All language subtitles for After.the.Sky.Fell.on.Lockerbie.S01E02.Part.2.1080p.PCOK.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

We had no clue what
the hell was going on,

and we were very pissed off.

Pan Am jumbo
jet with 258 people on board.

First pictures

from the devastated
town of Lockerbie.

Both
Scotland and England

were strewn with wreckage.

The
explosive leaves no trace.

There was no
indication that there was

anything out of the norm on this
aircraft this evening.

Attention.

They were too afraid
because of the ongoing threat

of Gaddafi wanting to
bomb American planes.

What isn't in doubt is that
David Cameron shares many

of the same views on the value

of intervention as Tony Blair.

The question, what is it gonna
mean for us in the future?

Yeah, it's just complicated.

How could this happen?

Why wasn't more done?

It felt like we were
reliving this again.

Open it up.

I feel like I've spent
a lot of my life trying

to find a book about
somebody who's walked

through grief like this,
like, some sort of resource.

And I haven't, and
someone said to me once,

like, "Maybe that's because
you're supposed to do that."

Like, grief is real even
when you are walking

through grieving somebody
you never got to know.

I was 11 months old
when my mom died,

and when, you know, my
first baby turned 11 months,

like, that was hard.

I'm gonna cry thinking about it.

Just to realize, like, that's
how old I was when she died,

like, I was a baby, but, like,

I can't imagine,
like, being ripped

out of my son's life, too,

and, like, all that
I would've missed.

Like, it's so sad. It's tragic.

So sorry, now I'm
crying.

It was my grandfather,
my uncle, and my mom.

They all went to London for
a four- or five-day trip,

but I believe it was
actually supposed to be him

and my grandmother that were
gonna go on the trip together.

But she had had a heart
attack that summer previous.

And so my mom spent a lotta
time taking care of her.

So as a thank you gift, my
grandfather invited her,

and then my uncle just
decided to go along with them

for this little adventure.

I, like, vividly remember
looking at myself in the mirror,

and I look just like her,

and it, like, kinda
scared me a little bit

'cause, you know, I have so
much of this person in me

that I don't even know.

So we have lots of
photos of that day.

I was part of the
dedication that day,

so President Clinton was
there, and he gave a speech.

I was, gosh, it was
'95, so I was seven.

It was myself and three
other kids were part

of the actual ceremony that day.

And we laid flowers with him.

I remember there were a lot
of people there.

And-

There you go.

11 years
ago, the nose cone

of the plane landed in a
field beside the church.

800 square miles
of both Scotland

and England were
strewn with wreckage,

each tiny piece a potentially
key piece of evidence.

The army, the police,
and civilian volunteers

painstakingly gathered
all the debris.

And it's from these fragments
the prosecution will build

its case against the
two Libyan accused

who deny any involvement in
the destruction of Pan Am 103.

Forensic
tests established

that the bomb was hidden in a
Toshiba radio cassette player

concealed under
clothes in a suitcase.

The investigation
proved wide ranging,

and theory is abundant.

11 years on, and
the tears are still flowing

as the relatives of the
victims of Lockerbie arrive,

finally, for tomorrow's trial.

- I may be able to see
these guys go to jail

and live long enough
to see 'em get out.

And that's not justice.

It's, like, no doubt
that they were guilty.

I don't know what
they were thinking.

Their lawyers, they
didn't have a defense.

They just asked questions,
but they didn't-

Right.

- Didn't put up any
defense of their own.

Right.

- They just thought
they'd get off

for some magical
reason, and they didn't.

Outside,
many said they found

the guilty verdict
quite overwhelming.

We all heaved
a sigh of relief,

and we all held each other's
hands, and we hugged,

and you know, but there's
no noise in the court,

just a gasp.

Exactly how
al-Megrahi managed to smuggle

a bomb through Malta airport
has never been explained.

But the judges were
satisfied that he did.

No wonder this trial
has taken its toll.

