Since Sept. 11: Bill Conway

In 1988, when Bill Conway was an ROTC student at St. John's University, the enemy he thought he’d grow to fight was the Soviet army.

But the Russian he learned early in his military intelligence career was virtually useless to him by the time two planes struck the World Trade Center, 13 years later.

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, when the Iraq hot spot emerged, Conway could have cooled his heels stateside in an air-conditioned office, while serving one year of reserve duty. Instead, he volunteered in 2004 to serve out two years, spent in Iraq, Afghanistan, and briefly, Guantanamo Bay.

Conway has his bona fides as a hero not just in the military, but also in the NYPD as an officer in the Emergency Services Unit.

“In my squad, there was Walter Weaver, Jerome Dominguez, Vinnie Danz, John Dallara, and I was with them on a regular basis,” he said. It wasn’t just a recollection, it was a dirge. The four guys died on Sept. 11.

“And when I heard that they were dead,” said Conway, “it was bad, for me.”

Then a lot happened. America went to war in the Middle East, and Conway—already risking his neck in the NYPD—began to feel like he could do more.

The kicker was when Conway saw an episode of “60 Minutes” about maimed war veterans. Instead of recoiling from war, Conway told himself that he hadn’t sacrificed enough.

When it came time to decide how long and where he would serve, remembering the sacrifices of those veterans, and his fallen colleagues, led him to the war zones. Conway interrogated terrorists, and analyzed field data on the groups that derailed American life.