Amid the wreckage and rubble of the World Trade Center’s fallen towers is a place where you can find the remains of bravery and courage. A place where men and women in the New York City fire and police departments gave their lives so others might live.

In the twisted wreckage of those buildings destroyed by terrorist attacks, is a place where heroes lie.

In the pandemonium ensuing the explosions that rocked the twin towers, police officers and firefighters struggled to maintain calm in a time of madness.

As the men and women who worked in the towers raced to get clear moments before the collapse, rescue workers moved against the surging tide of people, fighting to free those who might have been trapped, who might not have been able to escape under their own power.

On the street, as acrid smoke, dust and fine shards of glass filled the air and turned the early morning into pitch black night, rescue workers moved forward through the haze, hoisting up the fallen and guiding them to safety, pushing them into the light.

And then, there was the collapse.

A television news reporter, covered in soot and ash, told of one firefighter who ran from the falling building with her, before throwing her into a wall and covering her with his own body as an angry wave of fire, an intense explosion, rushed down the street towards them. When the heat dissipated, they raced to safety.

She never found out his name.

At the end of that one terrible day, the fire chief and deputy fire chief were dead. Officials reported hundreds of police and firefighters missing. Many were trapped, killed under the crushing rubble of the World Trade Center - a fate they sought to prevent for so many others.

It’s the tragic reward for heroism.

President Bush has declared today as a day of “National Prayer and Remembrance.” For the victims of this vicious attack, and those who made the ultimate sacrifice to help their fellow man, today is a day where we can try to stretch our own hearts out to those brave men and women, that we might attempt to feel the compassion they embodied.

In New York, there is a place where heroes lie. A mountain of rubble marks where they gave their all to the end. Heroes whose job was to protect and to serve.

But on Tuesday it became so much more. It became a goal, a driving force that was the catalyst for survival. It became an everlasting legacy. Let us remember them, as they never forgot us.