When I look at self-proclaimed Alphas on social media, I get disheartened. These are not Alphas in the traditional sense the human race has come to rely upon, the ones who fought wars, built cities, and protected the weak.
No, they are too often whiners who have been babied by soft, privileged lives. Their muscles are not leather-tough from hard use, but rather sculpted at Planet Fitness for Instagram. These new Alphas have no moral fiber, no central belief system, and no willingness to get their hands dirty building worlds.
This new breed wouldn’t lend a hand during a catastrophe as shocking as September 11, 2001.
I read this touching tribute to an Alpha named Michael Weinberg written by his friend Gwenn Marsh and wanted to share it. This is how an Alpha reacts when confronted by tragic and overwhelming odds.
READ:
THE FIREFIGHTER
Michael Weinberg, a 34-year-old Manhattan firefighter, was on a golf course in Queens when he heard a plane had hit the World Trade Center. His sister Patricia worked in the second tower. He put down his club and ran.
Traffic strangled every road into Manhattan. He abandoned his car in Long Island City and climbed onto a passing emergency vehicle to get to his firehouse. When he reached it, he geared up and headed toward the towers with Engine 1, Ladder 24. His sister was still inside. He didn’t know if she’d made it out.
She had. He did not.
Michael took shelter beneath a fire truck when the South Tower collapsed at 9:59am. The chaplain was with him. A captain was with him. None of them emerged. He became one of 343 New York City firefighters lost that morning. His father, Morty, a firefighter himself for fifteen years, knew immediately. “I knew he was gone,” he said. There was no ambiguity in his voice, just the certainty of a father who understood exactly what his son had run toward.
Years later, neighbors in Maspeth still spoke about him like he might walk through the door. The golf clubs he never picked back up. The car he left running. The sister who survived because that morning, nothing mattered to him more than reaching her. He never got the chance to see that she had made it out.
His name is etched into a wall with nearly three thousand others now, one line among so many. But behind every single one of them is a story just like his. A person who chose someone they loved over their own safety, in the space of a single decision that took no time at all.
What I did not mention before was that I was at work with Michael’s brother John in midtown Manhattan that day. Our small team grieved his loss together.
Rest easy, Michael. You are not forgotten.
