WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Tuesday joined community members and first responders in Norwalk for a memorial service honoring the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Excerpts from his remarks are below:

“I grew up about two hours from New York City in a small town outside of Hartford, CT. In our town, we lost three men that day. We lost a popular little league coach, who was the father of a close friend of mine. We lost two young men that I went to school with…I cannot understand what it feels like to have 14 members of the community vanish off the face of the earth here in Norwalk.”

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“In those days afterwards, it was our commitment to the universal ideas, the rule of law, the following of man, the strength in diversity, that made us recognize that together there is absolutely nothing that we can't do, there is no one that can destroy us or hurt us, as long as we are together. When I wake up every morning, I think about my duty as an elected official to stand up for our police, our firefighters, our EMS, our soldiers, our sailors, our airmen, and our marines, but I also think about trying to develop a better conversation about what defines us. Those who helped out in those dark, dark days after September 11th made us all proud.”

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