Washington, DC - U.S. Congressman Mike Pence, Chairman of the House Republican Conference, made the following statement today commemorating the tragic events of September 11, 2001, and in support of yesterday's bipartisan resolution, which passed the House of Representatives unanimously:
 
"I am deeply grateful to Majority Leader Hoyer and Minority Leader Boehner for sponsoring such an important resolution.
 
"A bipartisan resolution is perhaps the best way to commemorate the national unity that followed the extraordinary events of eight years ago today. I was here on Capitol Hill that day. It was just as pretty a day as it is today. The shock and horror of the images on the television screens, and the smoke rising from the Pentagon, are still with me today and informs my service in this building, as it does every Member of Congress.
 
"As the Old Book says, we are ‘to mourn with those who mourn and grieve with those who grieve,' and we are also to ‘pay the debts of honor and gratitude to those that are owed.'
 
"We need to remember those we lost that day.  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. And so on this day we remember them and lift up their families in our prayers.
 
"We owe 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.
 
"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.  Let us 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."