U.S.

Honoring Those Who Serve

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

November 11, 2001 / 10:53 AM EST / CBS

President Bush marked Veterans Day and the two-month anniversary of Sept. 11 Sunday with a tribute to Americans who fought in past wars and vowed U.S. troops now in action in Afghanistan would exact "a serious price" for the attack on the nation.

In Washington, the vice president saluted veterans at the Tomb of the Unknowns.

All over the country, this year's Veterans Day observance is unlike any other in recent memory, with war more than a theoretical concept to nearly every American, whether or not he or she has a relative killed, injured or serving in a war.

There were numerous observances Sunday, and Monday ceremonies and parades were scheduled in countless cities and towns across the nation.

In an emotional ceremony at Ground Zero Sunday, President Bush stood with New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to honor the fallen heroes as smoke still rose from the pulverized twin towers.

The president said attacks on New York and Washington deepened the nation's debt to soldiers who fight abroad and police and firefighters who serve at home.

In a chilly afternoon breeze at the edge of the World Trade Center wreckage, actor Ron Silver read the names of the 86 nations whose citizens perished when two jetliners slammed into the twin towers. Muslim, Jewish and Catholic clerics led prayers.

President Bush signed a wall at the battered site — inscribing it with the words, "Good will triumph over evil. May God bless all of you."

It was Mr. Bush's first visit to the site since three days after the attack.

Earlier at the 7th Regiment Armory on Park Avenue, Mr. Bush and the elite of New York Republican politics, including Giuliani, Mayor-elect Michael Bloomberg, and Gov. George Pataki, said Americans looked "a little differently" at their veterans this year.

With the United States now engaged in a war on terrorism, reports CBS News Correspondent Mark Knoller, the president said the tributes to veterans are made with a greater feeling. "Americans have seen the terrible harm that an enemy can inflict," Mr. Bush said. "And it has left us deeply grateful for the men and women who rise strongly in defense of our nation."

In the past, the U.S. military had fought "not to conquer, but to liberate, not to terrorize, but to help," Mr. Bush said.

"And this is true in Afghanistan today....Al-Qaida and the Taliban have made a serious mistake. And because our military is brave and prepared and courageous, they will pay a serious price," he said.

"Evil ones have roused a mighty nation, a mighty land. And for however long it takes, I am determined that we will prevail. And prevail we must, because we fight for one thing — and that is the freedom of our people and the freedom of people everywhere."

Several hundred veterans, uniformed soldiers and police jumped to their feet and filled a cavernous military armory building with applause. The speech, Mr. Bush's first Veterans Day addres as president, were his only public remarks on the final day of his two-day U.N. visit.

"The great purpose of our great land...is to rid the world of evil and terror," Mr. Bush said as he thumped the lectern. Since the Nov. 11 holiday fell on Sunday, many businesses and other institutions were to celebrate the holiday Monday.

A day after delivering a stern warning to the United Nations General Assembly that the world risked turning every city into "a potential killing field" if it failed to wage a decisive war against terrorism, Bush turned to another solemn task — remembering those who died on Sept. 11.

Meanwhile, Vice President Dick Cheney made a pilgrimage to Arlington National Cemetery, placing a wreath of red, white and blue flowers on the Tomb of the Unknowns and promising victory in the war on terrorism.

"Americans have no illusions about the difficulties that lie ahead," Cheney said in a ceremony Sunday. "We cannot predict the length or the course of the conflict. But we know with absolute certainty that this nation will persevere and we will prevail."

Cheney said that members of the armed forces know that "they follow a long, unbroken line of brave Americans who came to the defense of freedom. The veterans who once followed that line now inspire the new generation of freedom's defenders. For that, we honor all veterans today."

His words were well received by Harry Davis, a 69-year-old Air Force veteran from Mount Vernon, Ohio. "The only thing I really regret is that I can't get out there today with them. If I could, I'd be the first one," Davis said.

More than 4,600 people were killed when hijackers flew two planes into the Trade Center, one into the Pentagon in Washington and another into the ground in Pennsylvania.

Mr. Bush paid tribute to the spirit of New York in the first speech he has delivered before the General Assembly, saying the city had been "scarred by violence."

"A few miles from here, many thousands still lie in a tomb of rubble," he told representatives from more than 160 countries. "It is our task, the task of this generation, to provide the response to aggression and terror."

"The only alternative to victory is a nightmare world where every city is a potential killing field."

Mr. Bush also will continue to rally other countries around his anti-terror effort and military campaign to rid Afghanistan of its Taliban rulers and their "guest," Saudi extremist Osama bin Laden, who has been blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks.

The president, who met with six foreign leaders on Saturday, met privately with the presidents of South Africa, Argentina and Colombia before attending a U.N. ceremony at the site of the collapsed twin towers in lower Manhattan.