By Minyvonne Burke - NBC News
Former President George W. Bush delivered an emotional speech on Saturday during the twentieth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001,
contrasting the unity he witnessed in the days after the attacks with the division that exists in the nation today.
"Twenty years ago we all discovered - in different ways, in different places, but all at the same moment - that our lives would change forever. The world was loud with carnage and sirens and then silent with voices gone that would never turn. to hear, "he
said at the Flight 93 National Monument near Shanksville,
Pennsylvania
.
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"These lives are still precious to our country, and infinitely precious to many of you," he added.
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Bush said that on America's darkest day,
the "actions of an enemy revealed the spirit of a people."
"We were proud of our wounded nation," he told the crowd.
"In these memories, the passengers and crew of Flight 93 must always occupy a place of honor. Here the intended objectives became instruments of rescue. And many of those who are now alive owe a vast and unconscious debt to the challenge displayed. in the skies of this field. "
The former president continued to speak of the struggle to understand why the country was a target, saying that
"the security measures incorporated into our lives are both sources of comfort and reminders of our vulnerability."
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"And we have seen growing evidence that dangers to our country may come not just across borders, but from violence that gathers within.
There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home.
"said Bush, apparently referring to the January 6 riots on Capitol Hill.
"But in their contempt for pluralism, in their contempt for human life, in their determination to desecrate national symbols, they
are children of the same unclean spirit. And it is our permanent duty to confront them," he
added.
Former President George W. Bush in an act of remembrance of the passengers of Flight 93 who prevented the plane from reaching Washington, DC, on September 11, 2001. Getty Images
Bush, who was reading a book to Florida school children when the planes went down 20 years ago, reflected on how the country came together in the days after the terrorist attacks.
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"In America's day of trial and pain, I saw how millions of people instinctively clung to the hand of their neighbor and joined the cause of others. That is the America I know. At a time when intolerance religious could flow freely, I saw Americans reject prejudice and embrace people of Muslim faith.
That is the nation I know, "he said.