9/11: Always in the Back of Every Firefighter's Mind

When the planes hit, and the buildings fell, Ron Larivva was at work, watching the tragedy unfold on TV. 

Two things were immediately clear to the then-Los Angeles County Fire Department captain: The world would never be the same, and he had to get to New York City. 

"9/11 is always going to be in the back of every firefighter's mind,'' said Larivva, now the battalion chief for in La Cañada.

On their own dime, Larivva and several other L.A. County firefighters flew to New York to attend funeral after funeral of firefighters killed amid the chaos and offer support to the grief-stricken families.

The sad fact, Larivva said, was that the New York firefighters were so busy digging through "the pile,'' looking for survivors and recovering the deceased, that they couldn't attend their own colleagues' memorial services. 

The image of Ground Zero is forever seared into his memory, as are the standing ovations he and the other firefighters received whenever they walked into a restaurant.

Mementos Larivva collected from his trip, and pressed into a scrapbook, include a chunk of the burnt exterior from the World Trade Center and cartoons portraying sports legends asking firefighters for their autographs.   

To look at all 911 - that's nine hundred and eleven -  snapshots collected by Patches across the United States, please click here.