In Step With NYFD

Ventura County firefighter Phil Corsi marched once before in New York’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

But that was two years ago, before the event turned part Irish celebration, part Irish wake. Before St. Patrick’s Cathedral became the backdrop for a numbing string of vigils and funeral processions. Before a terrorist plot changed New York, and the world, forever.

So as he prepares to step onto the New York parade route again Saturday morning, joining a contingent of local firefighters, he knows he is in for a three-mile march weighed heavy with emotion.

“Even before 9/11, [the parade] has always kind of been a tribute to firefighters,” said Corsi, a 30-year-old Ventura resident with firefighting in his blood--and Irish blood in his veins.

“But it’s even more special this year,” he said. “Those guys have been through a lot, and this is our way of paying our respects.”

Dozens of firefighters from the Ventura County and Oxnard fire departments are headed to New York to march in what is billed as the world’s oldest and most famous St. Patrick’s Day parade.

With an estimated 2 million spectators looking on, more than 300,000 marchers are expected to take part in this year’s pageant, which will make its way up Fifth Avenue, past traditional landmarks such as St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The parade was first staged in 1762 by Irish soldiers serving in the British armed forces. But it has evolved over the years into a tribute of sorts to the city’s police and fire personnel, who each year swell the parade’s ranks and infuse the pageant with a Shamrock-green dose of municipal pride.

This year’s event is dedicated to heroes--living and dead--of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, including the hundreds of police officers and firefighters who lost their lives during the World Trade Center attacks.

Cardinal Edward M. Egan, head of the Catholic archdiocese of New York, will serve as grand marshal, stopping along the route to turn toward lower Manhattan--where the twin towers once stood--and lead marchers and spectators in a moment of silence.

The parade route is expected to be especially thick this year with firefighters, not only from New York but from all over the country, in a show of solidarity that has continued since the attacks.

Ventura County firefighters have done their part. From a bachelor auction to breakfast fund-raisers, local firefighters have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the families of the more than 300 New York firefighters who died in the attacks.

Oxnard firefighter Ralph Revelez was among those who traveled to New York in the fall to attend funerals for fallen comrades, standing in for firefighters busy scouring ground zero.

He promised his New York counterparts then that he would try to make it back for St. Patrick’s Day. His plane heads east today.

“It’s just an incredible group of guys over there, and we want to do whatever we can to show our support,” Revelez said. “It’s a big fraternity, really, and we have to look out after each other.”

All the local firefighters headed to New York are using their own time to make the trip and are paying their own way.

Oxnard firefighter Sergio Martinez is also paying to take his 6-year-old son, Julien, and his wife, Tina Marie, who is pregnant with the couple’s second child. She is due to deliver around the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Martinez, 31, has been with the Oxnard Fire Department full time for two years and was a reservist for three years before that. He said he was nearly brought to tears when the World Trade Center buildings collapsed, knowing so many of his comrades were inside.

“I want to go there, meet some of the guys and tell them if there is anything they ever need from us, we’re here for them,” said Martinez, who as a boy, growing up across the street from the Oxnard station where he now works, dreamed of becoming a firefighter.

“I also want to go there to see for myself,” he said. “I want to never forget how important this job is.”

Corsi wants to remember, too. It is the most important part of why he is returning to Fifth Avenue, joining hundreds of thousands of others--including his father, Oxnard fire engineer Fred Corsi--on the parade route.

“People get on with their lives, that’s human nature,” Phil Corsi said. “But we can’t forget. Those [New York firefighters] live with this every day of their lives. They are still looking for their brothers who are buried. They’ve been punched pretty hard and we want to help them fight back.”