Firefighter remembered

      It was the trucks that attracted him first. He listened to the sirens and waited for the roaring red machines to pass his house. And then he took off following them as fast and far as his big wheel would take him.
      Joe Hunter wanted to be a firefighter even then.
      Later, when he learned the purpose of the men riding in those trucks, it only made him desire it more.
      "There's that gorgeous guy," said his mother, Bridget, during an interview last week. She was sitting at her kitchen table pointing at a picture of Joe. In it he is flashing one of his 500-watt smiles that made everyone automatically smile back.
      It is the smile that ended all disputes between Joe and his mother even before they started. He would smile and she would melt. End of discussion. Joe had won.
      Everywhere you look there are photos of Joe in that kitchen. And yet his absence is tangible.
      Joe went to work Sept. 11 and never came home.
      In one of many ironies from that day too sad to believe, Joe wasn't scheduled to work. He was saving to buy a house and had put his name on his department's list for overtime.
      Joe belonged to Squad 288 out of Maspeth, Queens. The view from the firehouse looked directly on the Twin Towers. He is one of 18 members missing from his firehouse.
      He would have turned 32 on Sept. 29.

The darkest day
      The first plane rammed into the World Trade Center at 8:48 a.m. Joe's unit was dispatched at 8:50. No one knows what happened to him after that. His friends saw a news clip showing him enter one of the towers but nobody knows which one.
      Bridget said she didn't even think about the possibility that Joe could be among the missing. "It never dawned on me the whole day," she said.
      She figured he was busy helping survivors and hadn't had a chance to call. At some point a family member called his firehouse and was told Joe was out. They couldn't give the family any more information. But Bridget said she doesn't blame them, "They had none to give."
      She could see from the TV that it was a madhouse in lower Manhattan.
      At 9:30 p.m. the family finally got a call from the firehouse but it was not the one they wanted. Joe, they were told, was missing.
      A crowd had already gathered outside the Hunter home on Chester Avenue in South Hempstead. Some were friends he made while attending Rockville Centre schools. Others were buddies from the South Hempstead Fire Department.
      When they weren't at the Hunters, the firefighters were comforting each other at the firehouse just two blocks away. "We pretty much all slept here," Assistant Chief Frank Russo said.
      For five days the group basically held vigil outside the home, Joe's sister, Teresa Labo, said. They were waiting for the call that would say he was in some hospital or had been found alive buried in the debris. "Everybody wanted to be here for that cheering and screaming and celebration," Teresa said.
      But it never happened.

Chasing the dream
      After his initial scramblings down the sidewalk after the big red trucks, Joe might have grown out of the firefighter fantasy many young boys develop and discard. But he didn't.
      He grew into it.
      Joe always wanted to play firefighter as they were growing up, Russo said.
      And when he turned 18 and was finally eligible, Joe entered the same firehouse that housed the trucks he had once chased and joined the South Hempstead Fire Department.
      It became his second home and the place where he developed his second love - drilling. He quickly joined the department's tournament team, the South Hempstead Rascals.
      "I can still remember the first time my dad and I took you to a motorized drill at Hempstead when we were kids," wrote Frank Degen, a member of Baldwin's Hose Company 4, in a letter placed at the fire department's makeshift memorial. "I think you were hooked then."
      Russo said Joe was the best hydrant man in Nassau County, "meaning he could get off the truck, get the hose on the hydrant and turn on the water in fractions of a second."
      In fact, several fire departments were courting Joe for their drill teams.
      
