, 2002, burying an empty casket. Dennis’s father, Lt. Dennis O’Berg., retired from the FDNY on September 11th to dedicate himself to finding his son. However, when all the wreckage had been cleared, it was not to be so.
Family and friends remember Dennis as someone who was young at heart. He was a fan of Harry Potter, Norman Rockwell, Star Wars, and the New York Rangers. He collected baseball cards and enjoyed all kinds of music. He was a romantic and often gave his wife roses for no particular reason, took her on long drives and picnics on the North Shore, and left her notes telling her that he loved her. She found one of those notes in her bed the evening before September 11th as she was preparing to retire for the night. His dream was to be there as a husband and father for his wife and kids and to raise a family on Long Island. He never got to fulfill that dream. Instead, his life was cut short by the terrorists who attacked America on September 11th.
Dennis P. O’Berg. Forever in the thoughts of his friends and family. And now, forever in my thoughts as well.
To learn more and pay tribute to other heroes lost to us on September 11, 2001, please visit the 2,996.
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The surviving Bosco's and O'Bergs have a lot to say to President Obama about civilian courts. Dennis and Dorothy O'Berg oppose civil trials for the terrorists and they're writing to President Obama about it in 2009.
http://www.911familiesforamerica.org/?p=1966
[excerpts]
The American people do not support the use of our cherished federal courts as a stage by the “mastermind of 9/11″ and his co-conspirators to condemn this nation and rally their fellow terrorists the world over. As one New York City police detective, who lost 60 fellow officers on 9/11, told members of the Department of Justice’s Detainee Policy Task Force at a meeting last June, “You people are out of touch. You need to hear the locker room conversations of the people who patrol your streets and fight your wars.”
On May 21, you stated that military commissions, promulgated by congressional legislation and recently reformed with even greater protections for defendants, are a legal and appropriate forum to try individuals captured pursuant the 2001 AUMF, passed by Congress in response to the attack on America. Nevertheless, you announced a new policy requiring that Al-Qaeda terrorists should be tried in Article III courts “whenever feasible.”
We strongly object to the creation of a two-tier system of justice for terrorists in which those responsible for the death of thousands on 9/11 will be treated as common criminals and afforded the kind of platinum due process accorded American citizens, yet members of Al Qaeda who aspire to kill Americans but who do not yet have blood on their hands, will be treated as war criminals. To date, you have offered no explanation or justification for this contradiction, even as you readily acknowledge that the 9/11 conspirators, now designated “unprivileged enemy belligerents,” are appropriately accused of war crimes. We believe that this two-tier system, in which war criminals receive more due process protections than would-be war criminals, will be mocked and rejected in the court of world opinion as an ill-conceived contrivance aimed, not at justice, but at the appearance moral authority.
signed,
Maureen Bosco
Mother of Richard E. Bosco, 34, Citibank, One WTC, 105, Fl.
William Bosco
Father of Richard E. Bosco
[...]
Dorothy O’Berg
Mother of FDNY Firefighter Dennis P. O’Berg, 28, Ladder 105, WTC
Dennis E. O’Berg
Father of FDNY Firefighter Dennis P. O’Berg
