By Adam Kramer
Jonathan Ielpi was sworn in as a New York City firefighter in 1995, just like his father before him and his brother after him, on one of the greatest days in his life. Since he was a child, all Ielpi had ever wanted to do was to follow in his father Lee’s footsteps and work in the Rescue Co. 2 in Brooklyn.
But he never got to Rescue Co. 2. Ielpi and the rest of his Maspeth unit, Squad 288, specially trained in the event of a terrorist attack, was one of the first houses to arrive at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. Ielpi and six other squad members were lost in the disaster.
Ielpi, 29, a former Little Neck resident whose family has strong ties to northeast Queens, was remembered Saturday afternoon in front of more than 750 people, including at least 500 firemen, who came from all over the metropolitan area. There were even 40 firefighters from Orange County, Fla. who were flown up to New York City by the owner of the Orlando Magic Basketball Team.
“When we were younger, we had a playhouse in the backyard,” Melissa Ielpi, his sister, told the crowd that filled St. Aloysius Church in Great Neck and emptied on to the street. “John and his friends used to play firefighter rescue and being the youngest, I resigned myself to being the victim.”
“John and his friends would put smoke bombs in the house and when it filled up with smoke,” she said, “they would run into the house with garden hoses put out the fire and save me.”
On the crisp fall afternoon as a giant United States flag flapped in the wind overhead, firefighters, police officers, and corrections officers lined Middle Neck Road with the church bell gently ringing to honor the fallen hero.
As “Amazing Grace” played in the background, Ielpi’s wife, Yesenia, and their two sons led their family, friends and the members of the two firehouses where he worked — Squad 288 and the Great Neck Vigilant Fire Co. — into the church.
“This is a sad day,” said Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. “The enormity of the loss is impossible to describe and there is nothing I can say to lift this burden of horror and anger.”
Standing on the pulpit between a picture of Ielpi in his dress uniform and another of him in his firefighter’s gear, Giuliani praised the bravery, courage, dedication and the love for human beings that epitomized Ielpi. He told the packed church that their husband, father and friend did not die in vain, that he helped save some 25,000 people.
“Why John did what he did, did not happen by accident,” the mayor told Ielpi’s parents. “You taught him well. And, kids, your dad can’t be taken away because he is inside you.”
Andrew, Ielpi’s 11-year-old son dressed in a fireman’s blue shirt, recalled the times he hunted with his father. He said they had always hunted deer, but this year they had planned to hunt rabbit. “But now we can’t,” he said.
Ielpi always worked hard, but he had that touch of mischief inside, said Patrick Rooney, a friend and fellow firefighter. He described the time Ielpi put a bag of flour on a fan as the captain walked into the room.
“On Sept. 11 many, many, many people lost their lives,” Rooney said. “The hardest moment is every day when I realize I will never see my friend John again. I will miss him.”
A visibly shaken and teary-eyed Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen said the loss of Ielpi was a blow to the Fire Department because he had “a great future ahead of him.” He said Ielpi loved being a fireman and gave all he had. But, Von Essen said, that was expected growing up in a family where his father was a great role model.
“Jonathan was always there to protect me,” said his sister Melissa. “I will always remember him as my brother, my hero, my best friend and today, my guardian angel.”
The fund for Ielpi’s children is the Vigilant Fund for Jonathan Ielpi at 83 Cuttermill Rd., Great Neck, L.I. 11021.
Reach reporter Adam Kramer by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 157.
