Thomas Cullen: True to His
Calling
In
the weeks before his death, as a member of Squad 41 in
the Bronx, Thomas Cullen, 31, studied for the Fire
Department's lieutenant's exam. But even without a test
ahead of him, his wife, Susan, said, his idea of pleasure
reading was an abstruse volume about confined rescue or
some other technical aspect of firefighting. If he worked
in a kind of building he was unfamiliar with, he would
read up on its structural peculiarities.
The couple met in 1992 at Fordham University, where
Tom Cullen took the fire- fighters test and the law
boards as a senior. He came from a family of lawyers, but
"fire was his true love," Mrs. Cullen said. He made
perfect scores on the exam, she said, but then had to
wait four years for an opening, "buying time" as a CPR
instructor and a dean of discipline at a public
school.
Firefighter Cullen's 2-year-old son, Tom, shares the
passion and already can distinguish one kind of truck
from another. Father and son also shared a love of
electric trains. Many nights, after the toddler went to
sleep, his father would add a new twist or turn to the
tracks on the living room floor. Mrs. Cullen continues
the tradition, but with less panache. "Lucky for me he's
not picky," she said.
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