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CNN Live At Daybreak

Firefighters Have Become Nation's Newest Superstars

Aired November 01, 2001 - 08:54   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Before September 11, when you asked kids what they wanted to be when they grew up, you might hear Michael Jordan, or Britney Spears. Ask them now, and you may hear something else.

CNN Beth Nissen tells us how firefighters have become the nation's newest superstars.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Firefighters have heroism built into their job description. It takes courage and strength both to battle one of the most dangerous, destructive forces on Earth.

DAVID BLANKENHORN, INST. FOR AMERICAN VALUES: They're Heroes because they protect us, you know. They go in, where people are in danger, and they save their lives.

NISSEN: Yet since September 11, firefighters, especially New York City firefighters, have become the subject of a newly pronounced public devotion, reverence, near worship. Firefighters are depicted on magazine covers. Firefighter Halloween customs sold out this year. New York City department stores honor firefighters in window displace.

BLANKENHORN: We are just grateful to them in some real and intense way. I mean, here in New York, people, they go up to these guys at the fire houses and the streets, and they just, you know, want to say how grateful they are.

NISSEN: What turned fire stations into shrines and firefighters into icons is what happened on September 11.

BLANKENHORN: I think the most vivid single, image that people have of September 11, in their minds, besides seeing the towers collapse, is the firefighters going in to rescue people as everyone is trying to get out.

You know what these guys do, there is no moral ambiguity to it. They just go in and get the innocent people. They go in save them. It is like Superman.

NISSEN: That analogy isn't lost on those who create comic book superheroes. John Romita Jr. has been drawing Spiderman since 1980. He is working on a new comic book issue, with Spiderman at ground zero, helping firefighters and rescue workers.

JOHN ROMITA JR. SPIDERMAN ARTIST: Spiderman is secondary. The real hero is the a fireman. They are up front and primary. These people are everyday people, doing superhero-like things.

NISSEN: Romita based sketches on news photographs taken at the World Trade Center after the attacks.

ROMITA: The photographs I dealt with, were all of them, doing things, heroically, grabbing people, holding people, leading people away, in the middle of the heat, in middle of that horror, and working until they took a break, took off their masks, took off their helmets, cried a little bit, took a break, took a drink and went back in there again. I can't, in my mind, thank them enough, all of them, for what are they doing for me, and for my family and for everybody in country.

NISSEN: This new hero worship, say some social scientists, is something of a sea change for Americans growing increasingly cynical.

BLANKENHORN: We have gone from debunking heroes to needing heroes. We are in a time of such danger and such physical vulnerability, and we need to be protected by the strong and the brave.

NISSEN: Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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