{"id":395469,"date":"2026-09-10T03:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T03:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/395469\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T03:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T03:32:10","slug":"hillsborough-firefighter-honors-relatives-that-died-on-9-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/395469\/","title":{"rendered":"Hillsborough firefighter honors relatives that died on 9\/11"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 A Hillsborough County firefighter is honoring relatives killed on 9\/11, while reflecting on the tragedy almost 25 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of times they say, I wish we could go back to September 12th, everybody was friendly,\u201d said Battalion Chief Brian Muldowney with Hillsborough County Fire Rescue. \u201cI want to go back to the 10th. I had my brother. It\u2019s tough, every day is tough.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A tough 25 years, says Chief Muldowney, who lost his brother in the terrorist attacks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe saw the video of him and his crew walking up to the towers, and we knew it was my brother because he had a big shamrock on the back of his helmet,\u201d said Muldowney.<\/p>\n<p>Richard Muldowney Jr. was 40. He was a New York City firefighter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was a cool guy, tough guy, very, very tough,\u201d Muldowney said of his brother.<\/p>\n<p>Chief Muldowney comes from a family of first responders and also grieves the 9\/11 loss of his cousin, Kenneth Watson.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey got hired on together, never worked together until that day,\u201d said Muldowney of Richard and Kenneth. \u201cThat was the first time they fought a fire together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now, Muldowney fights to keep their legacies alive. He started a nonprofit that supports first responder families. The name, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.muldowneymoondogs.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Muldowney Moondogs<\/a>, comes from his brother\u2019s nickname, \u201cMoondog.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe work closely with Tunnel to Towers, and our mission is to educate, let these people know what happened that day,\u201d said Muldowney, who says the mission not only honors his loved ones but also helps him cope.<\/p>\n<p>Retired HCFR Capt. Joshua Tichenor saw the devastation firsthand in the days following 9\/11, initially traveling to New York to support the Muldowney family, but ending up supporting the rescue and recovery mission, too.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe got overwhelmed with emotion, and we wanted to help,\u201d said Tichenor. \u201cOne thing led to another and we found ourselves, you know, doing our own dig with the NYPD and some of the other New York City firemen. We just got to work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>25 years later, the firefighters work to honor those lost more than two decades ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know, the main thing is don\u2019t forget,\u201d said Chief Muldowney. \u201cAnd I think we\u2019re at the point where we\u2019re starting to, and we got to fix that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Muldowney shared something his brother once said: \u201cI\u2019ll be going out doing the best job in the world,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd he did,\u201d said Muldowney.<\/p>\n<p>More than ever, he wants the world to never forget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 A Hillsborough County firefighter is honoring relatives killed on 9\/11, while reflecting on the tragedy&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1011,276,1190,1187,115,135,137,136,835],"class_list":["post-395469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-human-interest","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-human-interest","tag-melissa-eichman","tag-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}