“We watched him grow up,” recalled Owen McCardle, a firefighter retired from Engine 168, who has been digging at Ground Zero since September 11. “Used to come around all the time when he was a kid, try to help out, wash down the truck, stuff like that. Did well at the Academy. Could have got assigned anywhere, put in for here. Once he was in, we couldn't shake him. Go out on a run, come back and this probie, not even on duty but he's frying up bacon, ready to scramble eggs.”

In a move that surprised people in Pleasant Hills, McCaffery applied for a transfer in 1980 and was assigned to Ladder 10 in Manhattan. He moved to a Greenwich Village apartment near his new firehouse and never returned to live or work on Staten Island.

“He lost two friends within a year,” said Marian Gallagher, the director of the More Art, New York! Foundation. Ms. Gallagher grew up with McCaffery and now heads the McCaffery Memorial Fund, whose mission is to aid the FDNY's outreach and recruitment efforts. “I think he just felt a need to start over. But he never forgot where he came from. One of the friends who died left a son. Jimmy helped raise him.”

“Definitely, I joined the Department because of Uncle Jimmy,” said Kevin Keegan, 24, the son of Mark Keegan, a close childhood friend of McCaffery's who died at the age of 23. Kevin Keegan is a probationary firefighter at Engine 168 who had been on the job just three months on September 11. His right leg and arm were badly burned by falling debris as he and other firefighters prepared to enter the north tower. Keegan is currently in rehabilitation at the Burke Center in Westchester. “Uncle Jimmy was there the whole time I was growing up,” Keegan continued. “If I was in trouble, or had a problem or something, he'd be on the phone, he'd show up at our door. I could count on him.”

Keegan, the Tribune has learned, is the beneficiary of Captain McCaffery's FDNY life insurance policy. “That's Jimmy. Still taking care of us,” said Keegan's mother, Sally. “No matter where he was, Kevin and I could always go to Jimmy.”