Mr. Speaker, nothing prepared me for the scene at ground zero in New York. Nothing could prepare someone for the enormity of the horror. The TV images of mounds of rubble and tangled steel have become all too familiar, but TV images cannot begin to capture the heavy dusty smell or the eerie mood cast by jagged forms of concrete and debris wrought by the hand of evil. Nor can these simple words give a fair rendering.
What television also fails to capture is the pervading sense of inspired determination: determination to share the loss and grief together; determination to rebuild the city together; determination to rebuild the community on a foundation of co-operation; determination to rise above the petty differences that divide and focus on the values that unite; and, above all else, determination to join with the world to defeat terrorism and to ensure that no other community must endure such pain. We are with them.