[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 37, Number 50 (Monday, December 17, 2001)]
[Page 1775]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at ``The World Will Always Remember September 11'' Ceremony

December 11, 2001

    A great writer has said that the struggle of humanity against 
tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting. When we fight 
terror, we fight tyranny, and so we remember. We remember the perfect 
blueness of the sky that Tuesday morning. We remember the children 
traveling without their mothers when the planes were hijacked.
    We remember the cruelty of the murderers and the pain and anguish of 
the murdered. Every one of the innocents who died on September the 11th 
was the most important person on Earth to somebody. Every death 
extinguished a world.
    We remember the courage of the rescue workers and the outpouring of 
friendship and sympathy from nations around the world. We remember how 
we felt that day: our sadness, the surge of love for our country, our 
anger, and our determination to right this huge wrong.
    Today, the wrong is being righted, and justice is being done. We 
still have far to go, and many dangers lie ahead. Yet, there can be no 
doubt how this conflict will end. Our enemies have made the mistake that 
America's enemies always make. They saw liberty and thought they saw 
weakness. And now, they see defeat.
    In time, this war will end, but our remembrance never will. All 
around this beautiful city are statues of our heroes, memorials, 
museums, and archives that preserve our national experience, our 
achievements and our failures, our defeats and our victories.
    This Republic is young, but its memory is long. Now we have 
inscribed a new memory alongside those others. It's a memory of tragedy 
and shock, of loss and mourning--but not only of loss and mourning. It's 
also a memory of bravery and self-sacrifice and the love that lays down 
its life for a friend, even a friend whose name it never knew.
    We are privileged to have with us today the families of many of the 
heroes on September the 11th, including the family of Jeremy Glick of 
Flight 93. His courage and self-sacrifice may have saved the White 
House. It is right and fitting that it is here we pay our respects.
    In time, perhaps, we will mark the memory of September the 11th in 
stone and metal, something we can show children as yet unborn to help 
them understand what happened on this minute and on this day.
    But for those of us who lived through these events, the only marker 
we'll ever need is the tick of a clock at the 46th minute of the 8th 
hour of the 11th day. We will remember where we were and how we felt. We 
will remember the dead and what we owe them. We will remember what we 
lost and what we found. And in our time, we will honor the memory of the 
11th day by doing our duty as citizens of this great country, freedom's 
home and freedom's defender.
    God bless.

Note: The President spoke at 8:46 a.m. in the East Room at the White 
House.