[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 119 (Thursday, September 13, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Page S9388]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           A DAY OF EMOTIONS

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, as we wind up this 
extraordinary day, it has been a day of tremendous emotional swings. 
Earlier this morning, I came to this floor grief stricken having just 
talked to a family from Florida who had lost one of their members. 
Later on in the day, I talked to a police officer, now a widower of the 
flight attendant on the airliner that crashed in Pennsylvania who 
called her husband telling him that it had been hijacked and that she 
wanted to tell him that she loved him and she wanted their boys to know 
that she loved them. That is the flight that we have heard so many 
reports was targeted coming into Washington. It had made a 180-degree 
turn, having left Newark, westbound, and was headed to Washington. In 
fact, we have heard so many stories of other cellular telephone calls 
from the airplane that would indicate that the passengers, who were the 
real heroes, had indicated they knew that the hijackers were intent on 
harm to the Nation, and they were going to overcome the hijackers. In 
fact, they did--at their own peril, at their own demise, but being 
tremendous heroes to this country.

  So it has been that kind of day. We have gone from the swings of the 
emotion of the lows, with those kinds of grief-stricken experiences, to 
the highs of where we have never seen this place so unified. We have 
never seen both sides of the aisle come together as they have in recent 
American political history. We have never seen the unity of the 
legislative branch of Government and the executive branch.
  So it has been an extraordinary day. It has been an extraordinary 3 
days. I am just grateful to be one participant, along with my colleague 
from Minnesota, who is the Presiding Officer.
  I will defer to the great leader we have from the State of Nevada, a 
man who is the glue that pulls us all together, who gives the support 
that is the right hand to our great majority leader. It is my privilege 
to relinquish the floor so he might speak.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I express my appreciation to my friend from 
Florida for those flattering words.

                          ____________________