These people have spent 12
years waiting for explanations,

12 years praying for justice.

This man was found guilty
of murdering 270 people.

20 years is less than
a month per victim.

And somehow that doesn't
sit right with me.

Megrahi's brother
gestured as he left court.

The relatives are
left with a culprit

but not the whole truth.

This judgment makes clear
that Megrahi wasn't alone.

The other men who planned this
crime are still free tonight.

It's highly unlikely
they will ever be caught.

It was all over the news.

I mean, at least in
the United States,

you couldn't turn the channel

and not see a talk show,
a interview, a radio show.

And I was on one of them.

I mean, Theo's parents
asked me to go to London

and be interviewed by Diane
Sawyer on "Primetime Live."

And I did that because I
was very guilty at the time,

and I would've done anything.

I don't know if I
would've done that today,

because I did feel like
my story was twisted.

I know now how to take
better care of myself.

But as a 20-year-old
student who's just been

through a tragedy like
that, I didn't, so I felt,

yeah, it's just complicated,
and it's important to tell,

you know, like, news, and
it's important we have news,

but there's just gotta be
a better way of doing it

in the care of the people
that you are interviewing.

- Did
you get any guidance

from anyone in government?

- Absolutely none,
absolutely none.

That, to me, is one of the
positives that has come

out of this tragedy because
the families created

a very solid group to
support one another

that exists to this
day in many ways

and lobbied very strongly
to the US government

to make changes,
so many of the ways

that you take for
granted when you fly

in the United States are the
result of what the victims

of Pan Am families did.

Victims of Pan Am
Flight 103, or VPAF 103,

is the largest US-based family
organization for the families

and friends of those who
were killed on Flight 103.

It has four purposes.

The first is to seek the
truth about this tragedy.

The second is to support
family and friends.

The third is to advocate for
increased safety for travel,

especially air travel, and
finally to combat terrorism

and support national security.

There have been many
terrible tragedies like that

that do not necessarily wind up

with active groups as
Pan Am 103, VPAF 103 is.

I think it has, in some
ways, helped in that sense

of purpose but also in
the sense of comradery

that we are together in this
situation, in this tragedy,

and we can help one another.

I'm the Pan Am
103 archivist here

at Syracuse
University Libraries.

So I have responsibility
for the collecting

and care of all
of our collections

that have to do
with the disaster.

We hold over 400 linear
feet of material,

roughly 120 collections
that are available

for public research,

everything from investigative
photos turned personal effects

that have been donated
by victims' families,

first-person accounts
of the experience

in Lockerbie that night,
and the beginnings

of the investigation,
all the way through

to documentation of the
construction of memorials,

materials about the trial,
legislation for aviation

security that came out of Pan Am
103 so a whole range of

materials if it has to do
with the disaster.

There's a woman
named Carol Eckersley

who discovered in
searching for a child

that she had given for
adoption that he was one

of the victims on
board the flight.

And whenever Carol comes,
she makes a point of coming

to the archives and
looking at the things

that we hold about Ken, her son.

Both of Ken's adoptive
parents passed

before Carol, you know,
discovered this information.

And it's almost as if they
donated these things for her,

thinking that maybe Carol
would come looking someday.

It's incredibly touching
to spend time with her

when she's looking through these
artifacts of his childhood.

Ken wanted to be a comic
book illustrator at one point

in his life, and we have
these fantastic comic books

that he created and all of
his drawings from school.

And hers is just one of
the more personal stories

and interactions
that comes to mind.

It's always lovely to see
them come through the doors

during Remembrance Week.

Early on, I remember a
meeting at a restaurant

in Northern New Jersey
called the Crow's Nest.

I think that was our first
official victims' group meeting.

And we had a group of us
who tried to help organize

the victims' family members.

There were parents of loved
ones, there were spouses,

there were children, and
nobody really knew what to do.

And so we met with congressmen
and senators on Capitol Hill,

and I can remember going
with my mother to meet

with the Senate staffers,

and everybody would have
pictures of, in our case,

my sister Lynn and
all the other victims.

