Retiree to give Ground Zero flag to ship

A retired New York City firefighter from Deer Park who responded on 9/11 will meet the USS Carl Vinson when it docks next week in San Diego and present the crew, which includes his son, with an American flag that flew over Ground Zero.

Noting that the Carl Vinson, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, was the ship from which Osama bin Laden was buried at sea last month, Ted Cook said he thought the crew should know that Americans are grateful for their service.

"I felt they needed some honor bestowed on them, and that all this has somehow come full circle," Cook, 52, said in an interview Friday.

"What firefighters did that day, and what the Carl Vinson did 10 years later is all connected, and I wanted the crew to know how much we value their service to their country," Cook said.

The American flag was flown over Ground Zero last Wednesday and was later presented to Cook by Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano and Chief of Department Edward Kilduff.

The Navy confirmed that the commander and crew of the Carl Vinson would accept the flag, as well as a New York Fire Department flag, from Cook after the ship docked in San Diego on Wednesday.

A Navy spokesman said the Carl Vinson was at berth in Hawaii, where its crew was on shore leave, and that the time and other details of the San Diego ceremony had not been finalized.

Cook was assigned to Ladder Co. 123 in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn and was off duty when the World Trade Center was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001.

He rushed to the scene that day, then spent the next year doing his regular tour with Ladder 123 and working on "the pile" -- as the mountain of debris at Ground Zero was called. He retired in October 2002 after 20 years on the job.

His son, Christopher, 24, graduated from Deer Park High School in 2004, attended college for a couple of years, but dropped out and enlisted in the Navy four years ago. He has spent most of his time on the Carl Vinson as a boatswain's mate, supervising maintenance and supplies on the ship.

Christopher, who holds the rank of petty officer second class, joined the Carl Vinson crew three years ago when it was in dry dock in Norfolk, Va. for a major overhaul, and has been with it since. In recent years, the ship has aided in the Haitian relief effort, patrolled against pirates, and visited ports in Korea, the United Arab Emirates, the Philippines and Hong Kong.

A team of Navy Seals that killed Bin Laden at a compound in Pakistan took his body to the Carl Vinson and he was buried in the Arabian Sea on May 2.

That will be one topic that will be off limits when the retired firefighter and his wife, Debra, see their son and his wife, Jillian, next week.

"He's under a gag order. We don't talk about it," Ted Cook said.