online you can watch an extended interview with 85-year-old marvin murphy about his experience in world war ii. >> ifill: now a look at the time-honored but seemingly more frequent role of president as consoler-in-chief. >> america today is on bended knee in prayer for the people whose lives were lost here. >> ifill: they are the increasingly familiar moments of seering loss when presidents give voice to the nation's grief. >> i can hear you. the rest of the world hears you. and the people... [ cheers and applause ] and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon. [ cheers and applause ] >> ifill: three days after 9/11 president george w. bush stood on the rubble at ground zero in new york. six years earlier in april 1995, president clinton comforted mourners in oklahoma city after 186 people died in the bombing of the alfred p. murrow federal building. >> we pledge to do all we can to help you heal the injured, to rebuild this city, and to bring to justice those who did this evil. >> ifill: the presidents act as stand-ins for a nation's and distinguish. in janu