And we just demanded
that they listen to us

and that they talk about the
state of aviation security,

which was one of our
primary concerns as well.

How could a bomb
end up on a plane

and blow an airplane
like this out of the sky?

American 11,

climb and maintain at
level three five zero.

American 11, Boston.

Mike
Lima, how do you hear?

Mike Lima has
you loud and clear.

American 11, Boston.

This is Boston.

I turned American 20 left,
and I was gonna climb him.

He will not respond to me now.

We
have some planes.

Just stay quiet,
and you'll be okay.

We are returning to the airport.

- Is he inbound to JFK?
- We don't know.

You don't
know where he is at all?

He's being hijacked.

The pilot's having
a hard time talking.

So I mean, we don't know.

We don't know where he's going.

Of course, when 9/11 happened
here in the United States,

that became
predominantly the story

about a terrorist
attack, as it should.

But people don't realize that
there was this other incident

that happened prior
to that that was

really the first terrorist
attack on American civilians.

Some young people don't know
that this ever happened.

So I like that it's
brought up so people know

that there's a longer
history to this kind of loss

and this kind of
collateral damage

that is created by geopolitics,

the power of that and how we
need to continue to strive

to stop that warfare, you know.

That's the sun
shining through what used

to be the World Trade Center.

All of the victims
probably felt like we did.

We were just shocked and felt

like we were
reliving this again.

How could this happen?

How could terrorists
get onto airplanes

and hijack them in this manner?

I think the natural
feeling from anybody

in our position is,
why wasn't more done?

It was horrifying to see
another group of victims die,

and victims' family
members now have to deal

with the horror of the
aftermath of tragically losing

someone you loved in a
senseless act of violence.

- Should we
tell 'em the story?

You may edit
this out or whatever.

Kathy Tedeschi lived at the
time in Princeton, New Jersey.

- That's right.
- Okay.

She wrote something in
her community paper,

and she said, "I am so
sorry we failed you."

But what she said
is, "We survived.

We lived through 103.

You can live through 9/11."

Right.

And this one woman

and her therapist called
her immediately and said,

"We're having a support
group meeting in the library

in the Jewish Community Center.

You'll be there, right?"

Right, so Kathy called
us 'cause she said

there may be people
there who lost children.

"And you might
come to a meeting"-

- Right.
- "the first meeting

- just to talk to people."
- Right.

So we went there for
two and a half years.

- For two and a half years.
- Every Wednesday.

I mean,
we're the only ones

that they can
relate to, you know?

And as badly as our
government treated us,

they treated them worse.

Yeah, and the stories

they would tell would
be heartbreaking.

Yeah.

Bob did a lot of work
on aviation security

and so forth, especially
in the beginning.

The problem was

that the airlines didn't
wanna pay for security.

They needed to have pilots,

they needed to have
flight attendants,

they needed to have gas.

They needed those things,

but they didn't need
the security to fly,

so they tried to
save money on that.

They dragged their
feet on a lot of stuff.

Could have been prevented.

At this point in time
from the family members

that I have the
privilege of knowing,

they've become quite
savvy, I think,

and have been really
helpful to other families,

and communities, and
groups who have experienced

subsequent high-profile
disasters or traumas.

So whether that be
Oklahoma City, TWA, 9/11,

they've taken that
experience, and their trauma,

and what they learned, and
are passing it on to others

who unfortunately are gonna
have to go through that.

- But does
that mean, Leader Gaddafi,

does that mean supporting
people who place bombs

and who kill and
maim innocent people?

- We are not responsible
about these means.

Who would've believed it?

Libya and Britain, Gaddafi
and Blair shoulder to shoulder

in the war on terror.

Deals done today with
Shell for gas exploration

with British airspace
to build an airport.

One man who tried to sponsor
terrorism in Britain,

another who condemns
it at every step,

but today they're united,
Al-Qaeda a common enemy,

proof once again that my
enemy's enemy is my friend.

