SHAKSVILLE: Former President George W. Bush told people at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania that Americans learned much about themselves on September 11.
"We learned that bravery is more common than we imagined, emerging with sudden splendor in the face of death," Bush said Saturday at a ceremony on the 20th anniversary of the attacks.
Bush, who was president during the attacks, commended the courage of the Flight 93 passengers and crew who are believed to have foiled an attack on the US Capitol by leading the plane to crash in rural Pennsylvania.
"The 33 passengers and seven crew of Flight 93 could have been any group of citizens selected by fate. In a sense, they stood in for us all," Bush said.
"The terrorists soon discovered that a random group of Americans is an exceptional group of people."
He encouraged Americans to put aside their political differences in the spirit of what he saw after 9/11.
"So much of our politics has become a naked appeal to anger, fear and resentment," Bush said.
"On America's day of trial and grief, I saw millions of people instinctively grab their neighbor's hand and rally to the cause of one another."
Vice President Kamala Harris began her remarks at the Flight 93 memorial with words for those who lost loved ones on Sept.11.
"So many in our nation -- too many in our nation -- have deeply felt the passage of time these past 20 years," she said.
"Please know your nation sees you and we stand with you and we support you.
SHANKSVILLE: The victims and heroes of Flight 93 are being commemorated at a ceremony at the site where the plane crashed in a field on Sept.11, 2001.
President Joe Biden was making an appearance, and Vice President Kamala Harris, former President George W.
Bush and Pennsylvania Gov.Tom Wolf were also speaking.
Wolf said the passengers and crew of Flight 93, whose actions are believed to have led the hijackers to abandon their mission of targeting the U.S. Capitol, offered a lasting lesson of courage and hope.
"This story and this place remind us each day what it means to be an American," said Wolf, a Democrat.
"In times of strife, we Americans, we come together. We comfort each other. We protect each other and we stand up for each other. This memorial is a powerful reminder of what we have lost. But it's also a powerful reminder of the strength of the American spirit."
Larry Catuzzi, father of Flight 93 passenger Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas, said in an interview that he talks to her every day.
"I say something that kind of reminds me of her, and I'll talk to her. Or something good happens to me and I thank her for her being with me," said Catuzzi, whose 38-year-old daughter was pregnant when she perished.
The family started a foundation in her name that has distributed college scholarships to more than 100 girls, funded three neonatal units and built a park in Houston memorializing the victims of Flight 93.
Delivering the keynote address at the national memorial to the victims of Flight 93, who forced down their airplane hijacked by al-Qaida terrorists before it could be used as a weapon against the nation's capital, Bush warned of "violence that gathers within."
"There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home," he said.
"But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit. And it is our continuing duty to confront them."
Bush's warning came barely eight months after the violent insurrection at the US Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
It marked some of Bush's sharpest criticism of that attack and appeared to be an implicit criticism of Trump's brand of politics.
Bush lamented that "so much of our politics has become a naked appeal to anger, fear and resentment."
He admitted he had no easy solutions.
Instead, he channelled the heroism of the Flight 93 victims, and the determined spirit of a wounded nation to emerge from the tragedy stronger.
"On America's day of trial and grief, I saw millions of people instinctively grab for a neighbor's hand and rally to the cause of one another," Bush said.
"That is the America I know."
He added that in the aftermath of the attacks Islamophobia, nativism or selfishness could have risen to the fore, but the country rejected them, and said, "That is the nation I know."
"This is not mere nostalgia, it is the truest version of ourselves," Bush said.
"It is what we have been, and what we can be again."
Bush's appeal for unity drew plaudits from President Joe Biden, who visited Shanksville not long after Bush spoke, having watched his speech aboard Air Force One on the flight from 9/11 commemoration events in New York.
"I thought that President Bush made a really good speech today," Biden said.
"Genuinely. Biden too has prioritized national unity, telling reporters Saturday, That's the thing that's going to affect our well-being more than anything else."