While former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was imitating Queen Elizabeth and distancing himself from Prince Andrew on the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, thousands of Americans were remembering their loved ones who died that day in 2001. Lee Ielpi, a retired firefighter who voluntarily worked a command post during the devastation told Inside Edition it’s been 20 years since he’s seen his son and it’s “still difficult everyday.” 

Giuliani joked, rambling Saturday at a September 11 memorial dinner held at hotel Cipriani, where he called President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan “freaking insane,” and attempted a British accent to mimic the queen offering to make Giuliani an honorary knight. 

“She said ‘you did a wonderful job on September 11, and therefore, I’m making you an honorary knight, commander’ of the royal something or another,” Giuliani said. He added that he turned down the knighthood and never went out with Prince Andrew. “I never went out with him! Ever! Never had a drink with him. Never was with a woman or a young girl with him. Ever ever ever,” Giuliani said.

In his rambling rant, the former personal attorney to Donald Trump also questioned how Gen. Mark Milley rose to the ranks of general and joked about assaulting him. “I wanted to grab his stars shove it down his throat and say, ‘It’s 400 miles from China, a–hole!” Giuliani said. “China is going to be our enemy for the next 40 years! You have an airbase 400 miles from them and you’re giving it up? Idiot!”

NBC New York journalists noted before an interview with Giuliani that it’s impossible to reflect on September 11 without considering the former mayor’s role, which was initially praised and later scrutinized. “Viewed as a national hero and knighted by the Queen of England, he was also criticized for profiting from the attacks and devastating command failures in the response,” NBC New York reported before Giuliani’s recent speech.

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He focused on the victims in his NBC interview, saying: “These were just people delivering food in the morning to an office or the cleaning lady who didn’t get out on time or the chief executive of a financial company. None of them had anything to do with whatever it is they’re upset about.”

Per usual, Giuliani’s words juxtaposed with more of Giuliani’s words painted the kind of picture perfect political insincerity that seemed to do everything but honor those who sacrificed themselves for their country.

Lee Ielpi’s son, Jonathan, was 29-years-old when he was killed at the World Trade Center working as a firefighter. His father and brother, also a firefighter, told Inside Edition they spent months searching through the rubble for Jonathan’s body but it wasn’t until three months later in December that Lee got a phone call about his son.

“It was 11:30, which was unusual,” he said. “Answered the phone, it was Paul. Paul is the chief in charge of the recovery … With a voice of absolute pleasure, absolute beautiful, nice tone, he said, ‘Hey, Lee, we have John.’ I said, “Great. We’ll be right in.’

In keeping with what is a tradition among firefighters, Lee and Brandan Lelpi carried Jonathan’s body from the search site. “We started to walk up this horrible roadway. Everybody has to salute at this point, I just looked over at them and I smile that big smile,” Lee said. “They smiled back, and I gave them a thumbs up because you had to say thank you. These men and women are on their hands and knees every day. In this case for three months. Doing what? Finding body parts.”

Lee said he now travels the world educating students about what happened on Sept. 11, 2001. “I could be walking down a hall, and kids know now that I’m coming to speak, and I ask a child, a young person going out into the real world, ‘Say, what do you know about 9/11?'” Lee said. “And the answer I have received, many, many times is, ‘What is 9/11?'” Lee said he doesn’t sugar coat what happened for the students. “One of the things that I do speak about when I go, I don’t hold back. I’m not going to sugar coat. I’m going to talk about the body parts,” he said, also telling Inside Edition sometimes parents are apprehensive about their children learning about terrorism.

”That’s not the way you educate,” Lee said. “You do it correctly. You do it with feeling and you always bring the children back with a positive note. I make them smile. I make them laugh. I make them cry, but I end it with a positive smile.”

“It wasn’t just my son and my buddies,” Lee told Inside Edition. “It was all the men and women that went to work that day. Never planning on what happened to them.”