By Paul J. Condra
The 54-year-old New York City firefighter from East Rockaway was talking about the media waiting to greet him and other U.S. firefighters when they unloaded from a Russian cargo plane in Afghanistan on Dec. 20.
Connors was part of a group charity mission underwritten by Guinness UDV. In a highly publicized event, which may have been the first non-military support lift into the war-torn country, the group of New York City firefighters delivered $50,000 worth of food to about 900 children in an orphanage in Kabul.
They were real sad, you look in their eyes and you see the sadness, said Connors.
Connors, who has been married 17 years and has three children, ages 2, 10 and 16, said he had a hard time communicating with the children in Kabul as he doesn't speak their language. But he said it was interesting exchanging English words with a young boy who started tugging his coat and asking for chocolate. Connors would point to something such as his boot, and say boot, and the boy would repeat it.
I was amazed how quick he picked these things up, he said.
But the trip also allowed firefighters the chance to mingle with American soldiers, share stories, and gain a deeper understanding of how the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 were being felt by Americans on both sides of the world, especially during the holiday season.
One of the first things Connors and his fellow firefighters received when he arrived in Kabul was a grave warning from the military there: Do not walk on anything but concrete.
He said a U.S. soldier there had just lost a foot after stepping on a hidden land-mine.
But Connors is no stranger to such conditions. He, like the other two police officers and four firefighters who joined him, has had extensive military experience. Connors retired from the military as a colonel after 32 years of service. He was an infantry member in Vietnam in 1968-69. He now works as chief of the Fire Department's Fort Totten Operations Center in Queens.
One of the first things he was asked to do in Kabul was join a couple of sharp shooters on a military hangar who couldn't leave their post. He climbed a long ladder to the top of the hanger to meet the soldiers. (His picture appeared in the New York Post but the paper didn't say why he was climbing on to the hangar.)
I put the [NYFD] hats on them and I put my arms around them, Connors said, remarking the soldiers seemed so young to him now that he's been out of the service for a while. It's a different perspective when you're a father. It was like I had my arms around my own son.
He said the soldiers believed in what they were doing and didn't feel sad at not being home for the holidays.
When he came back down from the hangar, he met another group of soldiers and learned that some of them had not told their parents they were in Afghanistan.
I said your mother is gonna be pretty mad, he said, adding that one soldier was willing to give a reason why he absolutely wouldn't tell his mother where he was: He said to me,
