[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 145 (Wednesday, September 11, 2019)]
[House]
[Page H7604]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





     COMMEMORATING THE 18TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS

  (Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, how familiar this day is.
  As a Member of the United States Congress who was in this building on 
9/11, it was a bright and shiny day in New York and Washington, D.C. as 
we fled this building, saw the billowing smoke in the Pentagon, and 
knew that the other towers had already fallen by someone telling us 
something had happened. Hearing rumors that planes were flying into the 
White House and the State Department, we wondered about the resilience 
and the freedom of this Nation.
  How grateful I am to stand here, 18 years later, to remind Americans 
and those who were not yet born that that was a day that should be 
reminding us every day of the greatness of our freedom, the value of 
our democracy, and the power of our people.
  We honor those who fell, those families who still do not know of 
their missing loved ones, those who went to war, those who have come 
back.
  But most of all, this day is to remind us of the wonderment of the 
representation of this Nation, the diverse Nation that it is, people 
from all walks of life, that whatever we have to overcome, whatever 
divisiveness we may see yesterday, today, or tomorrow, it will never--
it will never--undermine the greatness of this country.
  I will always, as one who was here, I will always remember and I will 
never forget. And I honor those whose lives were lost, pray for their 
families, but celebrate this country as we sang on the east steps, 
``God Bless America.''

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