Good Evening

and thank you for your joining us as we gather here at our 9/11 memorial to honor and simply remember. Tonight we join as a small town family and with towns and cities and millions of Americans around our nation, and we join with our allies around the globe to reflect upon this past decade, in this time since the greatest attack on the fabric of our nation.

Tonight in England they are laying red white and blue wreaths at St Pauls Cathedral, in France students are displaying a football field sized American flag in front of the Eiffel tower, and in Japan a candle light vigil is being held in front of a replica of the statue of liberty.

In NYC bells are tolling, and names of our departed are being read.

In Somerset County Pennsylvania, a small town community gathers at the site of where flight 93 passengers thwarted a hijacking plot and crashed the plane into the ground.

And outside Washington DC at the pentagon military and civilian employees gather to memorialize their coworkers and the passengers of flight 77 that struck and collapsed part of the pentagon building.

Anniversaries are supposed to be about fond memories, about renewal of vows, they are engrained in us as a celebratory event such as the joining of a couple in union or the opening and dedication of a building or even one’s birthday.

Today we don’t celebrate but remember the 10th anniversary of the worst attack ever on American Soil.

The beginning of our nation’s 10 year war on terrorism.

The passing of nearly 3,000 people on what started as a beautiful day in September of 2001, now remembered as the day that America was under siege.

Our solemn remembrance here tonight is to pray for those souls that were taken from us by these evil and heinous terrorists who were bent on destroying our way of life and the democracy and freedoms that we enjoy. 

Their vicious and unprovoked attack rattled our nation, scared our citizenry but awoke in America a great moral belief of the preservation of life and the spread of democracy and freedoms and the defeat of radical fundamentalist groups and authoritarian dictatorships around the world.

Never again shall we allow ourselves to be held hostage by terror or to show empathy for those that have plotted to kill us. Some in our society still question this war on terror others suggest that the planners and known terrorists being held in GITMO somehow deserve to be treated with American Civil Rights or the protections given foreign militaries under the Geneva Convention. While it is every Americans right to question and to criticize our government, its military and our elected leaders.

Let us not forget that Al qeada , the Taliban and many other terrorist organizations home or abroad that still today continue to plot attacks on our way of life and on our families and fellow Americans.

We are not a vengeful nation, but just a just and caring people.  We do not celebrate and cheer death but do seek to right a wrong.

I believe that the near 3,000 souls that were taken from us 10 years ago today.  That they are resting a little easier, that they are at eternal peace, knowing that the man most singularly responsible for their deaths OSAMA Bin Laden has met his maker, and may he burn in hell forever more.

Let his death be a symbol of American might and resilience. Let the world know and all would-be attackers that those who harm Americans or attack America will pay the price and will inevitably meet justice.

Please join me as we pause for a moment of silence, we pause not to mourn, but to remember that time when America faced its lowest moment and Americans had their finest hour.

We remember today our first responders who in a moment of hatred found heroism.

We remember those men and women who serve in our Armed Forces who from a moment of tragedy brought forth a decade of triumph, and we remember all those that were lost on 9/11 and especially those families who have suffered and have found seemingly impossible healing.

We remember each and every year, each and every life so that our present and future generations shall never forget.

Thank you and May God bless you

Upon the conclusion of this service please take a moment to view the additions made to our memorial.