[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 16]
[House]
[Page 21835]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  REMEMBER THE TRAGEDY OF SEPTEMBER 11

  (Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt) is my 
counterpart in this House. It is his responsibility to organize his 
party to vote on issues of importance to this country and to express 
their views. And on my side of the aisle, it is my responsibility to 
organize my party to express our views. At times, that is 
extraordinarily contentious and we demonstrate to the American public, 
and indeed to the world, sometimes deep differences.
  But the gentleman from Missouri is my friend, he is my fellow citizen 
of this greatest of democracies and nations. And on September 11, 2 
years ago, he and I and our colleagues were on this hill, and we heard 
that there was a plane coming towards this city. It was in the context 
of one plane hitting the north tower and one plain hitting the south 
tower of the World Trade Center in New York. On that day, there were no 
Republicans, there were no Democrats, there were no liberals, there 
were no conservatives. There were Americans. There were representatives 
of 280 million people elected to serve this great Nation.
  Today, we are as one with our President and with our people in 
remembering, remembering those whom we lost from this Nation, and 
indeed from nations around the world. We remember the heroism of those 
brave citizens on that plane over Pennsylvania, determined that the 
information they had received about terrorists taking down buildings 
would not be allowed by them to happen as a result of the plane that 
they were on being crashed into what we ultimately conclude was either 
this building, the center of democracy, or the White House, the House 
of the leader of the free world.
  And so, Mr. Speaker, as we remember, as we reflect, we renew our 
resolve that we will confront terrorism; that in John Kennedy's words, 
we will pay any price, bear any burden to defend freedom here and 
around the world. God blesses America, God blesses America through the 
resolve and the courage of its people and its commitment to freedom.

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