One example of his outreach work was persuading a British radical who had unceremoniously set fire to a large paper poppy, the British symbol of remembrance for their war dead, to see the error of his ways.

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Tucson became a symbol of American's gun violence in 2011 when a mentally ill man opened fire at a political meet-and-greet hosted by then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords outside a Tucson-area supermarket.

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It lives on in the Cross of Steel made from the World Trade Center beams, placed on a Pentagon-shaped platform that rests proudly outside the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Department. (Applause.) That Cross of Steel is an enduring symbol of the steel and the spine of this region, and the spine of this country.

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