[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16927]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                         ON RECENT U.S. TRAGEDY

  (Mr. FOLEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. FOLEY. Mr. Speaker, it is a new day and a new dawn in America, 
and how lucky I am to be an American citizen.
  Watching the TV in the morning is very, very difficult because we see 
families looking for loved ones and we see people searching for answers 
and clues to this devastating tragedy.
  Whoever did this may have taken a bite out of the big apple, but they 
are rotten to the core for inflicting the damage on innocent people.
  We will see the opening, hopefully soon, of the financial markets, 
and we pray people are not only sensible but reasonable and understand 
that there should be no egregious trading on the backs of this 
disaster.
  When the airlines open today, we ask for calm and reasonableness as 
people approach those who work in our airports.
  We also ask each and every citizen living in communities throughout 
this country to take a moment to salute the police officers, the 
firefighters, the military personnel who don the uniforms of service to 
this country, to this Nation, and to our communities to protect and 
provide for us. Oftentimes we are not thankful enough for those who 
risk their lives because we are simply usually inconvenienced at the 
red or blue lights we see in our rear-view mirrors. We do not thank 
them enough until we need them, until we call 911, and then we 
desperately ask for their help. Society requires us to be bigger and 
better than that.
  I hear some of our Members complaining about not being briefed 
enough, not being informed enough about what has happened. I do not 
want a briefing, I say to my colleagues. I want those people who need 
to pursue this tragedy with vigor to not interrupt their investigation 
to brief us now. We have a chance to be Monday morning quarterbacks, we 
have a chance to review what has happened, but the most important thing 
now is answers for families and answers to who created this problem and 
staying resolved as a Nation that we are bigger and better than they 
are.
  Let us not target citizens needlessly who may be related by ethnicity 
or religion. Let us focus on those perpetrators who inflicted this 
damage and this devastation to our country. We are a bigger and better 
place than anywhere else in the world. And in these critical hours, it 
is more important than ever to prove it, to show the world who we are 
as people, and to make certain while we talk about acts of war and 
treason and treachery that we focus our full, complete attention on 
those who inflicted this pain and damage.
  We are a proud Nation and we are great Americans, and in this hour of 
need let us rise above the din of acrimony and pray to the Lord for 
strength and make certain that in this hour we help our fellow man more 
than ever before.

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