WEST HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. (WCBS 880) — A Long Island man has put hundreds of American flags on his front lawn to honor and remember the FDNY firefighters lost on Sept. 11, 2001 ahead of the 20th anniversary of the terror attacks.
Phillip Miller gets emotional as he looks at the more than 300 large American flags in the yard of his West Hempstead home.
"There are 343 flags all representing every firefighter that died on that tragic day," Miller told WCBS 880's Sophia Hall. "I wanted to do something to remember them so they will never be forgotten."
The FDNY firefighter who was at Ground Zero after 9/11 said he has set up the flags since the first anniversary.
"I think about my friends that I lost and their families when I put it out," Miller said. "I was down there for a month on a detail in JAnuary with other people from my company and my group found the remains of a high school buddy of mine, Rich Allen. We were able to recover him and carry him out of the pit."
The flags are put up for two weeks — one week before and one week after Sept. 11.
"There's always a parade of cars stopping, taking pictures. People thank me," Miller said.
Others that he knows also started the yearly tradition of honoring the firefighters lost.
"A good friend of mine, Richie Lang, he lives in Malverne, he started doing the flags as well and then on the 10 year anniversary I went from the little flags to these 4-foot flags and I gave little flags to Ray Cotrado of Engine 301 and he puts them up annually as well," Miller said.
Related
