Ex-fire volunteer gave false 9/11 story
Deployment to ground zero didn’t happen
Two days after 9/11, a team of firefighters from the Colchester Fire Department went to New York City to search through the rubble that was still smoldering where the World Trade Center had fallen.
Ralph Pallozzi, now a former volunteer from the department, told the Courant recently that he was part of the team at ground zero. He was not.
Pallozzi also was not a firefighter with Colchester, according to Billy Standish, who was chief of the department in September 2001.
Pallozzi, 63, and now a manager at a Glastonbury Mcdonald’s, has admitted to claiming publicly to having been a firefighter and part of the Colchester team at ground zero, despite not being deployed to New York in the aftermath of the attacks. His claims have current and former firefighters from Colchester fuming, likening his claim to “stolen valor.” Stolen valor is a term used for the phenomenon of people falsely claiming military service, experiences, accolades and awards that they did not perform or earn.
Ahead of the 22nd anniversary of the attacks, Pallozzi told the Courant in a story that his experiences at ground zero were “unbelievable and devastating.”
The memories were too hard to talk about in detail, he told the Courant, and every year on the anniversary he fell into a dark place. That was, until, his daughter was born on Sept. 11, 2009.
Her birth lightened the darkness of the date, he told the Courant, but he still held a moment of silence for his “fallen brothers” every year and made memorial donations. His story was tied to recent fundraising efforts at his current workplace, where he posed for a photo with a 9/11 remembrance banner hung to honor his “fellow” heroes.
On 9/11 this year, 10% percent of sales at the Mcdonald’s he manages are to go to a 9/11 memorial. The fundraiser was promoted by a PR firm for that Mcdonald’s and published in their company newsletter.
Scott Taylor, owner and operator of the Glastonbury Mcdonald’s, said “I am shocked and disappointed to learn about the facts that have come to light. Our intention with the 9/11 memorial fundraiser was to recognize and honor those who selflessly protected our country. We’re disheartened this event was marred by misinformation, but remain committed to supporting our CT community heroes.”
Shift, the public relations team that promoted Pallozzi’s story for Mcdonald’s, issued a statement after the truth was exposed saying: “Like all involved, we were extremely disappointed to learn that parts of this story weren’t true — even more so because it takes the focus away from the first responders who gave their lives, and others who made personal sacrifices on 9/11.”
After a story about Pallozzi and the fundraiser appeared in the Courant, the newsroom was contacted by current and past members of the Colchester Fire Department, who said Pallozzi was never deployed to ground zero with their team and was not a Colchester firefighter.
“We had a group of guys who did go to ground zero. One of them was not Ralph Pallozzi,” said Standish. “He was never a firefighter, he was fire police.”
The role of the fire police, a volunteer position in Colchester — where the department is a mix of career firefighters and volunteers — is to assist with traffic while firefighters respond to emergency medical and fire calls. They close roads, place traffic cones and direct drivers.
“They’re a very valuable asset to the fire department,” said Standish, but would not have been qualified to respond to ground zero.
Pallozzi eventually said he “exaggerated.”
“These guys are getting technical,” he said of the firefighters who complained of his false claims.
He said his story was “90% true” and 10% false — the 10% being that he was not at ground zero as anything other than a visitor.
“I did not go down to ground zero. I wasn’t part of the team that went down,” Pallozzi said, days after the first story ran. “I wasn’t trying to offend anyone (with the false story). I was trying to do a good deed by raising money.”
Then he blamed his memory.
“I could have exaggerated but I’m 63 years old and it was 22 years ago,” Pallozzi said.
Pallozzi claimed even though he wasn’t a part of the crew at ground zero, he was “part of the process of 9-11-2001,” and claimed he loaded supply trucks at the station and did everything he was asked. He maintained he was a firefighter despite the department saying he was not; his actions on that day could not be confirmed.
The reality
Nineteen firefighters, both volunteer and staff, did go to ground zero from the Colchester department. They loaded onto buses in the early morning of Sept. 13, 2001, and made the drive to Manhattan’s Financial District.
They were dropped off a few blocks away and walked the rest of the way to what is now known as “The Pile” — an area of two million tons of debris, according to the 9/11 memorial.
To some the memory is crystal clear, seared into their minds more sharply than they’d like it to be.
Dave Martin still recalls rounding the corner on Vesey Street and seeing the wreckage for the first time. He can still smell the dust, remembers what it felt like on his skin, in his eyes.
Tony Skut can still see the “eerie glow” of the smoldering sight coming through buildings as they got closer to ground zero.
Every day, Skut sees the name of the New York firefighter whose remains he found in the rubble tattooed onto his skin: Carl Molinaro, who died when the towers collapsed. He still has the handwritten notes that his beloved wife and two sons slipped into his firefighter’s helmet before he left for New York, telling him to be safe and come home to them.
To others, it feels like a distant memory, something out of a nightmare that almost doesn’t seem real. But it was indisputably real for them. They were there, they said; Pallozzi was not.
