9/11: Seven Years Later: Where are they now?

THEN A businessman who worked at New York-based Intercapital Planning Corp., Ed Fine became widely known from a 9/11 photograph that depicted him covered in dust, napkin held to his nose and mouth while still clutching his briefcase. Head bowed and his dark suit turned a light gray, Fine, 58, shuffled through ankle-deep debris from the tower that had just collapsed. A clock behind him displayed the time: 10:14 a.m.

“I was focused in on: I must get uptown, I must keep surviving, I must walk,” Fine told the “Today” show. “And I wasn’t looking or thinking about anything other than surviving.”

NOW Fine, who is married and has two grown children, lives in suburban New Jersey. According to an e-mail to msnbc.com from his son Stuart, Fine operates two businesses: an investment, public relations and consulting firm called Carpe DM (a play on "carpe diem," Latin for "seize the day") and SEPA Capital Group...

Before 9/11 he was a workaholic, he added. On vacations, he used to spend "half a day on the phone and the other half on the computer." Now, "if I make one business call a day, that's a lot."

The battered black briefcase, the suit -- a gray Joseph A. Banks single-breasted model he bought in the late ‘90s for about $300 -- and the shoes he wore on 9/11 sit in his closet as a constant reminder of how fortunate he is to be alive, Fine told msnbc.com. He used the briefcase for several more years until his wife insisted he get a new one. He agreed to part with it, USA Today quoted him as saying, "but I felt a little disloyal."

Bob Beckwith (NYC fireman embraced by President Bush)

THEN

When retired New York firefighter Bob Beckwith stood at President Bush’s side at the still smoldering Ground Zero just days after 9/11, he quickly became an iconic image of the nation’s strength and resilience in the wake of the attacks.

Beckwith was inspired to help in the rescue efforts at Ground Zero after he learned that one of a former colleague’s sons was among the hundreds of missing firefighters. He donned his old helmet, made his way downtown and convinced authorities at the heavily guarded perimeter to let him join the efforts.

And when, a few days later, Beckwith heard Bush was coming to the site to see the devastation first-hand, he scrambled up on top of a burned-out out fire truck to get a better look at the president.

Next thing he knew, Beckwith was helping Bush onto the back of the truck as the crowd chanted “U.S.A., U.S.A.” As the cheers died down, Bush pulled the 69-year-old Beckwith near and began speaking.

Someone from the crowd yelled that they couldn’t hear him. Bush, with his arm draped around Beckwith, shouted into his bullhorn: "I can hear you, the rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”

The president’s words were met with wild cheers from the crowd. The whooping and the hollering -- and the sight of a elderly fireman doing his best in the face of tragedy -- reassured people across the country that the spirit of the nation was bruised, but not crushed.

THEN

Beckwith is back to his retirement, having left the Ladder 164 firehouse in Queens in 1994 after 29 years on the job. But it hasn’t been shuffleboard and senior centers for the father of six and grandfather of ten.

Beckwith stays in touch with President Bush -- he last visited the White House for a Christmas party in December 2007 and recently received a letter when the president learned that Beckwith’s daughter had cancer.

“He wrote a nice letter to her and to us when he found out about it,” he said in a recent phone interview with msnbc.com. “He’s a nice regular guy, President Bush, he’s a nice person.”

Beckwith also travels the world speaking and raising money for the New York Firefighters Burn Center Foundation. He helps the foundation get contributions “to help all the people that get burned, help out with the research and help relieve the pain.” To this end, Beckwith has spoken at St. Paul’s Chapel, a landmark church near Ground Zero, and on Irish and German TV programs, he said.

Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Beckwith still thinks about that day. “It is part of my life and I do think about it all the time,” he told msnbc.com. He also thinks about the people who worked at Ground Zero in the aftermath of the attacks and have since suffered numerous illnesses. “These guys are getting sick and are dying and nobody is taking care of their families,” he said.

Thomas E. Franklin / The Bergen Record file Three firemen with flag at Ground Zero

THEN

It is one of the most enduring images from 9/11: three New York firefighters -- Daniel McWilliams, George Johnson and William “Billy” Eisengrein -- hoisting an American flag in the midst of chaos and ruins of the destroyed World Trade Center late on the afternoon of Sept. 11.

The photo, captured by Thomas E. Franklin, a staff photographer for The Record in Bergen County, N.J., was quickly picked up by newspapers, magazines and television networks. Reminiscent of Joe Rosenthal’s iconic image of U.S. troops raising a flag on Iwo Jima during World War II it struck a chord with editors and readers everywhere.