The Lockerbie
bomber was not in court today

to give up his fight
to prove his innocence.

His terminal prostate cancer
now worsened considerably,

said his barrister, his
prognosis extremely limited.

As soon as news broke last week

that he might be released
on compassionate grounds,

they made it very clear
they wanted al-Megrahi

to stay in jail in
Scotland and die here.

In light of the
circumstances laid

before us that we
grant that leave.

The only man to be convicted

for the worst terrorist atrocity
on British soil had served

just eight of the
minimum 27 years

of his life sentence
in Greenock Prison.

Al-Megrahi leaves prison
to return to Libya

to his family and to die.

But he leaves behind
him unanswered questions

about the Lockerbie bombing

and a storm of
international protest.

It was
not a political deal,

they said, but compassion.

Abdelbaset
al-Megrahi boarded his plane

to Tripoli just two hours after
Scotland's justice minister

had confirmed he
was to be released.

It didn't feel like
closure of any kind

because I felt like we're
never really gonna know all

of the chess pieces
that were happening

between the United States and
Libya, United States and Iran,

and all the little pieces
that were being moved around

that we don't even know about.

But some have come to light,
much of which has come

to light by the work of "My
Brother's Bomber" documentary

and all of the work that
he did to uncover so much.

It's gonna be long.

You know, I hope I'm still
alive by the time they get

through with this
because they're talking-

- Years.
- years of discovery.

We've seen the boxes from
the floor to the ceiling

that the Lockerbie police
are holding with evidence.

And then they're gonna
get evidence from Germany,

and they're gonna get evidence
from Switzerland, so if-

- And Malta.
- And Malta,

and it's going to be
a long, long process.

The new suspect
is Abu Agila Mohammad Mas'ud,

who's already
behind bars in Libya

on separate bomb-making charges.

The US alleges he conspired

with a fellow intelligence
official, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi,

the only man ever
convicted of the bombing.

Is the truth here in Libya?

Are there more answers to come?

I know that this is a part
of the process of justice.

I know that because
that's the profession

that I chose to be in.

You know, money recovered in
a civil lawsuit, a conviction,

and jail term is another way
that we, in civilized society,

try to compensate victims and
try to address wrongdoing.

But at the end of the day, you
have to really come to terms

with what's happened
to you and your family.

And you have to
make a determination

about how you're gonna live
your life in the wake of that.

Some people were so
consumed by anger

that they really became
not effectively functional,

and they became embittered,

and kind of, you know, I think
their lives were difficult

and probably shortened
by what had happened.

Some people poured
themselves into writing.

Some people became
very spiritual.

Some people tried
to help others,

and so a lot of different
reactions to it.

And mine was to be purposeful,
to try and think my career

as a prosecutor is an outgrowth
of what happened to me.

I think my activity with
the Victims of Pan Am Group

was certainly a reaction from me

to wanna do something
to help people.

In October of '88, he
wrote a philosophy of life,

which has been
meaningful to people.

What does he say?

"So analytical tonight,
feeling old at 20,

the lost innocence of youth.

Don't sit back. Make
the most of everything.

Do all you can while you can.

Life is a one-time deal.

You can't ever redo what
you miss the first time.

The opportunity is here.

Stop looking past it.

December 21st is going
to be a great day,

but so is October 10th.

Be aggressive, be fun, go crazy.

There is no reason to hold
anything back, nothing to lose."

One of Rick's
Remembrance Scholars had

a tattoo on her wrist.

Yes.

So she's a second
lieutenant in the army

in Korea right now,
but on her wrist,

it says, "Nothing to lose."

Right.

And actually, it's
in Rick's script.

She was just really a
beautiful, beautiful person,

happy, a big personality,
and she used to like

to drive my convertible
when I wasn't around

I found out, and once
drove it out of gas,

and had to figure out
a way to gas it up

on the side of the road.

