September 11 Memorial of Maryland Dedication

Statement

Rand, thank you so very, very much. And thank you by extension, all of the people who you've touched, all of you who have come together to make this fitting memorial possible here in the original "Land of the Free and Home of the Brave," Baltimore City, the greatest city in America.

Friends, colleagues, members of the clergy, neighbors, Marylanders and fellow Americans -- especially to the families, who have been to many memorial services and certainly on this day had many places that they needed to be. Thank you for coming here to be with us, so that we could be here with you. As I spoke with some family members before the program began, the mother of one of our fallen citizen-heroes that day said, "I don't need an anniversary to remember the loss." And I'm sure for you every single day has been a day filled with moments of loss. And we gather today to remember and pay tribute to the 3,000 men, women, and children -- 68 of them Marylanders -- who lost their lives ten years ago, on September 11th, 2001.

We gather to honor the courage and resolve of the families who are with us and who have demonstrated that courage every single day.

And we also gather with unity of purpose -- a unity of purpose that comes from knowing what we have and seeing the strength, and seeing the love we have for one another, to turn our shock into action, to turn our sorrow into strength, and to turn our mourning into resolve.

I remember so vividly, as each of you does, I remember the beautiful, clear sky without a single cloud in it. I remember the feeling of dread. I remember a boiling anger that still rises up in each of us ten years later.

But I remember something else as well. I remember a couple of days later when we gathered on the cobblestones of War Memorial Plaza here, where we've celebrated in times of joy and triumph, and we came together in that time of sorrow to pledge that we would never allow our freedom to be conquered. And we would never allow fear to conquer us. That we promised ourselves that we would never allow our love to be conquered by hate.

On September 11, 2001, we told one another also that we would never forget. And we never have.

The story of the resilience of that day, of September 11th -- the courage, the remembrance, the renewal and what we choose to do with it -- is still a story that we write today. It's a needed story. It's a story that must be written every single day, even as we leave this place of fitting tribute.

It has been written that "darkness is the great canvas against which beauty becomes visible." There is a lot of beauty that was made visible on that tragic day ten years ago. The beauty that is the dignity of every individual. The beauty of our own responsibility to be able to advance and protect the greater good. The beauty that is our own individual understanding that we're all in this together, that each of us is needed, and that what we do in our own short lifetimes matters. It matters a great deal.

And so, as we mark this anniversary date, let us say with Maryland's own Frederick Douglass that "we are one, that our cause is one, and we must help each other if we are to succeed."

May God bless each and every one of you, and may God bless America.

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