|
 |
|
|
|
Para ver esta página en español, oprima aquí. The VictimsFrankie Serrano: Anything For His Dog…Alexis Leduc: A Born Father… Sgt. 1st Class Jose Orlando Calderon: He Was A Gentleman
Frankie Serrano: Anything For His Dog December 14, 2001
Mr. Serrano, a telecommunications technician at Genuity, a network services provider, lived in Elizabeth, N.J., with his mother and his sister Angie. The three of them were to go to Puerto Rico on Sept. 14 to visit relatives, but Mr. Serrano was going to be back by Sept. 23, to spend his 25th birthday with Miss Gasiorowski. His sport was bowling: he was a member of four leagues in Roselle, N.J. He liked music from the 50's and 60's, rooted for the Mets and the Giants, preferred to eat at McDonald's and dressed only in Ralph Lauren. "Anything else he wouldn't wear," said Ms. Gasiorowski, who now takes care of Dino. "It was kind of crazy and expensive." It would take Mr. Serrano about half an hour, and four elevators, to get from the basement of 1 World Trade Center to his job on the 110th floor, where he worked in a room without windows. "We were the highest around-the-clock tenants," said his supervisor, Joseph Conti. "We were up there 365 days a year."
Alexis Leduc: A Born Father December 16, 2001
Then there were the neighborhood children in the Bronx that Mr. Leduc, 45, was father to. Eddie and Freddie Perez across the street have nice parents, but sometimes when they were younger it was easier for them to discuss things with an outsider. And there is another Elvis, also 21. Elvis Castillo has a good mother, but got into trouble and went to jail. After he was released, he asked to live with the Leducs. He has no siblings, his mother works all day, and the Leduc children are close to him in age. Mr. Leduc made a deal with him: Elvis could stay, if he got a job and helped himself. He found a job, and has lived there since. Mr. Leduc's other great love went right along with being a father. He collected toys. "He was a big kid when it came to Christmas," Mrs. Leduc said. He grew up poor in Puerto Rico and had few toys. When he died, he left behind 100 Spawn figures, 500 toys from McDonald's, 500 toy antique cars, and thousands of baseball cards.
Sgt. 1st Class Jose Orlando Calderon: He Was A Gentleman By DEANNA BELLANDI December 14, 2001 Army Sgt. 1st Class Jose Orlando Calderon had hoped to retire from the Army next year after 20 years of service. It was a job that had sometimes taken him away from home, and "I don't like to stay alone," says his wife, Gloria Calderon. A native of Puerto Rico, Calderon, 44, had held his Pentagon post in the office of the deputy chief of staff for personnel for less than two years. He is one of 125 people who lost their lives on the ground at the Pentagon on Sept. 11. Gloria Calderon met her husband through friends while she was living in Germany. "He was a gentleman," she said. And he looked good to her, too. They married in 1991, not long after they met, and just three days before he left for duty in the Persian Gulf. Gloria Calderon lives with their children, 10-year-old Vanessa and 3-year-old Jose, in Annandale, Virginia. "It's very difficult to understand everything that happened," she said.
|
When Frankie Serrano went shopping for Dino, he spared no expense. "He totally spoiled Dino," said Mr. Serrano's girlfriend, Kristen Gasiorowski. "All the toys he bought him, you can't imagine. It was like it was his child." In fact, Dino was a dog, a year-old Neopolitan mastiff who weighed in at 109 pounds and slept in a king-size dog bed.
Some people are made to be fathers. Alexis Leduc, a maintenance supervisor for Franklin Templeton on the 97th floor of 2 World Trade Center, was like that. He and his wife, Isa, had Adolfo, 23; Cindy, 21; Elvis, 21; and Alexia, 10.