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WASHINGTON – House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) today joined the House of Representatives to honor the victims, heroes, and families of 9/11 as America approaches the third anniversary of the attacks. Below are excerpts from his remarks.

“The cause of human freedom has stood anew athwart the forces of oppression and cruelty and violence. History and Providence have called out again for the free people of earth to stand against evil – and the citizens of this republic have kept their charge.

“On September 11, 2001, America stared evil in the face, and though our eyes filled with tears, we did not blink. We did not fear because we knew, even as the fires smoldered beneath the rubble, that we would stand, we would fight, and we would be heard.

“We mourned that day the deaths of 3,000 of our countrymen at the hands of terror, and mourn today more than 1,000 more whose lives have been taken by the same. We honor their courage and their sacrifice, and give thanks and praise to our Creator that such men and women lived.

“Three years on, the recovery continues. The Pentagon has been repaired. The fields of Pennsylvania have been cleared. And Ground Zero has begun its resurrection.

“Unforgotten names have been read and re-read, flags flown, and wounds re-opened and healed once again. Memorials great and small have been planned and dedicated.

“But monuments to freedom are never made of marble, but of action. Heroes like the 9/11 Lost – the firefighters and passengers, the cops and rescue workers, the moms and dads – are truly honored not by words, but deeds.

“It is said that 9/11 was ‘our Pearl Harbor.’ It was also said that ‘Pearl Harbor’ was ‘our parents’ Alamo.’ And that the Alamo was ‘Texas’s Valley Forge.’ We fight today so that our children and grandchildren, decades from now, needn’t come to the well of this House and remember a horrible day of their own as, ‘Our 9/11.’

“Every September 11 from now until the end of the age, free men of the world can look to this nation – ‘the last, best hope of earth’ – and know that when evil struck and the earth trembled beneath us . . . here America rose. Here freedom stood.”