Nick Rahall: “we are not here today to determine whether the events of September 11, 2001 should be memorialized. That process began…”

“we are not here today to determine whether the events of September 11, 2001 should be memorialized. That process began immediately after that tragic day in truly American fashion, as spontaneous free expressions of grief and unity. Ribbons were pinned on chests. Old Glory was hung from every post. Shared moments of silence, neighbors gathering on front stoops by candlelight, families and friends and total strangers joining hands, churches and football fields ringing of spacious skies and amber waves of grain. Over the last 5 years, States and cities, organizations and individuals throughout our great Nation have chosen to commemorate that day, the sorrow and the heroism, in different tangible ways, with art and statues and structures that will long stand as reminders of our shared experience. Now, national efforts are underway, with congressional support, in Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon. The specific purpose of House Resolution 175 is to place the Congress on record supporting a memorial in New York City that will also be a memorial conceived, designed, and interpreted for our Nation as a whole. It is appropriate that we do this. The brutal attack upon our Nation was intended to be national in scope by its perpetrators. Ground Zero, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, were scarred by an attack aimed at the whole of America.…”