George W. Bush Recalls Learning of the 9/11 Attacks

In a public conversation reflecting on the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush recalled the "moment of clarity" he had when an aide whispered in his ear about the strikes. "I became a wartime president," he told Condoleezza Rice, his former national security adviser, during a forum at his Dallas presidential library, reports NBC News. Bush had been visiting with young schoolchildren in Florida at the time.

"I didn't have much time to process that, but it was pretty clear to me that if we were under attack, then my job was to defend the child that was reading to me, and her family, and her country," Bush said, according to a broadcast of the event by C-SPAN. At another point, Rice recalled how they were initially unaware that passengers had seized control of Flight 93 before it crashed in Pennsylvania. "For about 10 minutes we thought we'd shot down a civilian aircraft," Rice said. "That always to me represented just how hard the decisions were that you had to (make) under a lot of pressure." Friday's memorial ceremony at Ground Zero will have an additional moment of silence this year.