Perhaps it’s the residual effects of the bedtime stories we all heard at one time or another, but there seems to be a great need for us to have a hero, subsequent to some event. As a child, my own particular hero was Judah Maccabee, probably because I associated his name with Chanukah and its gifts, rather than with the fierce battles he waged against the Syrians. In general, the greater the impact of the event, the more larger than life does our hero become until it seems that without him-or her - the world would have drawn close to its final breath.

A little hyperbolic, possibly, but this thought reentered my mind this past week when the tapes of the 9/11 victims’ last conversations - edited, of course to protect the survivors- were released and published by the New York Times.

I was living in New York City at the time of 9/11. My son was working several blocks from the World Trade Center, and as everyone else on that day, I still have a flashbulb memory of where I was when I first heard the news about the Towers. I can still picture Mayor Giuliani running down the street, surrounded by members of his staff, running into the place of darkness and falling ash. When St George races forth to confront the fiery dragon, he becomes our hero, most especially since everyone is fleeing in the opposite way.

I had some misgivings at the time, and as the days passed, some of the information regarding what took place at those unfortunate towers began seeding itself in my mind. Reading the transcripts of the tapes raised questions once again. Victims were given misleading directions by the most well meaning people in the world, people who wanted to help, who wanted to save lives and who were frustrated by their seeming inability to do very much. But the fault, dear Brutus, came from the top. It came from faulty equipment; it came from being inadequately prepared for possible terrorist episodes; it came from not putting money into a state of the art intercom system but instead putting it into a bunker for his honor, the mayor, a bunker which came tumbling down with the towers.

I worked in New York City for many years and have noticed that the fire drills in many of the buildings are haphazard, at best. Compliance is practiced more in absentia than observance and there seems little universality in occurrence. Employers find the drills disruptive, but if there was a code in place that mandated evacuation for every drill, people would be out in the street – maybe for no reason - but in some cases it would be the reason that saved their lives.

It was clear that lives were lost because our then Mayor had his priorities skewed, from personal bunkers to fences keeping New Yorkers away from City Hall. So let’s set the record straight. Rudy Giuliani did what any New York Mayor would have done, only some would have done more before the event to ensure a better outcome. You want heroes? There were heroes that day; they were called fire fighters and they were the St Georges rushing towards the flames.