Any parent whose child dedicates themselves to serving others has reason to be proud, and retired FDNY Capt. Marianne Monahan is no exception.
The New York Post reports that Monahan, who was part of the first FDNY Academy class to include women in 1982, will be decked out in her captain's uniform Wednesday when her son Matthew Fiorito officially graduates and becomes a probationary firefighter in the Big Apple.
“Generally, sons follow in their fathers’ footsteps into the Fire Department,” Monahan told the Post. “To have my son follow in my footsteps ... it’s really a full-circle moment.”
Monahan was a teacher in 1978 when her own mother encouraged her to test for the FDNY after it began accepting women for the first time. She was among 41 women sworn in as the department’s first female probationary firefighters in September 1982.
“When he was a little boy, all he ever wanted was to be a firefighter," Monahan said of her now 27-year-old son. "I have pictures of him when he was 5, wearing my boots and my helmet.”
The days may be long gone when her son could fit into her gear, but Fiorito says he still looks up to his mother after she retired from the department in 2003.
“I couldn’t be prouder to follow in her boots,” Fiorito said. “Obviously, they’re a little smaller than mine.”
Fiorito, who has been an EMT since 2009—first in his hometown of Franklin Square on Long Island and then with the FDNY for the past five years—understands he's becoming a New York City firefighter amid a very different and more tolerant climate than the one his mother entered over 35 years ago.
“Every day (at the academy), it was an eye-opening experience," Fiorito said. "How the department is adapting to how the world is changing, how equipment and tactics have gotten better."
According to the Post, Fiorito's academy class of 313 included five women who will be joining the 72 already among the department's uniformed ranks.
“They work just as hard as we do,” Fiorito said of his female colleagues. “There’s no male or female. It’s brothers and sisters in blue. Firefighters. That’s it.”
