Good morning. It's Friday, and it's Veterans Day. We'll look at how a search for World War II veterans led to a 99-year-old man who drove a Sherman tank through France after D-Day. We'll also meet someone who did a double take the first time she saw her name on the doors leading to her office — New York City's new fire commissioner. |
 | | Via Museum of American Armor |
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Anticipating Veterans Day, the Museum of American Armor on Long Island spread the word about a "last call" for men who had served on Sherman tank crews in World War II. The museum put advertisements in local newspapers, postings on social media and notices on veterans' hall bulletin boards. |
Museum officials figured they would hear from someone. Just under 50,000 Sherman tanks were manufactured, and considering that each tank had a crew of five, hundreds of thousands of G.I.s were trained to drive them or fire the guns. |
But no one answered the museum's ads. |
The museum was well aware that the roll call from World War II — soldiers and sailors now in their 90s, or older — is growing shorter every year. Of the 16.5 million Americans who served in World War II, just under 99 percent have died, according to the National World War II Museum. |
The museum had all but given up when a museum volunteer went to a diner less than three miles from the museum. He noticed, behind the cash register as he paid the check, a black-and-white photograph of a soldier standing next to a Sherman tank. There was a name under the photograph: Julius Fiorini. |
The museum tracked down Fiorini, now 99, and decided to get a jump on Veterans Day with a ceremony on Thursday that he attended. |
Fiorini was part of a tank crew that drove across France after D-Day. His son Tom, 71, said his father had received a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. |
He did not talk much about the war, his family said. His grandson Thomas Jr. wrote in a reminiscence that he had not known about the Bronze Star until his grandfather took out his medals recently and put them on the wall, something he had never done before. Occasionally Fiorini talked about pulling his lieutenant from the burning wreckage of his tank during a firefight. |
Another story was about a bullet that struck his hand while Fiorini was standing next to the tank. "The bullet, I think it went through his hand and was stuck in the side of the tank," Tom Fiorini said. It did not stop Julius Fiorini from returning to the job he had held before he joined the Army, as a butcher at a supermarket warehouse in the Bronx. |
Thomas Jr. wrote in the reminiscence that when he asked the what-was-it-like questions that children put to grandparents, Fiorini's only reply was, "War is hell, kid." Or saying, on the subject of fighting under General George Patton: "It was his courage and our blood." |
"We were hoping for glorious war stories," Thomas Jr. wrote in the reminiscence. "The best we got from him was how filthy they were and how they could never get comfortable because their bodies were covered in lice. Their greatest luxury was turning over their helmets and filling them with soap and water for an occasional bath." |
The Veterans Day parade in New York City today will begin at 12:30 p.m., marching north from 26th Street and Fifth Avenue. |
Expect showers and, at night, possible wind gusts and a thunderstorm as rain from Tropical Storm Nicole arrives. Temperatures are steady in the mid to high 60s. |
Suspended today (Veterans Day). |
 | | Ted Shaffrey/Associated Press |
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A commissioner who was surprised to see her name on the door |
 | | Jeenah Moon for The New York Times |
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When Mayor Eric Adams called Laura Kavanagh into his office at City Hall and told her he was appointing her fire commissioner, she exclaimed, "Wait, can you say that twice? Did you really just say that?" |
Kavanagh, who had been the acting fire commissioner since Daniel Nigro retired in February, did another double take the day after her appointment became official: She was taken aback by the brand-new decal on the frosted-glass doors outside her office that said "Laura Kavanagh, Fire Commissioner." |
Kavanagh has never been a firefighter, but she has eight years of experience in high-ranking administrative jobs in the department. She is the first woman to serve as commissioner and, at 40, the youngest commissioner in more than a century. |
She has promised to make the Fire Department more diverse in race and gender, a pledge that would require delicate politicking. It would also require her to confront the culture of a department that has been predominantly white and male for decades. There are only 144 female firefighters among the 10,770 rank-and-file employees who answer to her. And the department has faced several suits from Black employees; it handed out a rash of suspensions after white firefighters shared racist messages after the death of George Floyd in 2020. |
Since her appointment as commissioner, Kavanagh has received support from several firefighter associations, including the Vulcan Society, a fraternal organization of Black firefighters. Dellon Morgan, its president, said in a statement that he has "a good relationship with Commissioner Kavanagh" and that they had accomplished a lot together. |
Kavanagh said she has been to all 39 emergency medical service stations and most of the city's 218 firehouses — many of them on visits early in the pandemic, when hundreds of emergency service workers tested positive for the coronavirus after taking sick patients to hospitals day after day. |
For Kavanagh, one-on-one encounters with Fire Department employees came more easily than being a public figure did. She said was so introverted as a child that she almost did not get into kindergarten — she was too shy to speak with school administrators. She has practiced public speaking for years and has adjusted to being on camera in front of microphones. She has also become used to being recognized in public, even when she is wearing a baseball cap and jeans. |
Kavanagh was brought into the Fire Department in 2014 under Mayor Bill de Blasio — the same year the Vulcan Society was part of a settlement over the racial makeup of the department — and helped to assemble one of the most diverse graduating classes of firefighters. Now she supports a package of bills passed recently by the City Council that seeks to remedy longstanding issues of racial and gender diversity. Those measures include a survey of firehouses to ensure they can better accommodate women, along with mandatory public reports on employment opportunity complaints. |
Jackie-Michelle Martinez, president of the United Women Firefighters Association, applauded Kavanagh's appointment. But some female firefighters feel that Kavanagh could have done more for them in her past Fire Department jobs. They say that sexism in male-dominated firehouses, insufficient efforts to recruit women and lack of sufficient training for the physical exam are still issues, though they predate Kavanagh's time as commissioner. |
Sarinya Srisakul, who is a lieutenant, said she has little confidence that Kavanagh will address those concerns. |
"It's great that the glass ceiling has broken for F.D.N.Y. commissioner," she said. "But Laura Kavanagh won't do anything meaningful in changing any sexist structural issues for the women firefighters who work under her." |
I was on my way to work early on a late summer morning. My car was parked on Broadway near the Tortoise and Hare statue at Van Cortlandt Park. |
The parade grounds were shrouded in a beautiful fog. The sky was a brilliant swirl of orange and pink. Plumes of magenta mist rose from the field. |
I stopped to gaze and take a photo. I noticed a man nearby was also taking pictures. |
"Wow," I said, "what a beautiful day." |
"I am taking photos of U.F.O.s," he said. "I see them here all the time." |
I glanced toward the sky. |
"Oh, cool," I said, and then backed away toward my car. |
Glad we could get together here. See you on Monday. — J.B. |
| Melissa Guerrero, Ed Shanahan and Chelsia Rose Marcius contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
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