Support September 11 Victims

SUPPORT SEPTEMBER 11 VICTIMS -- (House of Representatives - September 12, 2006)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mrs. McCARTHY. Madam Speaker, yesterday this country certainly was there to remember 9/11. Back in my district on Long Island where I lost so many families, so many of the firemen and so many of the first responders, it was a sad day for all of us. The wonderful thing was that America again came together. The wonderful thing was that the communities came together to be there for the families.

What I would like to talk about is that we have forgotten, though, the heroes. We have forgotten those that have physical injuries still today and certainly health care issues that they are facing. But I also would like to talk about the children, the children that lost their parents.

I have a wonderful center in my district called the World Trade Family Center, and it has been a godsend for so many of my families that come there on a weekly basis that children, sometimes even more, receive psychological, friendship care, training for their parents on how to deal with grief, because I know a lot of times people don't know how to handle their grief.

But I think the thing that bothers me more is that with the World Trade Family Center, they don't have any more money. I am scrounging around to try to find grants to keep this center open, because a lot of times people don't understand that when you go through a tragic event like 9/11, the first year, the second year, basically you are just on automatic reflex. It is the third and the fourth year that it starts to sink in on what's happened to them and their families and how their lives have changed forever.

You know, everyone keeps saying we will never forget. Well, unfortunately, we are forgetting.

When I see my first responders come into my office, they are having an illness that is taking them away from their job, and many of these men and women are very young. But because they were there for 9/11 and the weeks that followed, and a lot of my union workers that were down there, cleaning up with all of their heart and soul, trying to find survivors, and then just recovery, we as a nation say that we will always be there for you, and yet the money has run out.

I think this Nation, this country, the American people who gave their hearts and souls after 9/11 by donating blood, donating their time, sending money into all the different organizations, and that money was used, and it was used in a very good way.

But when I look at the World Trade Family Center, that looks like it is going to be closing its doors because it doesn't have the funding, and it is just starting to reach the children, you have to understand the children, and you have to understand victims. A lot of times they wear masks so that if somebody says how are you doing, they automatically say, I am doing fine, I am doing okay.

If you ask a child, they will say, I am doing okay. I can tell you from experience they are not doing okay. But my concerns for the children, because they are just coming to grips now realizing that their father or their mother is never going to be there again. They do a lot of art therapy there, and I have, back in my district office, a number of paintings that our young children have done. I brought with me today three drawings by three children who lost their parents. I know it is hard to read, and even harder to see, but these children are still feeling pain, and they are going to be feeling pain for a long time.

We as Americans must realize that what happened on 9/11 doesn't go away even in 5 years, and it doesn't. We as Americans have to come together to be there for most that, unfortunately, are suffering today under no fault of their own.

We, as Americans, I know, keep giving, but it is also my opinion the responsibility of Congress to make sure that we take care of these people.

Jerry Nadler, a colleague of mine from New York, and certainly Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, my Senators from the Senate, have been fighting to make sure that there are funds there to be taken care of, and yet we are seeing here in Congress we don't have enough money.

We don't have enough money? We don't have enough money to take care of the children? We don't have enough money to take care of the firemen, the police officers, the first responders? Now we are even seeing those that went into the buildings to do cleanup are coming down with these lung ailments.

Mount Sinai Hospital has been working with us here in Congress. When we first met with them years ago, and by the way, my background is as a nurse, we thought we would have 10, 15 years to take care of these problems. We see these illnesses taking place. We as Americans can do better. We should do better.

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