Spring Lake New Jersey September 11 Memorial
-September 11, 2021
Photo Credit: Adam Kenny and Sam I Am
Slightly less than twenty years ago, on September 20, 2001, President George W. Bush addressed a Joint Session of Congress and the Nation. Having heard President Bush's speech given yesterday at the Flight 93 Memorial, I was struck by what he said. It caused me to go back and re-read the text of his September 20, 2001 remarks (you can read the full text of his speech here), which made me reflect upon just how right he was, both twenty years ago and twenty-four hours ago.
Great harm has been done to us.
We have suffered great loss.
And in our grief and anger
we have found our mission and our moment.
Freedom and fear are at war.
The advance of human freedom,
the great achievement of our time
and the great hope of every time,
now depends on us.
Our nation, this generation,
will lift the dark threat of violence
from our people and our future.
We will rally the world to this cause
by our efforts, by our courage.
We will not tire, we will not falter
and we will not fail.
It is my hope that in the months and years ahead
life will return almost to normal.
We'll go back to our lives
and routines and that is good.
Even grief recedes with time and grace.
But our resolve must not pass.
Each of us will remember what happened that day
and to whom it happened.
We will remember the moment the news came,
where we were and what we were doing.
Some will remember an image
of a fire or story or rescue.
Some will carry memories of a face
and a voice gone forever.
"Address to Joint Session of Congress and the Nation"
September 20, 2001
President George W. Bush
Twenty years ago, we all found --
in different ways, in different places,
but all at the same moment --
that our lives would be changed forever.
The world was loud with carnage and sirens,
and then quiet with missing voices
that would never be heard again.
These lives remain precious to our country,
and infinitely precious to many of you.
Today we remember your loss,
we share your sorrow,
and we honor the men and women
you have loved so long and so well.
For those too young to recall that clear September day,
it is hard to describe the mix of feelings we experienced.
There was horror at the scale --
there was horror at the scale of destruction,
d awe at the bravery and kindness that rose to meet it.
There was shock at the audacity --
audacity of evil -- and gratitude
for the heroism and decency that opposed it.
In the sacrifice of the first responders,
in the mutual aid of strangers,
in the solidarity of grief and grace,
the actions of an enemy revealed the spirit of a people.
And we were proud of our wounded nation...
In those fateful hours, we learned other lessons as well.
We saw that Americans were vulnerable,
but not fragile -- that they possess a core of strength
that survives the worst that life can bring.
We learned that bravery is more common than we imagined,
emerging with sudden splendor in the face of death.
We vividly felt how every hour with our loved ones
was a temporary and holy gift.
And we found that even the longest days end.
Many of us have tried to make spiritual sense of these events.
There is no simple explanation for the mix of providence and
human will that sets the direction of our lives.
But comfort can come from a different sort of knowledge.
After wandering long and lost in the dark,
many have found they were actually walking,
step by step, toward grace...
And we have seen growing evidence that the dangers
to our country can come not only across borders,
but from violence that gathers within.
There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad
and violent extremists at home. But in their disdain for pluralism,
in their disregard for human life, in their determination to
defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit.
And it is our continuing duty to confront them...
In the weeks and months following the 9/11 attacks,
I was proud to lead an amazing, resilient, united people.
When it comes to the unity of America,
those days seem distant from our own.
A malign force seems at work in our common life
that turns every disagreement into an argument,
and every argument into a clash of cultures.
So much of our politics has become a naked
appeal to anger, fear, and resentment.
That leaves us worried about our nation
and our future together.
I come without explanations or solutions.
I can only tell you what I have seen...
This is not mere nostalgia;
it is the truest version of ourselves.
It is what we have been -
and what we can be again.
Twenty years ago,
terrorists chose a random group of Americans,
on a routine flight,
to be collateral damage in a spectacularact of terror.
The 33 passengers and 7 crew of Flight 93
could have been any group of citizens selected by fate.
In a sense, they stood in for all of us.
The terrorists soon discovered that a
random group of Americans is an
exceptional group of people.
Facing an impossible circumstance,
they comforted their loved ones by phone,
braced each other for action,
and defeated the designs of evil.
These Americans were brave, strong and united
in ways that shocked the terrorists -
but should not surprise any of us.
This is the nation we know.
And whenever we need hope and inspiration,
we can look to the skies and remember.
"Address at the Flight 93 Memorial"
September 11, 2021
President George W. Bush
-AK
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