17年前，时任美国总统小布什9·11事件当晚讲话（附视频&演讲稿）

The moment, captured on television, is frozen in history – the shock on George Bush's face as he learns that a second aircraft has crashed into the World Trade Centre.

Bush's reaction as Andy Card, his chief of staff, whispers the news into his ear that America is under attack, has become an indelible memory for many who watched the events of the terrible day unfold.

Yet most of those who were there and witnessed the drama first-hand were children – seven- and eight-year-olds at a Florida primary school who were reading the president a story about a goat as the audacious act of terrorism happened almost 1,200 miles away in New York.

"I'm still clear in my head about what happened," said La'Damien Smith, now an 18-year-old high-school student, who was one of 16 pupils chosen to be in the classroom of Sarasota's Emma E Booker elementary school that morning.

He added: "I can remember my teacher telling me I was going to read to the president and I was like: 'Wow, who does that?'

"We were sat in the class. I remember looking up for a second and I could see the guy leaning over him, talking to him. The president had this shocked expression on his face. From that point on I was wondering what was wrong."

What Bush did next was one of the most controversial decisions of his presidency. He sat at the front of the class for seven minutes listening as the teacher, Sandra Kay Daniels, led the children through their rendition of My Pet Goat, his expression difficult to read as the lesson continued before him.

When the reading concluded, Bush praised the class for their reading skills, then moved to the school's media centre next door. He took a phone call and gave a short news conference before being hustled to the airport and the safety of the skies aboard Air Force One.

Later, there were calls by critics for Bush to be impeached for sitting and doing nothing for so long, having already been advised that the US was being attacked on a scale never seen before. But the children who were there remain convinced that Bush made the right decision, buying himself time to think while not distressing them by rushing from the classroom.

"He did the best that he could," said Chantal Guerrero, 17, now a student at the Sarasota military academy. "For me, it was right. If he had left straight away and freaked out that would have been the mindset he would have left for America. If he wanted the country to be calm he needed to stay calm … I'm not sure how much he would have been able to do in the seven minutes or so that it took."

Smith agrees with his former classmate. "I would have done the same. I wouldn't want these little kids, who were reading to me, to get all hyped up and go crazy about what had happened. Now I understand why he did that so everything was still calm, why he didn't jump up and leave straight away.

"It was nice that he understood we were young kids and would probably have gone crazy if he had told us what had happened."

Whether the children really can remember clearly the events they were part of at so young an age, or whether their memories are influenced by what they later saw and heard, is perhaps debatable. But as teenagers they are happy to recount what they remember of the day, and of their experiences of growing up in the post-9/11 world.

Mariah Williams, 17, is in her final year at Sarasota military academy with Guerrero, and wants to be a vet. Interviewed a year after the attacks, at the age of eight, she spoke to the New York Times about the president: "You could see him slouch. He was mad, disappointed, frustrated, and he turned red."

Now, she admits, her memories are not so clear, recalling only that his facial expression altered before the reading continued. But, she says, she remembers being "a little scared" as the class watched news coverage on a television at the school after Bush departed.

"They tried their best to explain it to us," she said. "But it hasn't left me with any lasting fear." As for the US government's "war on terror", she said: "They handled it the best way they could and did what they had to do. Osama bin Laden's death this year brought closure to a lot of people."

One of the adults at the school was Sara Struhs, a Florida education official and Card's sister. She recalls that what began as a happy day for the children and a rare family reunion for her soon turned into a nightmare. "You had all these little children in there. They were trying to keep them calm and not panicking, and right about that point they came out of the classroom and my brother motioned to me to meet him in the back of the room. We're a very old-school family and I'm not particularly touchy-feely, and he gave me a hug that I was surprised at, and he said in my ear: 'It's really bad. We have to leave and get the president out of here right now.'"

At the Emma E Booker school, memories of the day are preserved for each new intake of pupils. There is a small memorial to 9/11 in the media centre library and a corner room contains a photograph album, framed photos of the president's visit and the storybook used. There is also a plaque outside classroom 301 commemorating the day.

Gwen Rigell, the principal who greeted Bush, died in 2007, and Daniels no longer speaks to the media. But other staff who were there plan to acknowledge the 9/11 anniversary.

Scott Ferguson, spokesman for the Sarasota county school board, said: "The school will mark the event quietly in some individual classrooms, remembering that tragic day in history, the lives that were lost and the school's small part in the events of 9/11."

Guerrero, who is pursuing a career in the theatre, said her involvement in the events of that day left a lasting impact. "I wanted to know about things going on in the world. I have a little more interest in politics and news and what's going on in the White House, little things like that.

"When you are seven years old, you really don't think there is anything bad in the world and that people are good. But they are not, and you realise that things don't always go the way that you would want them to."