U.S. Congressman Mike Pence gave the following speech from the House floor in support of a bipartisan resolution which remembered the horrific events of September 11, 2001:

Thank you Mr. Speaker, I rise in gratitude to the distinguished Majority Leader Mr. Hoyer and the Minority Leader Mr. Boehner for bringing this important resolution to the floor.

“Bringing a bipartisan resolution is perhaps the best way to commemorate the bipartisanship that followed the extraordinary events of eight years ago this Friday. I was here on Capitol Hill that day, as my colleagues were. It was just a pretty a day as it is today. The shock and horror of the images on the television screens, the smoke rising from the Pentagon, is still with me today and informs my service in this building, as it does all of our colleagues.
 
But let me say, today’s resolution is important because, as the Old Book says, we are ‘to mourn with those who mourn and grieve with those who grieve;’ and we’re also to ‘pay the debts of honor and gratitude to those that are owed.’
 
This resolution today remembers those we lost that day; and this nation should never forget the lives that were lost at the Pentagon, in the heart of our great city of New York, or in a field in Pennsylvania. So we remember them today, and we think of their families.
 
But we rise to pay a debt of gratitude to all those who rushed in when others were rushing out, those who filled recruiting offices, and those who put on the uniform of the United States and went and confronted this terror where it all began.
 
And let us, as we grieve and as we mourn and we remember and we pay debts of gratitude, let us also resolve to continue to do all that we can to maintain the bipartisan commitment that began on that very day and continues to this day to make sure that our nation, and our soldiers and those who protect us at home or abroad have the resources that they need to get the job done and come home safe.