The firefighters who responded to ground zero from Colchester and opted to share their experiences to dispute Pallozzi’s claims went back to those dark days in their memories. Most could not do so with getting a familiar lump in their throat, could not describe things they saw in the aftermath without choking out sobs or stopping to catch their breath.
“I can’t believe … 22 years and it’s just so vivid,” said Martin, who responded to ground zero. He let out a deep exhale after describing a funeral he attended for a fallen FDNY member.
One by one, the now-retired Colchester firefighters lowered their voices when they said that they were there, that they had been part of the team deployed to ground zero.
“I guess I make a point not to think about it,” said retired firefighter Rob Esteve.
When Esteve went to ground zero, he was third in command at the department as assistant chief. He was the accountability officer while they were in New York, meaning he was charged with keeping track of the 19-person team from Colchester.
A native New Yorker, he knew members of the FDNY who were deployed there right after the attacks, some who didn’t make it home.
“I was in charge of making sure no one got lost and everybody came home in one piece.” He was successful. And he is confident Pallozzi was not one of the men he was charged with keeping track of.
Unlike when talking about their own experiences, the Colchester search and rescue team members did not hesitate when they were asked to recall whether Pallozzi was there with them that day.
“Absolutely 100% not,” said Esteve.
“No, he was not,” said Martin.
“No,” said Standish. “No,” said Skut.
“Absolutely not,” said Matt O’connor.
Michael Blanco, who was at ground zero for those days, said it is still hard for him to piece together his memories from back then. But it is harder for him to understand why someone would say they were there when they weren’t.
“It’s one of those experiences where it’s so surreal. Some of it you don’t even recall. You were there, it happened, you know it happened, you saw it, but it’s almost like it’s hard to even believe that it was real and you were actually there,” he said. “It’s hard for me to actually fathom how somebody could even portray that they were there and experienced something like that when they weren’t, especially knowing that a number of your colleagues at the time were actually there and did go through the experience first hand.”
Blanco said he was disappointed and hurt when he heard about Pallozzi’s claims.
“I was shocked that someone would even try to claim that they were there just knowing that they weren’t. And how would that make some of their colleagues feel? Or there brothers and sisters within the fire department who were there, how it would make us feel?” he asked. “Knowing that we actually lived through it and were there and did dedicate the time and the effort to try to help in any way that we could. And knowing that there’s other people out there that are actually claiming that they served during that time but they actually never did.”
Martin, who was also at ground zero, said the anniversary isn’t usually a particularly hard day for him, he said. The memories haunt him, sometimes, but not in the same way as they do for others.
But on this anniversary, his emotions flared up, enraged by Pallozzi’s story.
“I was just beside myself, I really was. It ruined my day.”
For other veterans of the Colchester department, 9/11 is a difficult day every year. They raise flags every September and lower them on the 11th every year. They make annual trips to ground zero.
They maintain lifelong relationships with the families of victims, even attend the weddings of fallen firefighters’ now grown up children.
Skut, who just returned from his 21st annual visit to ground zero, said he has taken it to heart and has never quite been able to talk about that day without tearing up. And he’s never been able to go back to ground zero without breaking down.
He said he won’t lose sleep over Pallozzi’s story, but hoped his misleading account of those dreadful days will be exposed.
Esteve said that in his experience, his fellow firefighters who actually were at ground zero don’t like to share their stories.
“Generally speaking, and that’s what makes this hard, people that had something to do with 9/11 don’t want to talk about it. And if they do, they definitely don’t want to make it about themselves,” said Esteve after learning of Pallozzi’s claims.
Matthew O’connor, a member of the department, said a “real true injustice that was committed” by Pallozzi. Pallozzi’s claims, O’connor said, forced other firefighters to relive their experiences, a retraumatization they shouldn’t have had to endure.
O’connor was an 18-yearold level one firefighter when the towers were struck, and wasn’t yet qualified to make the trip to New York with his fellow firefighters.
But he remembers when they came back.
“They looked like soldiers when they come back from combat and they just had a long stare,” he said. “This was real.”
He knows that Pazzolli was not one of those people.
He was a volunteer with the fire police “which is what we call our traffic controllers,” O’connor said.
Colchester’s current chief, Steven Hoffman, said Pallozzi’s claims were hurtful to past and present members of the department.
“Unfortunately those claims did really did have a negative impact on personnel who were members at the time and were actually responding down to ground zero at the time,” he said.
Blanco, who created 9/11 memorial decals before and after going to ground zero and with them has raised more than $40,000 for memorial funds, said that, for him and many of the Colchester firefighters, fundraising was a way to reckon with and make peace with the horrific things they saw in New York. He was hurt to hear that Pallozzi’s claims were tied to fundraising efforts.
“Any fundraising that is being done, to some degree, is a good cause. But when you’re using false information in order to get people to make a donation, that’s when I have an issue,” he said.
Current Colchester Fire Chief Steven Hoffman said he was not immediately able to access personnel records from 2001 to confirm when Pallozzi left the department.
Editor’s note: The Hartford Courant corrected the record as soon as possible after learning that the reporter had been misinformed about the ground zero experience. This story additionally corrects the record for those from Colchester who did serve in those tragic days for this nation.