I wouldn't call her mischievous.

So that was a little out
of character for her.

But she loved life, and so

it's really not fair

that she got robbed of it
'cause she really embraced it.

But I think that she is
probably looking down on us

and hopefully is proud
of the way we handled

the circumstances
surrounding her leaving us.

So that's what I like to
think of when I think of her.

Sorry for the emotion.

Three decades later,
it still comes out.

- I know there's, I don't
know which one it is,

but my grandfather, so my
mom's dad who was with her

when he was
stationed in Somalia,

he would write her letters,

and I know there's one
specifically,

and I wanna say these
are from, like, 1986,

maybe even sooner than that.

Yeah, 1986, just
about how, you know,

some of the men he
was working with,

their wives wanted to visit,
but they were too afraid

because of the, like, ongoing
threat of Gaddafi wanting

to bomb American planes.

I'm like, how ironic that
he wrote that in a letter,

and two years later.

* Homeland Security, please
lay your weapons down *

* Homeland Security *

* Please lay your weapons down *

* This is a rich man's war *

* What is the poor
man fighting for *

* This is a rich man's war *

* What is the poor
man fighting for *

* Roadside bombing
and beheading *

* Done got outta hand *

* Roadside bombing
and beheading *

* Done got outta hand *

* This is a rich man's war *

Prime minister, we've
just come into Tripoli

surrounded by intense security.

Has our involvement here
really been worth it?

- Yes, it has, because
we helped to get rid

of a brutal dictator,
Colonel Gaddafi,

who didn't just brutalize
the Libyan people.

He gave Semtex to the
IRA, killing our citizens.

He helped blow up an
airliner over Lockerbie,

and his people killed
Yvonne Fletcher

on the streets of London, so
of course, Libya is better off,

and we are better off
because Libya is better off.

Is it it difficult?
Is it hard work?

Is it a long road
to genuine democracy

and a secure country?

Yes, of course, it is.

One can debate how
successful our involvement

in Libya has really been.

But what isn't in doubt is
that David Cameron shares many

of the same views on the value

of intervention as Tony Blair.

The question, what is it gonna
mean for us in the future?

I don't want history to
continue to repeat itself.

So I do want people to
know about this tragedy.

I felt like people didn't listen

to us here in the United States
when we went to Congress,

and we said if they
didn't do something,

it was gonna happen here.

And then 9/11 happened
because they didn't listen.

The
fire is still burning,

but from it has emerged
a stronger spirit,

a more unified country,
a more unified city,

and a more unified world in
the goal of making certain

that something like this
never happens again.

We are telling these
stories to bring a humanity

to situations like
these that are born

out of diplomatic war,
geopolitical situations

that we believe don't affect us,

but this bomb was being made,

and this plan was being laid out

during my two years in college.

And I had no idea that
this was heading directly

for me and for everyone who
knew someone on that plane,

nor did the people
on that plane know.

But all of the
geopolitical decisions

and ramifications of one
discotheque being bombed here

and retribution by
the US in Libya,

we watch that every day
glazed over on our news,

and we don't think it
has the possibility

of ramming into our
lives and huge political

and human toll that it can take,

not just for us,
but for them, too.

And you don't understand
the human cost

until you know the human.

And I want people to
know these people,

and the students
to know the legacy

that they are carrying
when they're a scholar,

and the importance of not
just knowing this person

but knowing this
person and taking

that into the future
when they think

about situations like this.

The Legacy Award is an
award that was started

by the Victims of
Pan Am Flight 103.

One of the recent scholars
works for a US government agency

that is very much involved
in terrorism prevention.

There is another
scholar, a scientist,

who is actually working

on preventing missiles
from striking.

There's another scholar
who was in the military

when he was doing
his graduate program

and has returned to the military
for counterintelligence,

so just three examples of that.

You can become very cynical

and very worried that
the world is going bad.

But when I look at the scholars,

when I look at the young
people that I deal with

through the Remembrance
and Lockerbie Scholarship,

I realize there's a lot
of hope for the world.

