By:JOSEPH KELLARD
Weitzman is president of the Empire State Regional Council of Carpenters Union, Local 7. He was invited to attend the event as the union's representative, and was introduced to the president by Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi as the man whose workers will build the monument.
"I got a chance to shake the president's hand and talk to him for about 15 seconds," Weitzman, a Vietnam War veteran, told the Herald. "I said, 'I saw you in Washington when I was at the convention,' and I said, 'Please finish the job you started.' I was referring to the war in Iraq."
He said that Bush told him not to worry. "'I'm going to finish it, don't worry,' he told me," Weitzman said. "I felt like saying, Don't leave anyone behind like we did in Vietnam, with the MIAs, and don't stop short like your father did. But he told me at least twice, 'I'm going to finish.'"
Weitzman's workers (his union comprises 3,000 carpenters) will build the memorial gratis. It will consist of a wall of bright white cement featuring plaques with the name of the Nassau County residents who were killed at the World Trade Center three Septembers ago.
"It's all from the heart," Weitzmen said about the project. He recalled how, on Sept. 11, a dozen of his carpenters dropped their tools and rushed into the city to assist in the search and rescue efforts at ground zero.
Among the Nassau residents killed whom Weitzman knew was James Horan of Malverne, who once coached Little League with him. "He coached my son, Billy," said Weitzman. Billy Weitzman now plays in the New York Mets' farm system.
Several Long Island carpenters died at the WTC. Many were men Weitzman and his workers were acquainted with. The day he met the president, he also crossed paths with Angela Mistrulli, a daughter of one of these men.
"You feel for these people, so it means a lot to those of us who will build this memorial. We want to show respect to these innocent people who lost their lives to this creep, bin Laden," Wietzman said, his voice growing forceful. "Our whole hearts are in this project."
Local 7 is familiar with building memorials, having constructed the monument in Patchogue memorializing the 228 passengers killed in the crash of TWA Flight 800. The carpenters also remodeled the American Air Power Museum at Republic Airport in Farmingdale in honor of the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of black pilots who fought the Nazis in World War II.
A few people approached Weitzman, he said, claiming that the president used the event as an opportunity to push his political agenda, and that he "is not good for working people," Weitzman said.
"I think, whatever Bush's feelings are about business and labor, I looked at this as a nonpartisan thing," Weitzman said. "Its something in which we all come together. It's an American occasion, and it was an honor to meet the president."
