A Queens man says he lost his chance to join the FDNY — because he was busy fighting a war.
Brian Conway says he took the civil-service firefighter’s exam in 2007 and passed, landing on the hiring list as Candidate No. 332, according to a lawsuit.
But the now 35-year-old Army Reservist was on his second deployment overseas when the FDNY offered him a chance to join the academy in 2008, so he was forced to decline, Conway says.
Conway served in the Army as a private first-class from 2002 to 2005, and in the Army Reserve from 2002 until 2010, and saw two active-duty tours in Iraq — including one in 2008 — as a combat engineer.
He was honorably discharged in 2010, and asked the FDNY to put him on a special military eligibility list for the next academy class, Conway says in his Brooklyn federal-court lawsuit.
But before he got another shot at joining the FDNY, a federal judge overseeing a discrimination lawsuit against the department declared the 2007 exam discriminatory, and ordered the FDNY to stop hiring those who had taken the exam.
Conway says the city is violating his rights as a military member, and wants a judge to allow him to join the next class of probies.
The city declined to comment on the litigation.