Remarks by Ambassador Michael W. Michalak

September 11 – Remembrance and Renewal
By Michael W. Michalak,
United States Ambassador to Vietnam

Today marks the seventh anniversary of the horrific terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. When in New York, Washington, and a quiet town in Pennsylvania, citizens of more than 90 different countries were killed. They were killed without a thought to their age, religion, gender or nationality. They were killed without a care for what their loss would mean to their mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, friends, partners, and colleagues.

Today you can ask almost anybody where they were on that day and they will remember immediately and vividly where they were and what they were doing. Many of us were not in the U.S., but none of us will ever forget the immediate and powerful responses from every level of the communities or countries in which we lived. I, like so many other Americans living abroad felt the instant embrace of shared sadness and engulfing friendship from citizens of countries across the globe. “Today we are all Americans,” one world leader said. “Today we all mourn.”

Seven years later, we still remember. In remembering, our eyes may again fill with tears, but we have learned important lessons of hope, of commitment and of friendship. The world is learning how to work together to never let another 911 happen.

The U.S. and Vietnam, after going through our own difficult history, are also learning to work together, to cooperate, to trust each other and to work together to counter terrorism, narcotics and other transnational crimes against society and against our people. So today let us remember and draw upon the shared feelings we had that day. Let us recommit ourselves to continue the work toward mutual respect, trust and understanding that will make us better partners in standing against the threat of hatred and terrorism, and to work towards a better world.

On September 11, 2002, President Bush reminded us that “Ours is the cause of human dignity; freedom guided by conscience and guarded by peace.” Please join me in taking a moment to remember those 2,948 men, women and children who died on September 11 seven years ago, and let us together resolve to work ever harder for a peaceful world in which such things can never happen again.