The Lockerbie Scholars
are two students

from Lockerbie Academy in
Scotland who are selected

and come to Syracuse for one
year as visiting scholars.

The Lockerbie Scholars are
ambassadors at a very young age,

and they're always very good.

There's us two,
and then there's

the 35, like, Syracuse
Remembrance Scholars

'cause there was
35 on the plane.

So each person that is
a Remembrance Scholar

represents one
person on the plane.

The two Lockerbie
Scholars each year,

one represents Andrew McClune,

and then the other
represents the people

in Lockerbie that
died on the ground.

In the archives
at the library,

there's things from
each of the students,

and the Remembrance Scholars
go into the archives

and see who they relate
to by student activities,

by geography, by whatever.

When one scholar met us, and
she started quoting things

that Rick wrote 30
years ago word for word,

and saying, "Remember
when Rick wrote this?"

I go, "No, I don't remember."

But she read every
damn thing he wrote.

Yeah.

I represent Nicholas
Andreas Vrenios.

A story of his that
really resonates

with me is "Youthfulness."

He said, even though
we're growing, you know,

we still have to
keep the kid inside

of us just for
positivity reasons.

We both have a love for music.

And I've gone to explore
the magic of Pink Floyd

thanks to him as well
as the magic of reggae.

I'm just more than happy to
educate others about him.

I was chosen this year
to represent Wendy Lincoln.

I was also the first
student veteran

who has ever been selected for
the Remembrance Scholarship.

And I'm super proud of
that and very honored.

And it's just, it's
an amazing experience

to remember the victims and
to carry on their legacies.

I want to be for others what
I wish I had to look up to.

During Remembrance Week,
which is usually in October,

the Lockerbie Scholars
are usually in the corners

of the room not
talking to anybody

'cause there's, like,
10 times more people

in Syracuse University
than live in Lockerbie,

so they were kids.

Claire was a kid, but
she didn't know it.

So Claire
was very talkative

and very demonstrative,
and we connected with her.

When she left Lockerbie,

she and her father
were at loggerheads.

Colin was a policeman,
and he was Scottish,

and he didn't talk
about nothing.

He was also the
youngest policeman.

He had just graduated from the
academy, the police academy,

I mean, like, a couple of
weeks before the tragedy.

So not a meeting
of the minds there.

But she came home in
June, the following June,

and she said to her dad, "I
understand what you went through

because I went to the archives.

I found all this stuff,
talked to these scholars,

and they filled me
in on what happened.

Now, I know."

And they started dialoguing,

and Colin started
talking about it.

Mm-hmm.

First time he ever
talked about it.

So it was 20 years
after the fact

that he finally started
talking about what happened.

And you've noticed he hasn't
stopped talking about it.

All the stuff that he
kept buried has come out.

Yeah.

He takes
anybody you want on a tour.

Yeah.

He thinks he's
the ambassador, which he is.

But it's just been
wonderful to see

his connection with
Syracuse and the way

that the town has come
connected also to Syracuse.

As the first
victims of the doomed jumbo jet

began their journey
home to America tonight,

the town of Lockerbie
turned out to grieve.

Parade, attention.

An honor
guard was formed

from the policeman who
worked so tirelessly

to search out the victims.

The chief constable
gave the salute,

standing in the high
street of the town,

Pan Am stewardesses struggling
with their emotions.

The soldiers on the
mountain rescue teams

with their dogs watched as
the final journey began,

the people of America and
Scotland united in grief.

We represent the
Scottish side of the link

between Lockerbie and Syracuse.

And it's,
like, making something good

out of something bad, like,
look back, act forward.

And it's connecting people
as well from here and there,

you know, 'cause they found a
suspect, like, very recently.

But it's still,
like, an incident

that is technically ongoing.

But I think there is still
the ability to, like, move on

from that, regardless of the
fact that it's an ongoing case

and regardless of the fact
that, on a technical level,

there isn't any, like, closure.

