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The Full text of President George W Bush's speech at the National Cathedral 15th Sept.2001 We
are here in the middle hour of our grief. So many have suffered so great a loss,
and today we express our nation's sorrow. We come before God to pray for the
missing and the dead, and for those who loved them. On Tuesday, our country was
attacked with deliberate and massive cruelty. We have seen the images of fire
and ashes and bent steel. Now come the names, the list of
casualties we are only beginning. They are the names of men and women who began
their day at a desk or in an airport, busy with life. They are the names of
people who faced death and in their last moments called home to say, be brave
and I love you. They are the names of passengers
who defied their murderers and prevented the murder of others on the ground.
They are the names of men and women who wore the uniform of the United States
and died at their posts. They are the names of rescuers --
the ones whom death found running up the stairs and into the fires to help
others. We will read all these names. We will linger over them and learn their
stories, and many Americans will weep. To the children and parents and
spouses and families and friends of the lost, we offer the deepest sympathy of
the nation. And I assure you, you are not alone. Just three days removed from these
events, Americans do not yet have the distance of history, but our
responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the
world of evil. War has been waged against us by
stealth and deceit and murder. This nation is peaceful, but fierce
when stirred to anger. This conflict was begun on the timing and terms of
others; it will end in a way and at an hour of our choosing. Our purpose as a nation is firm,
yet our wounds as a people are recent and unhealed and lead us to pray. In many
of our prayers this week, there's a searching and an honesty. At St. Patrick's
Cathedral in New York, on Tuesday, a woman said, "I pray to God to give us
a sign that he's still here." Others have prayed for the same,
searching hospital to hospital, carrying pictures of those still missing. God's
signs are not always the ones we look for. We learn in tragedy that his purposes
are not always our own, yet the prayers of private suffering, whether in our
homes or in this great cathedral are known and heard and understood. There are prayers that help us last
through the day or endure the night. There are prayers of friends and strangers
that give us strength for the journey, and there are prayers that yield our will
to a will greater than our own. This world He created is of moral
design. Grief and tragedy and hatred are only for a time. Goodness, remembrance
and love have no end, and the Lord of life holds all who die and all who mourn. It is said that adversity
introduces us to ourselves. This is true of a nation as well.
In this trial, we have been reminded and the world has seen that our fellow
Americans are generous and kind, resourceful and brave. We see our national character in
rescuers working past exhaustion, in long lines of blood donors, in thousands of
citizens who have asked to work and serve in any way possible. And we have seen
our national character in eloquent acts of sacrifice. Inside the World Trade
Center, one man who could have saved himself stayed until the end and at the
side of his quadriplegic friend. A beloved priest died giving the last rites to
a firefighter. Two office workers, finding a disabled stranger, carried her down
68 floors to safety. A group of men drove through the
night from Dallas to Washington to bring skin grafts for burned victims. In
these acts and many others, Americans showed a deep commitment to one another
and in an abiding love for our country. Today, we feel what Franklin
Roosevelt called, "the warm courage of national unity." This is a
unity of every faith and every background. This has joined together political
parties and both houses of Congress. It is evident in services of prayer and
candlelight vigils and American flags, which are displayed in pride and waved in
defiance. Our unity is a kinship of grief and a steadfast resolve to prevail
against our enemies. And this unity against terror is now extending across the
world. America is a nation full of good
fortune, with so much to be grateful for, but we are not spared from suffering.
In every generation, the world has produced enemies of human freedom. They have
attacked America because we are freedom's home and defender, and the commitment
of our fathers is now the calling of our time. On this national day of prayer and
remembrance, we ask almighty God to watch over our nation and grant us patience
and resolve in all that is to come. We pray that He will comfort and console
those who now walk in sorrow. We thank Him for each life we now must mourn, and
the promise of a life to come. As we've been assured, neither
death nor life nor angels nor principalities, nor powers nor things present nor
things to come nor height nor depth can separate us from God's love. May He bless the souls of the
departed. May He comfort our own. And may He always guide our country. God bless America. |
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