Remembering 9/11

REMEMBERING 9/11

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, on the eve of the second anniversary of 9/11, I feel compelled to take the floor and share with my colleagues some of my thoughts. As a New Yorker, of course, as somebody who lives within sight and looks every morning, when I am home in New York, out my window at the empty space that once was occupied by the twin towers, this is something that never escapes my mind and the mind of every New Yorker. It doesn't escape the mind of every American, and probably doesn't escape the mind of just about every citizen of the world. Because 9/11 changed us in many ways, and we can never go back. But hopefully we can learn from it.

I would like to address at least my thoughts to three different areas: Those of the families and victims and those who rushed to help them; the city and the State of New York; and how it has affected us as a Nation.

First, of course, we think of the families. The day after that horrible terrorist attack occurred, I asked Americans to wear the flag or display the flag out their windows. I put on this very flag. I wear it every day in memory of those who were lost and, God willing, I will wear it every day for the rest of my life in their memory. We think of their bravery, the bravery, of course, of the 343 firefighters who were lost, the many police officers, Port Authority personnel, and the first responders who were lost.

We think of the bravery of average citizens. There was just a story in our New York newspapers about two men who braved the fires and braved the smoke and created a passageway and saved the lives of perhaps a dozen and then went back up to try and save more and perished. In a very real sense, those heroes will live with us forever, like the heroes at Bunker Hill and the heroes at Gettysburg and the heroes on D-Day and the heroes of all the great battles our Nation has faced.
Many of those heroes are civilians—whether they be police, fire, EMT, or just ordinary citizens. That shows you how our world has changed because we are all on the front lines.

We think of their families as well; the hole in their hearts will never heal. It is not simply the loss, although that is overwhelming and preponderant. It is that they were taken in such an act of bitter meanness and nastiness and atrocity. We have to do everything for them. We have to be with them spiritually. We have to provide for them, and we have to, in a sense, sanctify the memory of those who were lost for whom they mourn every day.

I can think of the faces in front of me right now of some of the people I knew—a brave firefighter, a friend who led a company, a high school classmate with whom I played basketball—all gone, simply because some vicious, terrible people thought they had a deranged message. We will never forget the families. And if you ask the families and ask the victims what they want us to do, they would want us to keep our resolve. And keep our resolve we must.
New Yorkers, Americans, good citizens of the world must keep their resolve. As for my city, we are still wounded. Still, every day, so many of us look up at the skyline and see the empty place. People who go on the subway or get in the car or just walk down the street every so often say, Could it happen again? Our city is still wounded. We have suffered large economic loss, but we have suffered far greater personal loss. But the amazing thing about New York is that we are strong, we are vital, and we rebound.

I am so proud of New Yorkers. I was proud of New Yorkers on the day it happened. Many people rose to the occasion. I always think of the man who owned a sneaker store. He stood outside the store and gave all the women who were fleeing the World Trade Center sneakers. He said, "What size are you?" and he gave them a pair of sneakers because it would be hard to walk in their heels. Those acts of generosity have continued.

The fortitude of New Yorkers has also continued. Battery Park City, a residential area by the World Trade Center, which emptied out is full again. Businesses are beginning to return. A leading law firm came back to downtown and opened last week. So the plans proceed apace. Because we are New Yorkers, of course, there are some disputes, but the plans proceed apace for how we should rebuild—both remembering those who were lost and also remembering that terrorists tried to destroy the commercial greatness of our city. We are going to rebuild commercially as well. I was so proud of the polls that showed that more New Yorkers said they wanted to stay in New York after 9/11 than before 9/11. That is the spirit of the city. It is a great city.

It is the spirit of the whole New York area because there were people who lived in the suburbs who rushed in to help, and they all suffered losses. It is the spirit of our whole State, where people from Buffalo in the north and every point in between rushed to New York City and helped us, and we try to remember to help them.

We are grateful that the Nation has remembered us. The money we worked on to bring back to New York is being spent wisely and being spent well. We are not rushing to spend it. Every so often, there is a newspaper article that says not all of it has been spent. Of course not. But the fact that the President—and I give him credit. We disagree on many issues, but he stood by New York and he remembered what we needed and never broke his word. This Senate and the House, both Democrats and Republicans, again, had disputes about how to do it, but the Congress was very generous to our city. We may come back and need more, of course, but the generosity is real, remembered, and appreciated by New Yorkers.

Finally, what did we learn on 9/11? We learned that the very technology that blessed our lives and accounted for so much of the prosperity we have seen in the last two decades has a dark and evil underside; namely, that small groups of bad people can get ahold of that technology and do tremendous damage in our country. You can be in a cave in Afghanistan, and if you have a wireless connection to the Internet, you can learn as much about America as many of us know. The sad fact is, if you took 200 people anywhere in the world, or maybe a thousand, and injected them with the "evil virus" and they would decide to fanatically devote themselves to hurting America for the next 5 years, the odds are too high that they could succeed. But we are beginning to respond to that challenge.

The war against terrorism is not a 1-, 2-, or 3-year phenomenon. It is going to be a 30-, 40-, or 50-year phenomenon. Today is not the day to bring up the disputes that we all have about this issue, but it is rather to say that it is brand new, and every one of us should walk humbly before proffering solutions because in a certain sense, we have no experience pool.
Mistakes will be made.

In a real sense, we are analogous to, say, 1946. America had just beaten the Germans and the Japanese. The average American said let's forget about the world and put our feet up on the coffee table and enjoy our fruits of our labor here at home. All of a sudden, there was a large Communist monolith looking over our shoulder. Initially, we didn't know how to react, and we made mistakes along the way—McCarthyism and Vietnam—but eventually we triumphed over communism.
I am not sure the war on terrorism will take us that long to triumph. It may be 20, 30 or 15 years, but it will not take 2 or 3 years.

We are going to have to be vigilant to the memory of those who were lost, to those who suffered. To rise to the greatness of this Nation, we are going to have to be vigilant and remember that no one has all the answers and we will make mistakes, but we will prevail provided we keep our resolve, which I believe we will. Yes, it has changed us. But Ernest Hemmingway once wrote that the world breaks us in certain places and we grow back stronger over the breaks. Hopefully, that will happen here. I believe it is happening here. We are learning, we are adapting, and we will triumph.

So we say to those evil people halfway around the world, who did what they did on that day 2 years minus 1 day ago, you messed with the wrong city, you messed with the wrong country, and you will pay a price. We will not let you and your evil message prevail.

So it is 2 years now. In some ways, it seems like yesterday. In some ways, it seems like a lifetime. We will remember those who were lost. Our city will maintain and even achieve greater greatness, and our country will prevail over terrorism. God bless those families who still suffer. God bless our city and State, and God bless America.

I yield the floor.