The photo, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and won numerous national photojournalism awards, was used for a special U.S. Postal Service stamp released in March 2002 to raise funds for families of emergency workers killed or permanently disabled as a result of the 9/11 attacks.

NOW

All three of the firefighters featured in the iconic image are still working for the New York Fire Department, according to officials.

Daniel McWilliams, 42, a longtime veteran of the department, is now a lieutenant with Battalion 37 in Brooklyn. On April 15, 2007, according to an online report by Robert Glynn, chief of Battalion 43, he was awarded the Dr. John F. Connell Medal for his “leadership and tenacity” in a “highly successful lifesaving operation.” McWilliams and his family live in Massapequa Park, Long Island.

George Johnson, 43, is a captain with the NYFD and works out of Division 13 in Queens, where he also lives. Bill Eisengrein, 44, is a firefighter at the Rescue 2 unit in Brooklyn. He has been with the NYFD for more than 20 years. The department said it could provide no further information other than the fact of their continued service.

Lisa Beamer (Widow of Flight 93 victim)

THEN

In the aftermath of 9/11, it seemed she was everywhere -- a 32-year-old blond woman whose calm, articulateness and grace belied the fact that she had just lost her husband on Flight 93, the only one of the four hijacked planes that did not reach its target.

The reason, of course, that Flight 93 did not crash into the U.S. Capitol or another site in Washington, D.C., was due to the heroic acts of many of its passengers, among them Lisa Beamer’s husband, Todd, whose words “Let’s roll” to a telephone operator just before the plane went down near Shanksville, Pa., summed up the can-do bravery of the ordinary men and women who fought back against the terrorists.

This spirit -- and the strength shown by the many widows of 9/11 -- became embodied in Lisa Beamer, who was five months pregnant at the time of the attacks. President Bush spotlighted her during his address to Congress on Sept. 20 and she appeared in just about every corner of the media, from the “Today” show to “Larry King Live” to People magazine.

Beamer, who grew up in Shrub Oak, N.Y., graduated from Wheaton College in Illinois with a bachelor’s degree in economics. It was at Wheaton that she met her husband; they were married in 1994.

NOW

After giving birth to a daughter, Morgan, Beamer went on to write a book, “Let’s Roll!: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage,” about her husband and her struggle to deal with her grief after his death. In addition, Beamer, also the mother of two sons, David and Drew, helped create the Todd M. Beamer Foundation, a New Jersey-based charity with the goal of helping children deal with trauma.

In February 2007, an article in The NonProfit Times, a publication covering the not-for-profit industry, reported that Heroic Choices was facing a decision about its future in light of dwindling contributions.

William Beatty, a former Goldman Sachs executive who was chairman of the board, told the paper he expected the organization to make a decision by the end of March 2007 from among three choices: continue as is, merge with a similar organization or shut down entirely.

"The farther you get away from a charity created on a specific day ... the harder it is for charities to create funds as a result of an event, as opposed to constantly delivering services," Beatty was quoted as saying.

It appears that Heroic Choices is now shut. All phone numbers for it have been disconnected and its Web site is no longer operational. Efforts to reach Beatty for comment were unsuccessful.

As for Beamer, she too has pretty much dropped out of sight -- perhaps because she has found herself the subject of controversy. Some accused her of profiting from the tragedy with the publication of her book and frequent media appearances. She was also criticized for the foundation’s successful attempt to trademark for the phrase “Let’s Roll,” which was subsequently licensed to Wal-Mart, the Florida State Football team and others.

In October 2006, Beamer was listed as a participant in the 34th Annual Long Beach Island Commemorative Run, an 18-mile event held in coastal New Jersey that is dedicated to the 11 Israeli athletes slain by terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics and to those who lost their lives in the Sept. 11 attacks. She recorded a time of 2 hours, 47 minutes and 57 seconds.

A publicist listed for Heroic Choices in 2007 declined repeated requests for further information and several calls to a number listed under Beamer’s name in Cranbury, N.J., were not returned. When it was operational, the Heroic Choices Web site said that after serving as chairman of the charity’s board, Beamer became one of its trustees and that “a large portion of proceeds” of her book were directed to its work (more than $900,000, according to the nonprofit’s records). The site also stated that she continued to live in New Jersey, where she and her children were active members of their church.

In October 2007, Beamer was listed in local real-estate records as being the buyer of a property in Harvey Cedars, N.J., a community on the Jersey Shore, with a price of $1,996,954.

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