People have still
been able to move on.

I think that's important.

Group of
cyclists now on route

on their final leg of a journey

from Lockerbie,
Scotland, to Syracuse.

They left from Central Park

in New York City
early this morning.

The group is made up
of first responders

who are making the trip to
mark the 30th anniversary

of the bombing of
Pan Am Flight 103.

The cyclists are first
responders who were called

to duty the night of
December 21st, 1988,

when 270 people died in
the terrorist bombing,

including 35 Syracuse
University students.

- The cyclists are expected to-
- This picture is

when they arrived
in Philadelphia.

And in fact, they are in
front of Independence Hall

where our Declaration
of Independence

and our Constitution
were signed.

My friends in Syracuse
participated in that.

Both of them, like me, are
former United States attorneys.

They actually both rode
certain legs of the trip,

Dan French and Glenn Suddaby.

These are kind of dear friends
who I met professionally

during my career with
the Justice Department,

both of whom served as
United States attorneys,

like I did, before me, and so
for them to kind of fly over

to Lockerbie with us to be
there when I went up to the site

where my sister's
body was found,

it was just a beautiful
act of friendship

that I really
appreciate them doing.

60 tons of equipment
here all landed

between that row of houses there

and that row of houses there,

which meant that people

like Peter were largely
physically uninjured.

But the mental scars
were another thing.

Got an email out of
the blue from a chap

called Rick Otenasek,
and Rick explained

that his mum lived
near Baltimore.

So when we were in the
US, would we mind stopping

to meet his mum?

Rick had laid on, I
think, a reception.

Half the local town arrived
at the sheriff's office

where there was press and, you
know, a lot of family members

and things like that.

And this car pulls
up, and Peggy gets

outta the passenger seat
clutching a photograph

of her daughter and a pebble.

The connections in
Lockerbie have made me realize

the global community in
which this tragedy created

and the healing that
exists within that.

Even though they live
thousands of miles away,

I feel very close to them.

And you know, my daughter's
about to go to England

for school, and everyone's like,

"How are you able to do that?

Aren't you scared?

Aren't you worried?"

And I'm the one that's
been pushing her.

I was like, "Go experience life.

Go meet people
from other places.

Go to uni there where
you can meet people

coming from Europe.

Go expand.

You have this
incredible opportunity,

and it shouldn't be
stopped by my experience."

And it wasn't about being there.

It was about what happened
when they tried to go home.

So it has no connection.

It's about choosing the
paths that you wanna choose.

And I'm really happy I chose
the fire service as my path.

You know, I'm
very lucky, very lucky.

Yes, we have to deal
with traumatic things,

but we sometimes help people,

which is what we join for.

We can't wait to take
our kids to Lockerbie.

Like, this is their
story, too, you know.

You get to know their stories,

you get to know their families,

and it just is so much bigger,

and it means more, and
course, it's sad, it's tragic.

These are the people
that have gone,

but it's, like, all
these people now

that are also in my circle,

and I'm sure it's so much
bigger than I even comprehend,

the connections
that have been made.

Do we have a picture
of the orchid in there?

- No.
- Of course, I do.

Oh.

I got a picture everything.

I know, I know.

Last summer,

several of Rick's Remembrance
Scholars came to our house.

Maddie came from Michigan.

Maddie came from Upstate
New, where is she?

Maddie came from
Upstate New York.

Right, before
she went into this-

- Right-
- active service.

And Kylie, we didn't
get to meet in person

because she was a COVID
Remembrance Scholar.

But she came from
King of Prussia.

Maddie Messare brought
this as a gift,

which was nice.

It bloomed. It was beautiful.

But the flowers all
died over the winter.

I cut off the stems.

Two new stems came up,
and we got more flowers.

- And we have more flowers.
- So, I sent her a picture

of it saying, "You
know, this gift keeps

on giving over and over again.

- Right.
- She was happy.

Oh.