Today We Stand United here at this Memorial to honor the lives lost and the immeasurable courage shown on September 11th 2001 this morning many of the soldiers assembled here in the audience walked 2 and a half miles carrying the flags that now stand in the field of Honor behind me each Flag represents a life lost whether on September 11th or in the years of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan that followed together these flags remind us that the cost of freedom is immeasurable but is also shared by all of us