Mariannette Miller-Meeks

Mr. Speaker, Claims · 13 words25 years ago, ordinary people kissed their families good-bye and went to work.¹ Anecdote · 60 wordsAs I went to work after making my children’s lunch, I heard on the radio that a plane had flown into Tower One and thought it was a prank. By the time we turned on the TV in our waiting room, we saw the second plane hit the tower and knew we had a terrorist attack, our generation’s Pearl Harbor.²Anecdote Claims · 78 wordsAmong them were a father who called his wife just to say ``I love you’’ one more time; a mother who tucked a photo of her kids into her bag that morning; an Iowan who was in his second week at Columbia, who goes down to volunteer and then enlists in the military; firefighters who ran upstairs while everyone else was running down because that was simply who they were. Nearly 3,000 of them never made it home.³ Positioning · 38 wordsIn the quiet that followed, in the ash, in the silence, something happened that I still carry with me. Strangers became family. We held each other. We cried together. For a moment, we forgot everything that divided us.Positioning Anecdote · 17 wordsI enlisted in the Army to ensure rights for everyone, regardless of whether they disagree with me.Anecdote Positioning · 40 wordsNow, 25 years later, I still think about the families who set an extra place at the table that will always be empty, the children who grew up without a parent. Their grief became our grief, and it still is.Positioning Promise · 23 wordsWe promise to never forget.Vague promise I will never forget them. I will always defend them. Those who harm us, we will not forget.