Obama: "Heroism is here"
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By Dan Shearer Green Valley News
President Obama arrived in a city that was hurting Wednesday night to deliver a message of encouragement and hope following Saturday’s shooting in Tucson that left six people dead and 13 others injured, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
“There is nothing I can say that will fill the sudden hole torn in your hearts,” Obma said. “But know this, the hopes of a nation are here tonight. We mourn with you for the fallen, we join you in your grief, and we add our faith to yours that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of this tragedy will pull through.”
The president also offered much-welcomed news on Giffords, who was shot in the head during the rampage. “Right after we went to visit, a few minutes after we left her room … Gabby opened her eyes for the first time,” he told the crowd. “She knows we are here, she knows we love her, she knows we are rooting for her.”
The president and Michelle Obama arrived at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base about 3:40 p.m. and immediately went by motorcade to University Medical Center where they saw Giffords and spoke to her husband, Mark Kelly.
Hundreds of people waved as the Obamas drove to the hospital, where a rapidly growing memorial of flowers, candles, balloons and messages covered a grass field.
Obama later addressed a crowd of 13,127 at a packed McKale Center at the University of Arizona, many of whom waited in line for more than 10 hours to hear the president.
About 13,000 more watched the event, called “Together We Thrive: Tucson and America,” on the big screen at nearby Arizona Stadium.
The crowd gave a standing ovation to several UMC doctors as they entered the arena just before the event began.
Joining the Obamas on their four-hour visit to Tucson were House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi; Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy; Attorney General Eric Holder; and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Several state officials attended, including Gov. Jan Brewer, Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, UA President Robert Shelton. Giffords’ husband also was at the event, seated between Michelle Obama and Napolitano.
The crowd remained standing as the Tucson Symphony played “Fanfare for the Common Man.” Dr. Carlos Gonzalez, a UofA instructor and fifth-generation Tucsonan, then opened the event with a traditional Native American prayer.
Daniel Hernandez, who doctors said may have saved Giffords’ life after the shooting, stepped to the podium and promptly rejected the use of the word hero in a brief address.
“The real heroes are the ones who have dedicated their lives to public service,” he said.
Napolitano, who was warmly greeted by the crowd, simply read a lengthy passage from chapter 40 of the Old Testament book of Isaiah. She spoke just after Brewer, who told the crowd, “We will remember how to smile again.”
Holder, quoting from II Corinthians, Chapter 4, reminded the crowd that the Bible promises eternal life.
Obama, the final speaker of the evening, described Giffords’ “Congress On Your Corner” event as an exercise in free speech.
“At that quintessentially American scene, that was the scene that was shattered by a gunman's bullets,” he said. “The six people who lost their lives that Saturday, they, too, represented what is best in us and what is best in America.”
Obama said Americans should not use the tragedy “as one more occasion to turn on each other. That we cannot do.”
Instead, he said, we must “listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy… After all, that’s what most of us do when we lose somebody in our family, especially if the loss is unexpected. We’re shaken out of our routines.”
Obama mentioned by name the six people who died, and applauded Hernandez, those who subdued the gunman at the scene, and the doctors and nurses who helped the shooting victims.
“These men and women remind us that heroism is found not only on the fields of battle, they remind us that heroism does not require special training or physical strength. Heroism is here, in the hearts of so many of our fellow citizens, just waiting to be summoned, as it was on Saturday morning.”
Near the end of his 35-minute address, Obama talked about 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green, who died in the shootings.
He said Christina-Taylor, who’d recently been elected to the student council at her school, was a girl just becoming aware of democracy and government, who was excited to meet her congresswoman and loved her country.
“I want us to live up to her expectations,” he said. “I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it.”
Reporter Jim Nintzel contributed to this report.
Source: http://azbiz.com/articles/2011/01/14/news/doc4d2e6eab2ffbf558929042.txt