Together again: Former President George W. Bush and retired firefighter Bob Beckwith reunite in a portrait appearing in Time magazine’s 9/11-anniversary special. (Marco Grob for TIME)
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They met as perfect strangers in the rubble of the World Trade Center, but in the 10 years since, retired firefighter Bob Beckwith and George W. Bush have become old friends, as this photo shows.
“He said he was going down to Ground Zero [for Sunday’s memorial] and asked, ‘Are you going?’ ” Beckwith told The Post.
“And I said, ‘Yes, I guess I’ll see you there.’ ”
The chat between the two men, who’ve gotten together 11 times since their accidental first meeting was captured in an instantly famous photo in 2001, happened in the former president’s office in Dallas.
Time magazine escorted Beckwith there to take the new photo, which appears in the magazine’s 9/11-anniversary project, “Beyond 9/11: Portraits of Resilience.”
Their story began on Sept. 14, 2001, three days after the terror attacks that flattened the World Trade Center, when the president was surveying the devastation.
Beckwith, of Baldwin, LI, was volunteering at the site and had helped find Engine Co. 76’s crushed pumper truck in the rubble. He jumped on top of it when he heard a commotion headed his way.
“Somebody is coming here. What you do, you help them up, and then you get down,” he was instructed by a man he took to be a Secret Service officer — but found out days later was presidential adviser Karl Rove.
Five or six minutes passed, and Beckwith suddenly saw the president approaching the pumper.
“I felt like I needed to say something,” Bush recalled to Time. “I got up on a pile of rubble. I wanted a firefighter to be with me, as a statement of solidarity.”
Beckwith, now 79, recounted how Bush took a turn and stopped right in front of him.
“I pull him up, turn him around, and I said, “You OK, Mr. President?’ ” Beckwith recalled.
“He said yeah. Then I started to get down, and he says, ‘Where you going?’ I said I was told to get down.”
But Bush wouldn’t let him. He put his arm around Beckwith for the historic photo.
Beckwith doesn’t know who handed Bush a bullhorn, but the president started talking. The crowd, including ironworkers, police officers and rescue personnel, couldn’t make out all the words.
“We can’t hear you,” one shouted, according to Beckwith.
Bush replied with a rally cry that would echo across the world: “I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked down these buildings will hear all of us soon.”
Beckwith remembered it well: “That was so uplifting.”
As he helped Bush get down from the truck, someone handed the president a US flag. Beckwith also got off the pumper and was pursued by reporters who wanted to know his name and story. He assured them he just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
And as he started walking away, “This guy taps me on the shoulder, and he said, ‘The president’s been looking for you.’ He said, ‘He wants you to have this flag.’ ”
And I said, “Oh, wow, thanks!”
Beckwith has met with Bush since then, including a 2002 visit to the White House when he gave Bush the bullhorn back.
He said he feels “honored” by the way history has brought them together.
“I’m talking to a former president of the United States,” he marveled. “Who am I?”