Calendar tribute to Trade Centre heroes

By DAMON JOHNSTON in New York

26may02

THREE of the hero firefighters who gave their lives on September 11 are appearing as you have never seen them before.

Robert Cordice, Thomas Foley and Angel Juarbe were snapped bare-chested just weeks before the tragedy for the New York Fire Department's beefcake calendar.

The department was moving to scrap the popular calendars of their brawniest and best looking men out of respect for the trio and their 340 colleagues who died in the attack on the World Trade Centre.

But to its surprise, loved ones called for tradition that raises money for charity to be saved and the calendar – spanning July 2002 to December 2003 – goes on sale soon.

There have been a few modifications.

The cover photo of firefighter Danny Keane in front of the gleaming twin towers was dumped and replaced by a shot of the same hunk before the Empire State Building.

"This was the last great memory of their sons," Keane said yesterday.

Robert Cordice was just 28 when he died on September 11.

He had transferred to a downtown fire house two weeks earlier to get closer to the action.

"It is no surprise that he was in the building when it collapsed," said friend and fellow firefighter John Deliso. "He was the type of guy who wasn't worried about himself."

Caroline Cordice, his mother, also paid tribute to her son.

"All his friends loved him very much. He was a very funny, very positive, very honest and loving son," she said.

Thomas Foley's aunt said the photo of her nephew captured him perfectly.

"It showed him as he was – a hero, and a great-looking one," she said.

Foley had taken bit-roles in TV shows.

Angel Juarbe, 35, was coming off a lucky streak when he died trying to save another fireman on September 11. He had recently won $500,000 and a jeep on a TV game show.

But he wasn't about to spend the money on himself – he was going to give the car to his father and set up scholarships for his four nieces and nephews.

"My son wanted to buy us a brownstone in Manhattan, but we wanted him to buy it for himself. He was always thinking of other people," his mother Miriam Juarbe said.

"I think the calendar is fine, and the photographer who took the picture of Angel sent me the original picture he took, and it's in a frame on a table in my living room."

Former New York fire commissioner Thomas Von Essen summed it up: "It raised money for charity, it was never tasteless, it's nothing we're ashamed of . . . besides the women love it."

In another recognition of a September 11 hero yesterday, a string of commercial airliners lifted into the sky from a nearby airport as the Minnesota man who led an assault on the hijackers aboard United Flight 93 was buried with military honours at Fort Snelling National Cemetery.

Thomas Burnett Jr, 38, was among 44 people – including four hijackers – who were aboard the flight that crashed in a Pennsylvania field.

Government officials during the week said they had strong indications that the al-Qaeda hijackers intended to crash into the White House.

CIA Director George Tenet yesterday said the al-Qaeda in Afghanistan was "dispersed" thanks to US and allied action.

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