Political Quotes

“I was struck when we took this moment of silence to remember the second plane slamming into the World Trade Center. Thinking back to that day and recalling the events when the first plane crashed, there was confusion and no one knew what was going on. No one understood. It was an accident. Who knows. But with the second plane came understanding. We knew this was not a plane that got off course, an accident, but there was a stunning realization that the world had changed. It was that second crash. In the next half hour now, there will be another moment of silence, and then another roughly a half hour after that. Within that hour's time of that realization, America mobilized. America did not fall back on its heels. We obviously saw the response of the firefighters and the police, of the average citizen in New York. We quickly would see that reaction at the Pentagon. Then we will have forever etched in our minds the realization that came over the passengers of flight 93 that America was under attack and they were in a position to do something about it. They did not hesitate. They were ordinary people, as all of the heroes of September 11 were, ordinary people who did not sign up to fight a war, who did not even know until the moment they were pressed into service that a war was about to happen.”