But it's been a great, humbling - and I've been very honored to have the opportunity to serve and to lead and to be the representative of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who are in Washington. And it's been the greatest honor of my life.
Of course, you always have to be concerned about hijacking. But with the measures that are in place right now, I'd say that probably the airways are as safe as they've been in a good number of years.
We came back right over the World Trade Center and could see, even from that altitude, the devastation, the smoke that was coming up. It was obvious it was going to be horrible.
It is changing the face of terrorism. It is basically bringing it to the United States, to our great citizens. We know the terrorists are barbaric and murderers that attack innocent civilians, as they did in this case.
And so I'm still giving some thought - I will transition hopefully into the corporate world. And I look forward to getting involved in several other areas that I have a great interest in.
Wayne Downing is also a great leader, has served our nation very well, and I think it's great that he's coming back to join a very capable administration already of dealing with this problem, and it will just strengthen that team.
I had seen the films out of World War II, the great 82nd Airborne, the 101st, and all of those of you in the greatest generation and the service that you had provided.
My goal was to make first lieutenant. I never spent a lot of time worrying about what came after that.
Our people are working overtime - I say our people; our federal agencies in this regard - and that I'm confident that the way that you can stop this and make Americans the most protected for this is to take it to the terrorist groups.
I think that the American people should rest assured and be assured that every federal agency that has a role to play in this terrorism is working overtime now, taking every necessary action to protect our great citizens.
Those are the things that, in the wrong hands - and certainly in our war on terrorism we also must attack proliferation and those nations that proliferate with chemical, biological and nuclear type devices, because that can cause the most catastrophic results.
