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Then & Now: Bob Beckwith
 Bob Beckwith has an active retirement helping raise money for burn victims. SPECIAL REPORTYOUR E-MAIL ALERTS(CNN) -- Just days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, retired New York fireman Bob Beckwith became a symbol of strength and helped rally a grieving nation when he stood with President Bush at Ground Zero. Today, the 73-year-old Beckwith is an ambassador of sorts for firefighters everywhere. He travels the globe speaking and raising money for the New York Firefighters Burn Center Foundation. But on that crisp September morning in 2001 when terrorists steered planes into the World Trade Center, Beckwith was living a normal life as a retired fireman and grandfather on Long Island. The attacks changed all that. "I got home and I told my wife, 'I'm going down,' " he said, referring to the smoldering remains of the Twin Towers. At first, his family dissuaded him from going to Ground Zero, but after Beckwith discovered that one of his colleague's sons was one of the hundreds of firefighters missing, he put on his old uniform, strapped on his helmet and went to join the rescue efforts. Beckwith had to finagle his way into Ground Zero when he approached the heavily guarded perimeter. "I said, 'Come on, guys. You know I got to get in there.' I showed them my identification card from the fire department and so a couple of guys let me through," Beckwith said. Once inside the perimeter, Beckwith got a firsthand look at the charred remains of the World Trade Center and immediately began working to find survivors. "I go start digging with the guys in the North Tower, and we come across a pumper with a 76 Engine," Beckwith said. "And we're working because we're looking for survivors and we're looking for people, and we're hoping they found an air pocket or something," he said. Soon word filtered down that President Bush was coming to Ground Zero to see the devastation firsthand. Beckwith scrambled atop the burned out hull of a fire engine to get a good look at where he thought the president might speak. Beckwith was standing alone on the truck when a man he assumed was Secret Service approached him. The man was President Bush's deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove. "He comes over and he dusts off (the spot) next to my foot and he says, "Is this safe?" Beckwith said Rove told him that "someone important" was going to come over to the truck, and he asked Beckwith to give the VIP a hand up and then leave his spot. Beckwith agreed. "And the president came and he is shaking hands with all the ironworkers and all the cops and all the firemen that were down there ... and I figure he's going over to the microphones, but he makes a quick right, and he puts his arm up and I said, 'Oh my God!' " After helping the president onto the truck, Beckwith begins to crawl down, but Bush stops him. "He says, 'Where are you going?' I said, 'Uh, I was told to get down.' He said, 'No, no, you stay right here.' " As chants of "U-S-A, U-S-A" begin to die down around him, Bush began speaking. Someone from the crowd yelled that they could not hear the president's words. With his arms draped around Beckwith, Bush responded: "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 declared to cheers. In appreciation, President Bush gave Beckwith a precious gift. "Do you remember the TIME magazine where the president is holding up the flag? He wanted me to have that flag. I still have it," Beckwith told CNN. Since his brush with fame, Beckwith has visited Bush in the Oval Office, and he's been immortalized in wax at the Presidential Wax Museum near Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota. Beckwith has a large family -- he and his wife, Barbara, have six children and 10 grandchildren -- but in his heart he will always be a fireman. "A fireman is a fireman. You're in a family of great people," he said. 
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