[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 128 (Friday, September 11, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Page S9289]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            9/11 REMEMBRANCE

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, before I make some comments 
about our departed colleague, Senator Kennedy, I must comment on the 
gravity of the remembrance of this day in history several years ago.
  There is not a person living who was old enough at the time on that 
fateful day in 2001 who does not remember exactly where they were when 
the tragedy occurred and this Nation was struck by terrorists, struck 
from within.
  Our Nation had grown up in its history of always having been 
protected in the homeland, protected by geography, with two big oceans 
that kept us insulated from attack from without. Then suddenly we were 
shocked into the realization that we could be attacked on our own 
homeland. Of course, what America has done in reaction to that, in 
perfecting our defenses, in increasing our intelligence apparatus, so 
that we get the information before the terrorists can carry out their 
dastardly deeds.
  That has been significant in the protection of this Nation and its 
people. Of course, we remember exactly that fateful day, every one of 
us. This Senator was only a few yards from this Chamber on the west 
front of this U.S. Capitol building in a meeting with leadership. We 
were aware that the Twin Towers had been struck with the first and 
second planes. Somehow we wanted to continue our meeting, even though 
our minds couldn't stay on the subject matter of the day, when someone 
burst in the room--I believe it is S-219--and said the Pentagon had 
been hit. We leapt to the window overlooking the Mall in the direction 
of the Pentagon and could see the black smoke rising.
  It is interesting the reactions you have at a time such as that. My 
wife and I had, a few days before, moved into an apartment overlooking 
the southwest corner of the Pentagon. It is called Pentagon Row. Of 
course, I leapt to a telephone to try to get a message to her to get 
out of the apartment and get into the basement garage. Being 
unsuccessful to reach her, I came back into the room everyone had 
deserted and out into the hallway, seeing the hallway crowded with 
people going down the stairs and hearing the Capitol policeman at the 
bottom of the stairs saying: Get out of the building, run, run, get out 
of the building. Of course, the report had come in that the fourth 
airplane was inbound for Washington.
  It was a day that brought Senator Rockefeller and me together, as he 
beckoned to me to get into his car and, as we drove away from the 
Capitol complex, scrambling with our cell phones, trying to get office 
staff to tell them to get out of the buildings and get to a location 
where they could inform us away from the Capitol complex. Senator 
Rockefeller and I wound through streets in Washington until we got to a 
location where we could wait to try to get additional information. 
Since then, of course, our Capitol police force and the Department of 
Homeland Security have come through with procedures and instructions 
that are much more definitive than we had on that day.
  I will never forget on that day when Senator Rockefeller and I 
decided we needed to move away from the location we were--we wanted to 
get to a place we could get news; we went to his home--hearing not a 
sound in the sky since all air traffic had been ceased on order of the 
Secretary of Transportation, but then hearing that silent sky being 
pierced by the sound of F-15s overflying the Capitol. It was a day that 
we not only can remember but that we can take great lessons and 
instruction from to prepare not to let it happen again, one we remember 
today and those people who sacrificed, those people who were the 
victims.

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