IN REMEMBRANCE
Ohio State commemorates 9/11

Remarks by Ed Ray
September 11 Remembrance Program
Wednesday, September 11, 2002

Thank you, Louise.

I would like to read a sentence from a letter that U.S. Senator and Ohio State graduate George Voinovich sent to us for this event. The entire letter is reprinted on Ohio State’s September 11 website. Senator Voinovich wrote, in part: "As we rebuild and heal, we must also continue to shine the light of freedom in the dark corners of the world that currently breed the hatred and intolerance that fueled September 11."

I think it is important that Senator Voinovich focused not on the events of one year ago, but on what we must do going forward.

As a way of moving forward and coping with any great loss or tragedy – both personally and as a nation, we have long shared a tradition of holding memorial services.

The programs of these memorial events typically focus around one or more speakers. Ideally, their comments speeches fill a need within us. But, what exactly is it we are searching for in all these words?

I do not believe it is comfort that we seek. We don’t need speakers to give us "closure;" in fact, we do not want to close and forget. No, what we long for is a speaker who will help provide meaning – meaning that both transcends the event and wraps it within the framework of our own lives and understandings – meaning that sets the course for a better future.

I remember the evening after the Challenger space shuttle disaster, President Reagan spoke to the nation and said: "The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we’ll continue to follow them."

Those words helped the entire nation understand and place the tragedy in a larger context.

And in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, with only 266 words, President Lincoln gave a new and deeper meaning to the battle, to the Civil War, and to the very purpose of our nation. Everyone who heard or read his words – and schoolchildren who still read those words today – understand what the war was about when Lincoln said: ". . . we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom . . ."

Today – exactly one year after an event that will forever live in our mind’s eye – and in our hearts, we are still searching for meaning. Across the nation, Americans are gathered at events like this on town squares, in office buildings, in schools, and in places of worship.

And it is very fitting that we hold an event like this at Ohio State. Indeed, the central mission of a university is to bring together some of the world’s great scholars who create a rich dialogue and who help us understand our world in the full context of history and religion, science and philosophy, the arts and humanities.

Every day, we are blessed to have the opportunity to converse with and learn from scholars and artists like Dean Rogers and Professor Citino.

We are blessed to have the opportunity to participate in events like this afternoon’s discussion on homeland security at the Multicultural Center – and the discussion on 9/11 held earlier today at the Moritz College of Law.

We are blessed to have the opportunity to explore questions and seek answers with university faculty, staff, and students from around the world and from almost every field imaginable.

During the past year, we have listened. We have talked. We have read. We have imagined and pondered.

We have learned that we must be vigilant in protecting and defending our system, our values, and our loved ones.

We have learned much about the best and the worst of human nature. In the midst of an unimaginable tragedy, borne of the basest motives, ordinary people leading ordinary lives rose to the occasion and performed extraordinary deeds of heroism and self-sacrifice.

We have tried to imagine ourselves as a firefighter heading to the World Trade Center – or as a passenger on Flight 93 as it was flying toward Washington, D.C. And we have thought: How would I have felt? What would I have done?

And we have thought: What can I do to keep it from happening again?

We seek a deeper knowledge and a keener understanding so that we may change and grow.

And if we can change by what we learn about that day, it must surely be to live in ways that honor those whose lives were lost and those whose lives were shattered. It must surely be to adopt those acts of heroism and self-sacrifice as guideposts for our own actions. It must surely be to instill those precious values in our children and our children’s children.
Now, to help us all on that road to greater understanding, it is my great pleasure to introduce as our keynote speaker an extraordinary scholar and a treasured friend: Dean of the Moritz College of Law, Nancy Rogers.