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 WASHINGTON,
Sept. 11, 2011 – President Barack Obama today remembered those who
were lost to terrorist attacks a decade ago and said the American
commitment to freedom, justice, courage and liberty has not dimmed
in the face of many trials.
Obama capped a busy day that took
him to ground zero in New York, to Shanksville, Pa., where United
Airlines Flight 93 crashed, and to the Pentagon.
Tonight, the
president spoke at the Concert for Hope at the Kennedy Center here,
where began his remarks with a quote from the Bible: “Weeping may
endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,” from Psalm 30.
Americans endured such a night on Sept. 11, 2001, Obama said.
“Mighty towers crumbled. Black smoke billowed up from the
Pentagon. Airplane wreckage smoldered on a Pennsylvania field,” he
said. “Friends and neighbors, sisters and brothers, mothers and
fathers, sons and daughters -- they were taken from us with
heartbreaking swiftness and cruelty. On Sept. 12, 2001, we awoke to
a world in which evil was closer at hand, and uncertainty clouded
our future.”
In the past 10 years, much has changed, and
America is at war, the president noted.
“We can never get
back the lives we lost on that day, or the Americans who made the
ultimate sacrifice in the wars that followed,” he said, but he added
that after a decade it is worth remembering what hasn't changed.
“Our character as a nation has not changed,” Obama said. “Our
faith – in God and each other – that has not changed. Our belief in
America, born of a timeless ideal that men and women should govern
themselves, that all people are created equal, and deserve the same
freedom to determine their own destiny -- that belief, through test
and trials, has only been strengthened.”
The past decade has
shown America does not give in to fear, Obama said. He spoke of
first responders running into doomed buildings and airline
passengers taking on terrorists as just two examples, and he said
Americans have worked together to defend the nation and its values.
“Two million Americans have gone to war since 9/11,” Obama said.
“They have demonstrated that those who do us harm cannot hide from
the reach of justice, anywhere in the world.”
The men and
women who fight America's wars are not conscripts, but volunteers,
the president noted. “They are men and women who left behind lives
of comfort for two, three, four, or five tours of duty. Too many
will never come home. Those that do carry dark memories from distant
places and the legacy of fallen friends.”
U.S. service
members and their families have sacrificed in Afghanistan and Iraq,
Obama said, but they do not sacrifice for conquest or to demonstrate
America can occupy another country.
“Our strength is not
measured in our ability to stay in these places; it comes from our
commitment to leave those lands to free people and sovereign states,
and our desire to move from a decade of war to a future of peace,”
the president said.
And America holds on to its freedoms,
Obama said, acknowledging that fierce debates have taken place about
the balance between security and civil liberties.
“But it is
precisely the rigor of these debates, and our ability to resolve
them in a way that honors our values, that is a measure of our
strength,” he said. “Meanwhile, our open markets still provide
innovators with the chance to create, our citizens are still free to
speak their minds, and our souls are still enriched in our churches
and temples, our synagogues and mosques.”
And America has
also not succumbed to suspicion and mistrust, the president said,
evoking the words of his predecessor. “After 9/11, President Bush
made clear what we reaffirm today: the United States will never wage
war against Islam or any religion,” Obama said.
In the wake
of 9/11, America has arisen from the canvas and demonstrated once
again its resilience, the president told the Kennedy Center
audience. “The Pentagon is repaired, and filled with patriots
working in common purpose,” he said. “Shanksville is the scene of
friendships forged between residents of that town and families who
lost loved ones there. New York remains a vibrant capital of the
arts and industry, fashion and commerce.
“Where the World
Trade Center once stood, “the sun glistens off a new tower that
reaches toward the sky,” he continued. “Our people still work in
skyscrapers. Our stadiums are filled with fans, and our parks full
of children playing ball. Our airports hum with travel, and our
buses and subways take millions where they need to go. Families sit
down to Sunday dinner, and students prepare for school. This land
pulses with the optimism of those who set out for distant shores,
and the courage of those who died for human freedom.”
America
has met the test, and those who follow will appreciate the courage,
commitment and resilience of Americans of this era, the president
said. He stressed the word “united” when he said, “Nothing can break
the will of a truly United States of America.”
Those of the
future will remember and understand that the people of the United
States “have overcome slavery and Civil War, bread lines and
fascism, recession and riots, communism and, yes, terrorism,” he
said. “They will be reminded that we are not perfect, but our
democracy is durable, and that democracy – reflecting, as it does,
the imperfections of man – also gives us the opportunity to perfect
our union.
“That is what we honor on days of national
commemoration – those aspects of the American experience that are
enduring, and the determination to move forward as one people,” he
said.
That determination to move forward is the real legacy
of 9/11, the president told the audience. “It will be said of us
that we kept that faith -- that we took a painful blow, and emerged
stronger,” he said.
The president closed with a call that
echoed President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: “With a just
God as our guide, let us honor those who have been lost. Let us
rededicate ourselves to the ideals that define our nation, and let
us look to the future with hearts full of hope. May God bless the
memory of those we lost, and may God bless the United States of
America.”
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
Copyright 2011
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