Senators Rally Behind Firefighters

By DAVID C. NEWMAN

Special to the Crimson

BOSTON—With an estimated 300 New York City firefighters killed in Tuesday’s terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, Massachusetts’ top national politicians expressed their support for the Boston Fire Department, holding a small press conference Friday at the city’s Purchase Street fire station.

In brief statements delivered in front of a handful of firefighters and TV camera crews, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy ’54-’56 (D-Mass.) and Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) assured the firefighters that their work was not unappreciated.

“We wanted to come by and just say thank you for who you are and what you do,” Kerry told the audience of about 15 uniformed firefighters. “After losing six bave firefighters in Worcester,” he said in reference to a Dec. 3, 1999 fire, “the concept of 200 in one incident in New York is hard to grapple with.”

“Firefighters came [to Worcester] from all over Massachusetts,” Kennedy said. “It was an incredible tribute.”

The delegation of Boston firefighters represented included two—John Cetrino and Eddie Loder—who have already returned from stints assisting the rescue effort in New York. A third, William Dewine, is still in New York, where his brother—a New York firefighter—is among the missing.

Firefighter Steve Cloonan said the rest of the department is ready to go to New York if called upon. He said he did not know of any firefighters in the department who did not add their names to a list of willing volunteers.

“Every firefighter in America wants to help,” Cetrino said.

Cloonan said he thinks it is only a matter of time before Boston firefighters are called into duty.

“With New York, it’s a matter of when they get tired,” he said. “That job is massive.”

Kerry reported “a sense of unity” in Washington, and he pledged that the terrorist attacks “will not go unpunished.”

On the same day that Rep. Martin Meehan (D-Mass.) and Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) were taken to task for criticizing President Bush’s leadership during the crisis, Kerry and Kennedy were hesitant to compromise the united-front image that Wasington leaders have projected in the past week.

“There is such a sense of solidarity in Washington and such a sense of unity,” Kerry told the firefighters.

When asked, Kennedy declined to comment on remarks made by Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.) on Wednesday that the U.S. should “bomb the hell out of Afghanistan.”

“I’m concerned about the 80 families in Massachusetts that have suffered,” Kennedy told The Crimson. “I’m going to leave it up to others to speculate about things my colleagues have said.”

—Staff writer David C. Newman can be reached at dnewman@fas.harvard.edu.