From this day to the ending of the world
Much has happened in the past thirteen years to blunt the sharper pangs of memory and - regrettably, in its way - to dull the outrage. New outrages have occurred. Other issues are clamant of attention, not least in the UK. And we do not know but that before this day’s sun sets, yet newer outrages shall mark it.
Yet we remember.
We must.
And we must keep faith with them.
We remember that on this day, a fine, mild one in New York, and over Pennsylvania, and on the Potomac, savage barbarians engaged in the mass murder of civilians, women and children amongst them.
Mr Pyle lost an acquaintance with whom he had been up at university, although not in the same year as he. Cdr Rob Schlegel USN died at his post at the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, and sleeps at Arlington.
Yet the murders, although they occurred in America, were directed at the civilised world as a whole; and it was not Americans only who were murdered.
The United Kingdom and its dependencies, the Commonwealth realms, and other member states of the Commonwealth, suffered losses also. Eleven of HM Australian subjects. Six Bangladeshis. Two Bermudans. Four-and-twenty subjects of HM as Queen of Canada. Two Ghanaians. Three Guyanese. Forty-one Indians. Sixteen Jamaicans. A Kenyan. Three Malaysians. Two New Zealanders. One Nigerian. Eight Pakistanis. Two South Africans. Fourteen from Trinidad and Tobago. And sixty-seven from the United Kingdom.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
For we have seen this much, on that day and in the weary years since, and we must not forget with the passing years: ‘This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless, by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.’