[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 144 (Thursday, September 11, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1777-E1778]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              REMEMBER THOSE KILLED ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

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                           HON. JOHN L. MICA

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 11, 2008

  Mr. MICA. Madam Speaker, As our Nation reflects upon the day of the 
terrorist attacks 7 years ago this week, I cannot forget my friends who 
were killed by terrorists that day.
  Some 7 weeks before September 11, 2001, I spent several days in New 
York City with Neal Levin, executive director of the Port Authority New 
York and New Jersey. I met Neal when he was the legislative director to 
Senator Al D'Amato of New York and when I was

[[Page E1778]]

chief of staff to Senator Paula Hawkins of Florida. In early 2001, he 
became director of the Port Authority, just as I became chairman of the 
U.S. House Aviation Subcommittee in Congress.
  With New York area airports under his authority, he called on me as 
an old friend to come to New York, review the air congestion problem 
and conduct a hearing on the matter. I obliged my friend Neal and after 
visiting John F. Kennedy International, Newark Liberty International 
and LaGuardia Airports, held a hearing in the Port Authority Hearing 
Room in the World Trade Center. After the hearing, Neal hosted me and 
several other guests in the Port Authority's Dining Room adjacent to 
the Windows of the World Restaurant at the top of the World Trade 
Center. It was in that same room where I left Neal and the others who 
assisted me that they all met their deaths on Tuesday, September 11th.
  On the morning of September 11, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald 
Rumsfeld invited me and several other Members of Congress to a 
breakfast meeting at the Pentagon. Our discussion that day was how to 
rebuild our Nation's military capability that had been downsized under 
the outgoing Clinton Administration. Specific to the conversation was 
how our stretched and limited military could muster the resources to 
deal with a future engagement.
  As the meeting concluded near 9 a.m., I was speaking with the Defense 
Secretary at the end of the conference table as word of the first plane 
to hit the World Trade Center reached us. Then we were told of the 
second attack. While the Secretary stepped into his adjacent office, I 
conferred with several of his top aides about the situation. Missing my 
ride back to Capitol Hill, I sought a ride to the House Office Building 
and arrived just as the plane hit the Pentagon.
  Killed in the Pentagon, where I had departed just minutes before, was 
Terry Lynch who worked as a U.S. Senate staffer for Alabama Senator 
Richard Shelby. Terry and I were friends from our U.S. Senate staff 
days. On Flight 93, was Barbara Olsen who worked with me on the House 
Government Reform Committee. She was a brilliant and most capable 
professional and a dear friend who was killed by fanatic terrorists.
  While 7 years have passed, I can never forget these friends or the 
manner in which they were taken from us and their families. As 
Americans, we are blessed with a life most of the world can only dream 
about. While we go about our lives, we should not and can not ever 
forget those taken from us on September 11th.

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