'If I don't go, who will?'
Tragic FDNY Iraq hero told mom . . .
The mom of doomed FDNY Lt. Christopher Raguso pleaded with her son not to go on what was supposed to be his final tour of duty in Iraq — a deployment that ended in tragedy on Thursday when his helicopter struck a power line and crashed, killing all seven aboard.
“I begged him not to do it,” Laura Raguso said Sunday at Ladder Co. 113, the Brooklyn firehouse where her son began his department career in 2005.
“I said, ‘Papi, please, why do you have to do this?’ ” the mother recalled, her eyes welling with tears. “He told me, ‘Mami, if I don’t do it, who will?’
“He crushed me that day,” she said. “He did it anyway.”
Raguso — who also served as a master sergeant with the Air National Guard’s 106th Rescue Wing — left behind his wife, Carmella, and two daughters, ages 5 and 6.
Carmella was at a military base in Dover, Del., on Sunday to claim her husband’s body.
Meanwhile, about a dozen of the Ragusos’ friends and relatives — some in firefighter dress uniform — gathered in mourning at the family’s home on Commack, LI. The block was lined with yellow ribbons and tiny American flags.
Among those at the home were Raguso’s father-in-law, Anthony DiChiara, who said a memorial would likely be held at the Commack firehouse on Jericho Turnpike where Raguso, 39, also served as a volunteer fire lieutenant.
The Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which supports the loved ones of fallen first responders, pledged $100,000 to help pay off the Raguso family’s mortgage. The FDNY and Silver Shield Foundation are also collecting funds to go toward his daughters’ education.
Raguso and a fellow Bravest, Fire Marshal Christopher “Tripp” Zanetis, 37, were two of the four Long Island-based Air National Guardsmen aboard the Pave Hawk chopper that went down Thursday near Iraq’s border with Syria.
Zanetis — a 10-year FDNY veteran who was on leave from the department to pursue a career in law — was a captain on his third tour of duty. He lived in Queens.
The other two Long Island locals killed in the crash have been identified by the Department of Defense as Staff Sgt. Dashan Briggs, 30, of Port Jefferson Station, and Capt. Andreas O’Keeffe, 37, of Center Moriches.