This episode originally aired on the As Told To podcast on Sept. 8, 2026.

John Feal is a native New Yorker and Army veteran who worked as a demolition supervisor at Ground Zero until an 8,000-pound beam crushed his left foot during the clean-up. As he struggled with his own post-9/11 trauma, and scrambled to get out from under his also-disabling medical bills, he watched his fellow responders suffer and die from cancer and other ailments caused by the dust in the air they were told was safe to breathe.

Forgotten by a broken healthcare system and lawmakers who had promised to #NeverForget, and inspired by the men and women who continued to suffer in the fallout from that fateful day, he resolved to fight.

In I Will Follow You Anywhere: The True Story of the 9/11 Responders Who Took on Congress, he shares his remarkable story of grit and resolve, alongside the accounts of his fellow responders, presenting their shared "recipe" for getting things done—including the passage of the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund.

Working with ghostwriter, developmental editor, and book coach Charles Daly, himself a maritime first responder on the Atlantic coast of Ireland, John offers a rogue approach to the ground game of representative government, empowering readers in all walks of life to take on the system and win.

Join us as John and Charlie commemorate the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, and discuss how they worked together on their compelling new book—"A graphic but powerful reminder of the horrors of that day," according to Booklist, "and the horrors that first responders have faced ever since."

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