From left to right, The Pentagon, World Trade Center, and United Flight 93 crash site.

Not that long ago, America was attacked.   Only now am I beginning to fully realize what I saw on September 11, 2001, but still have more questions than answers. I don't know or understand the lesson that we were supposed to have learned, and I am not sure I will ever understand. I don't have any patriotic sound bite, just a deep love for our country.

David P. Christiansen

Perhaps the three images above are more meaningful than any pictures of burning buildings, explosions, or crash sites. National disaster causes many reactions, the first of which is doing what we have to do to accomplish the rescue of any survivors, to comfort families and friends of those injured, and those who did not survive. We also must ensure the security not only of our national borders, but also of internal facilities that may be in danger from evil men because of our own complacency. Americans, more than any people in the world, have demonstrated that they can pull together in time of tragedy.

At first, we all come together – some on search and rescue, some giving blood, some counseling, some donating time, money and needed supplies. Second, we find comfort in a surge of the patriotism that is our birthright, and we signal our righteous outrage over the cowardly acts of a demented few who mistakenly believe they can break our spirit. Finally, we may feel helpless, like the lone rescue worker atop the mass of rubble in the photo at right above. But we are not helpless. Thank God we live in a country where the “People” can find ways to keep the spirit of our sacred birthright alive for future generations.

One way is to make sure that our children and grandchildren understand their birthright. We all need to personally take part in projects that promote the very foundations upon which this great nation was formed; Faith, Family and Flag (country); projects that teach and instill the traditional meanings of Patriotism, Dignity, Honor and Respect.

One such project is Freedom Field, a 30-acre national educational park and entertainment facility dedicated to the honor of the Flag of the United States of America, the universal symbol representing freedom and liberty throughout the world. Freedom Field will be a beacon of light that will shine for all to see, letting them know that our spirit cannot be broken.

You can take part in this very special project.

Our mission is to cultivate in the largest possible number of our young citizens an appreciation of both the responsibilities and the benefits which come to them because they are Americans.....and are free.

PRESIDENT BUSH

ADDRESSES MORNERS

AT THE NATIONAL CATHEDRAL

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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