I saw the plane hit the building   The flames and the billowing smoke   I saw the glass, paper, metal and stone   Everything shattered and broke   I was there with my people   Engine Company 24   We rushed into the building   Got as far as the 35th floor      The black smoke and the heat was like nothing   I'd seen in all of my years   With each step in that blazing inferno   You could feel destiny near   In the midst of the falling girders   The sheet rock and God knows what else   I tried to find the survivors   Those who made it to the stairwells      I carried the wounded to safety   If that's what you might call the street   With bodies and boulders and metal   All crashing down by your feet   As #2 was collapsing   When only ten floors still stood   Everything was falling around me   Like it was made out of cardboard and wood      It was just then I heard someone   Trapped underneath the debris   I started pulling at something   And that's when the fire got me   I was pinned 'neath the rubble   And the flames were licking my coat   And the pain, the unbearable agony   And then that was all that she wrote      But I just wish I could tell you   Before I am taken away   That I've seen a lot of this world   And there's something that I gotta say   I don't believe in politics   I believe in the human race   I believe in the goodness of people   In New York or some far-away place      I believe in my daughter   And I believe in my wife   And may nobody's father be taken   To avenge the loss of my life   People may call me a brave man   And this may very well be   But the firefighters of Kabul   Are just as brave men as me