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Posted on Sun, Jan. 26, 2003
N.Y. firefighters to protest for aid at Bush speech
BY GREG GITTRICH
New York Daily News
NEW YORK - The weary, retired firefighter President Bush tossed his arm around at Ground Zero days after the terrorist attacks is making a special trip to Washington to plea for help for ailing rescue workers.
Upset that $90 million in federal aid to monitor the long-term health of Ground Zero laborers is tied up, Bob Beckwith will join a silent - but very visible - protest at the State of the Union address Tuesday.
"I think the President is a good man," said Beckwith, a retired firefighter, who worked at Ladder 117 in Queens, N.Y. "I believe he'll give us the money. We're all going down for that one purpose."
"We are being overlooked," said Philip McArdle, a Uniformed Firefighters Association health and safety officer who also will attend the speech. "It will be hard for anyone to ignore us when we are sitting there."
Beckwith and McArdle, 47, have been given tickets by state Democratic congressional members to sit in the gallery of the House Chambers during Bush's speech.
Beckwith met Bush on Sept. 14, 2001 - the President's first visit to the burning rubble of the World Trade Center. When Bush climbed atop a wrecked fire truck amid the rubble, he put his arm around Beckwith, then 69, and assured rescue workers he was with them.
"I can hear you; the rest of the world hears you," Bush said through a bullhorn, in a defining moment of his presidency. "And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear from all of us very soon
