How Shocking That It Took So Long To Help 9/11 Responders

A Commentary by Doug Draper

In the days following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the firefighters in my hometown of Thorold, Ontario stood in front of a local grocery store and, within a matter of a few hours, collected well over $10,000 to support the families of those who died in those attacks.

One of the many scenes of firefiighters and other 'first responders' at work in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

That was a pretty impressive outpouring of support coming from a community of less than 20,000 people, but it didn’t end there. In the weeks ahead, one good woman in our community managed to collect enough boots, gloves and other clothing to fill a tractor-trailer truck enroute to Manhattan for those firefighters and others at ‘ground zero’, searching for bodies beneath the smoldering rubble of what was the World Trade Centre.

The people of Thorold were hardly the only ones in our greater binational Niagara region who contributed everything possible, including sending some of their firefighters to New York City to relieve tired recovery and cleanup crews at the ground zero site. Communities all across this greater Niagara region, on both sides of the border, did the same.

I can’t help but recall that collective expression of support for New York City firefighters and their families, who former U.S. president George W. Bush once called heroes, as I strain to understand why it has taken all these years since for the U.S. Senate and Congress to finally approve a health care bill for firefighters and other 9/11 rescue workers suffering from the toxic fumes and dust they inhaled at the ground zero site.

Many of these “heroes” have been suffering for years from chronic respiratory illnesses from breathing the fumes and dust, and a number have died. Yet Bush and all to many of his Republican buddies in the Senate and Congress had no funding for their health care, even as they supported a trillion-dollar war in Iraq that should never have been waged and approved untendered contracts to Halliburton, a self-described “oilfields services corporation” Bush’s vice president, Dick Cheney, was an executive member of.

It is shameful that it has taken so long for the government of the United States to show these 9/11 heroes and their families the same kind of respect that was shown by people in communities like Thorold and Buffalo and so many others across the country. It was not until a few days before this Christmas Eve that a bill was finally passed, offering more than $4 billion in health care services to those still suffering from their exposure to the fallout from the burning Twin Towers rubble.

No wonder so many of us have so little regard for government on both sides of the border. Then again, there were the two senators for New York State, two senators from New York, Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten E. Gillibrand, and two senators from New Jersey, Frank R. Lautenberg and Robert Menendez, who stood behind the 9/11 responders. In a recent story in the New York Times, Gillibrand reportedly summed up the years long battle for health assistance for these people this way.

“Our Christmas miracle has arrived,” the New York senator said. “To the firefighters here, the police officers here, everyone involved in the recovery, all the volunteers, the family members: Thank you!” she continued. “It was your work, it was your heroism, and it was your dedication that made the difference. It was your effort, coming here week after week to tell senators and Congress members about your stories and what you went through.”

 It may be a miracle. But how sad and shocking it is that it took U.S. government leaders more than nine years to show these people the same kind of generosity that people in Thorold and St. Catharines, Ontario and Buffalo and Niagara Falls, N.Y., and so many other communities across our countries did in the days and weeks following the terrorist attacks.

We encourage you to share your comments below.

(Visit Niagara At Large at http://www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary of interest and concern to residents in our greater binational Niagara region.)