Bob Beckwith, firefighter who supported Bush after September 11, dies at 91

Bob Beckwith, a retired Long Island firefighter who helped search for survivors after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and who rose to fame after photos of him and President George W. Bush standing atop the rubble-strewn remains of a fire truck became symbols of the stunned nation, died Sunday in Rockville Centre, NY. He was 91.

He died in a hospice after being treated for cancer, his grandson Matthew said.

After the attacks, Mr. Beckwith had put on his old leather helmet and uniform and joined a brigade to clear the rubble at Ground Zero. When Mr. Bush visited the site on September 14, Mr. Beckwith climbed atop the wrecked fire truck to get a better view of the command center where the president was scheduled to speak.

He was then asked by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and Secret Service agents to climb on top of the truck and jump on it to test its stability. He did so, and then he was asked to come down. But instead of going to the command center, the president climbed aboard the wreckage and invited Mr. Beckwith to share the site and the historic moment with him as he addressed first responders.

Mr. Beckwith handed the president a megaphone, but some workers complained they could not hear it.

“I can hear you, the rest of the world hears you,” Mr. Bush shouted to the crowd in a rousing speech broadcast live on television, “and the people who knocked down these buildings will soon hear us all.”

The crowd responded by chanting, “USA! UNITED STATES!”

By the time Mr. Beckwith returned home to Baldwin, New York, later that day, he was a neighborhood hero. After a photo of the moment appeared on the front page of The Daily News the next morning and another photo of the same scene appeared on the cover of Time Magazine two weeks later, he was transformed from a firefighter who lived a quiet, secluded life into a stoic paradigm of New York City's resilience and America's fortitude.

Mr Beckwith spent just one day volunteering at the site – he had defied his family by going at all – and afterwards friends warned him that a man of almost 70 was not fit to endure the grueling work that would take months.

A full version of this obituary will be published soon.