THE PRESIDENT: A great writer has said that the struggle
of humanity against tyranny is the struggle of memory against
forgetting. When we fight terror, we fight tyranny; and so
we remember. We remember the perfect blueness of the sky
that Tuesday morning. We remember the children traveling
without their mothers when their planes were hijacked.
We remember the cruelty of the murderers and the pain and anguish
of the murdered. Every one of the innocents who died on
September the 11th was the most important person on earth to
somebody. Every death extinguished a world.
We remember the courage of the rescue workers and the outpouring of
friendship and sympathy from nations around the world. We
remember how we felt that day: our sadness, the surge of
love for our country, our anger, and our determination to right this
huge wrong.
Today, the wrong is being righted and justice is being
done. We still have far to go. And many dangers
lie ahead. Yet, there can be no doubt how this conflict will
end. Our enemies have made the mistake that America's
enemies always make. They saw liberty and thought they saw
weakness. And now, they see defeat.
In time, this war will end. But our remembrance never
will. All around this beautiful city are statues of our
heroes, memorials, museums and archives that preserve our national
experience, our achievements and our failures, our defeats and our
victories.
This republic is young, but its memory is long. Now, we
have inscribed a new memory alongside those others. It's a
memory of tragedy and shock, of loss and mourning. But not
only of loss and mourning. It's also a memory of bravery and
self-sacrifice, and the love that lays down its life for a friend --
even a friend whose name it never knew.
We are privileged to have with us the families of many of the
heroes on September the 11th, including the family of Jeremy Glick of
Flight 93. His courage and self-sacrifice may have saved the
White House. It is right and fitting that it is here we pay
our respects.
In time, perhaps, we will mark the memory of September the 11th in
stone and metal -- something we can show children as yet unborn to help
them understand what happened on this minute and on this day.
But for those of us who lived through these events, the only marker
we'll ever need is the tick of a clock at the 46th minute of the eighth
hour of the 11th day. We will remember where we were and how
we felt. We will remember the dead and what we owe
them. We will remember what we lost and what we found.
And in our time, we will honor the memory of the 11th day by doing
our duty as citizens of this great country, freedom's home and freedoms
defender. God bless. (Applause.)