[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 17849-17850]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      SUPPORT SEPTEMBER 11 VICTIMS

  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

[[Page 17850]]

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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