Posted on 09/10/2021 5:22:41 PM PDT by Trillian
Steve Buscemi found it 'almost impossible' to process what he saw after the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York City.
The Reservoir Dogs actor used to be a firefighter in the city and answered a call to help out at the World Trade Centre site in 2001, and he admitted he was grateful that he already had sessions with a therapist because it helped him to talk through his feelings after a week working to find survivors.
He wrote in an essay for TIME magazine: 'It actually felt good to be there. I was on the site for less than a week, but it wasn't until I got home that the magnitude of it all caught up with me.
'Announcing vulnerability is a hard thing for anyone, but especially for people whose primary identity is as a protector.'
And though the Fargo star and his fellow firefighters found the dust from the fallen towers 'more of a nuisance' than anything else they found there, he shone a spotlight on the damage caused by the toxic chemicals on the site.
He wrote: 'Pulverized concrete and who-knows-what that clogged a face mask, so fast you worked better without one,' Buscemi wrote. 'Somebody'd say, "This is probably going to kill us in 20 years."'
'Well, it didn't take 20 years. Debilitating chronic conditions surfaced before the pile was even cleared. Today more people are thought to have died from toxic exposure at the 9/11 site than died that day.
'It was of course thick with carcinogens. But had the truth been shared with the firefighters, I'm pretty sure they would have kept right on working.'
Steve urged people to 'never forget' what happened, particularly because the tragedy is still having a serious impact on people's lives.
He concluded: '"Never forget," everyone said.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Marking.
I had no idea he was NYFD. He was definitely acting before September 2000. Reservoir Dogs was 1992. The Big Lebowski was 1998.
He’s a stand up guy.
According to his wikipedia page
Buscemi was a New York City firefighter from 1980 to 1984, with Engine Company No. 55, in the Little Italy section of New York. The day after the 9/11 attacks in New York, he returned to his old firehouse to volunteer; he worked twelve-hour shifts for a week, and dug through rubble looking for missing firefighters
I think he’s been in acting since he was 17, but probably not making much money for awhile.
Or not ! ‘Pulverized concrete and who-knows-what that clogged a face mask, so fast you worked better without one,’
You don’t want that stuff in your lungs !!!
I had a job interview down the street from where the wall of would had been boarded up, and I couldn't even bring myself to peek in. I'd seen the pictures. I'd walked home that day. It wasn't something I wanted to face.
He was in Lonesome Dove, 1989.
Former. He says he got “a call to come help”... and the rest of the article is on the “toxicity” of the ruins from 9-11 and the effect on firefighters. It is a little much to talk about an experience that cannot compare to those we will never hear from, except the very few who managed to communicate with loved ones just before being killed. And example of this is Barbara Olsen on the Pentagon crash flight— a private conversation with her husband, the US Solicitor General. Never been released.
This seems like a kind of “actor’s” puff piece a “hey look at me”, unlike James Woods who was on a flight a week before 9-11 (Boston to LA) and called the FBI on 9-11 about the “dry run” of the hijackers, which the FBI verified. Woods remembered their faces.
After all if one wants to hear about overwhelming trauma—they should look into the physicians who served on identification labs for years after. Many of them quit medicine as a career.
Really? I had no idea! very cool about him volunteering on 9/11. Amazing he was a firefighter for 4 years. What a guy!
I remember reading about that he wouldn’t talk about it in interviews stating “this isn’t about me.” His bunker gear was still at his dad’s place so he stopped by and got it. He left the bucket brigade at ground zero after a couple of weeks because he said he wasn’t doing any good there anymore. He also didn’t want to become a distraction from the men who should be honored. His former fire station lost some men during the cowardly attack.
He's been starring in The Miracle Workers with Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), for the past 3 years. It's a half-hour series that is on TBS every Tuesday. The last episode of this season (Oregon Trail), airs this coming Tuesday at 10 p.m. eastern time.
Knew it, he ia one of our favorites.
Regardless of others’ contributions, he was there, he helped, and it affected him. I’m not about to nitpick that.
I know a woman who was a flight attendant that day. She made several claims about her flight, which was delayed due to food cart service, and by the time they were on the taxiway their flight was ordered back to the gate. These are her claims:
1) There were several people wearing full hijabs, which devout Islamic women wear covering head to toe, that appeared to her to be men by their body builds. They were seated in first class cabin where she was the FA.
2) When they got back to the gate, several other men went to the boarding desk and argued with the gate attendant that they “had to take off now”. When airport security/police arrived, they walked away.
3) She forgot her purse in the flight attendant locker on the plane, and went back on board the plane to retrieve it.
4) Upon re-boarding the plane, she saw that the carpet and floorboards of the first class cabin were torn and lifted up. Presumably, the knives or other weapons were stashed.
5) She saw 2 men wearing airport ground crew gear, walking out the back exit door of the plane. She had no idea how they got onto the plane in such short time.
At the time she didn’t have the full details of what was happening. But she did report all this to the FBI. It is her firm belief that the terrorists had more people planted on other flights and only the quick decision to immediately ground all flights did we avoid further death and destruction. She also believes that people who worked as airport ground crew were in on it.
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