The big league
      Bridget will never forget the day her son told her he wanted to join the New York City Fire Department.
      It was 1994. He said, "Mom, I know exactly what I want to do with my life. I want to be a New York City firefighter. That's my baby."
      Even though she was nervous, Bridget knew she wouldn't be able to talk him out of it and told him to "go for it."
      Joe graduated from the fire department's training academy in 1996 and soon joined up.
      Bridget poured holy water over his first uniform and boots. Every day when he left for work she would say "God bless you."
      One day Joe turned to his mother and said "Mom, I love what I do. If anything ever happens, just know I loved the job."
      When firefighter Brian Fahey was killed fighting a fire on Father's Day, Joe lost a good friend but not his faith in the job. Frank said Joe was one of the first people to say, "This is our job and that's the risk."
      "If anything," Frank continued, "it made him love the job more."
      Joe was planning a fundraiser for Brian's family at the time of the attacks.
      "He surely will be missed," Frank continued. Joe's South Hempstead gear still hangs with the others in the fire house bay, surrounded by flowers and tributes written by his fellow firefighters.
      Teresa said these men were more than brothers to Joe and that he had "complete faith and complete respect" for every one of them.
      You couldn't know Joe and not see his dedication, Russo said. He described Joe as very outgoing and a definite leader, taking new recruits under his wing. "If it wasn't for this, he was probably going to be among the ranks of chiefs soon."
      Joe could be goofing around, joking with the guys in the fire house, but when the siren went off, "he became a man of action," Frank said. He would even reprimand others for fooling around.
      In the city department, Joe was handpicked to join Squad 288. Members of squad units receive specialized training in areas like confined space rescue, collapse rescue and terrorism.
      He was very big on training and safety. According to a tribute written by friends at the South Hempstead Fire Department, Joe could often be found reading, studying and talking fire training.
       Sometimes his dedication to safety became frustrating at home. "Mom that's not safe," Joe would say before going around unplugging all of her small appliances. He even did it at his sister Teresa's. She would go to use something like the toaster and it wouldn't turn on. She'd think it was broken and then remember Joe had stopped by.
      
The family man
      Even more than a month after the attacks, Joe's family can't fathom the depth of their loss. They have yet to plan a memorial service because they are hoping his body will be found.
      "I just can't even believe it," Teresa said.       
      Joe wasn't the first Hunter child to die tragically. Joe Sr., his father, and Bridget lost their daughter, Margaret, in a car accident many years ago. "Another beauty," Bridget said.
      They find comfort knowing Joe and Margaret are together now. But Teresa said they also feel "tortured knowing we won't be able to spend the rest of our lives with him."
      Teresa believes it may have been the loss of Margaret that taught the Hunters to always say what they feel. "[Joe] knew exactly how I felt about him. I was so proud of him and he was so proud of me. My children are going to miss out on a lot by not having him."
      Joe beamed when he was with his two nieces, Teresa said. Joe was Kelsey's godfather and loved her sister, Haley, just as much. One of his favorite activities was to take the girls to watch the drill team races.
      The week of the attack Joe was supposed to look at a house near Teresa's in Wantagh. "I wanted him on my block."
      Joe also has a brother named Sean.
      While attending Covert Elementary School, Joe fell in love with football and played in the Baldwin Bomber's league. He continued to play and made the team at South Side High School. He also enjoyed baseball, hockey and golf. As an adult, he played on the South Hempstead Fire Department softball team.
      Joe also found relaxation playing golf on an arcade game at the South Hempstead fire house. Russo said Joe could often be found in lounge at 2 or 3 a.m., smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, milk, no sugar, and playing the Golden Tee 2K arcade machine. Joe wanted to fill the high score card completely with his name and he was 90 percent there, Russo said.
      When Joe wasn't fire fighting, he could often be found tending bar at Amphoras in Rockville Centre. It was his home away from home, Teresa said.
      Like most good bartenders, Joe was listener. "Joe didn't say much, but when he did everybody listened and nine times out of 10 it was funny," Russo said. If it was a on a serious topic, Russo said, "Everybody took [Joe's] word for truth."
      And he - the quiet, cute one - was often the center of attention. Joe never had to look for girls. They looked for him. "He always had the busiest spot," Teresa said. "Joe didn't know how gorgeous he was."