A Visit to the Flight 93 Memorial

It's in coal country in the Allegheny Mountains, near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, 86 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. The drive there from the south is a switchbacked mountain stretch of the Lincoln Highway through towns dependent on the coal industry.  The beauty of the ride is interrupted by both the meaning of the destination and the conditions under which some of these mountain coal people live.  The memorial visitors are welcomed by the residents who see those who visit here as a possible meager replacement for their livelihoods which are currently under attack.

As we climbed the mountain, the mid-November snow started to appear in the grass and ditches - ice cycles oozed out of the black flat stones that were where most roads have shoulders.  We became aware of just how treacherous these roads must become in a few months as a train of black dusted dump trucks flew by ignoring the special speed limits posted for trucks, dusting up clouds of the early morning's dried road salt as they passed.

The crash site debris field is itself a beautifully reclaimed strip mine spanning over 70 peaceful acres.  A black angled wall silently forbids all visitors except family members and friends from entering the debris field that in no way could be completely cleaned.  A rock has been placed at the impact area as a gathering spot.

The target is widely believed to be the Capitol Building in Washington, DC.  At the time, Congress was in session.  All of Congress, the representatives' staff, the building administration, visitor staff, maintenance people, and tourists in the building and around the grounds would have numbered in the thousands.  There were 40 people on board Flight 93, not counting the three (from cell phone accounts from the passengers) savage barbarians, misnamed hijackers, who were piloting the bomb toward the innocents.

At this writing a visitors' center is under construction at the point where Flight 93 was flying inverted a few feet above the ground, just before impact.

A few days earlier we were at the National September 11 Memorial in Manhattan.  New York City has its own way of doing things.  The two fountains flowing into the ground in two stages made an impressive background for visitors to selfie themselves as Mideastern men aggressively hawked full color souvenir books for $5.00 to visitors straining their necks to look up the shiny new Freedom Center.

In spite of the New York speed and noise, the site did well in eliciting the solemn sadness for the thousands of innocent families, while igniting a belly-fire of hatred for the animals that did this.

The Les Paul atmosphere of New York City memorial, while appropriate for that fast walking culture, made this mountain top place in Martin country a place of contemplation.  The emotions here, along with the same sadness and hatred found in New York, go deeper with more dimensions.

American pride, suppressed and ridiculed by pop culture, the education factories, and the popular press, surrounds each individual plaque in the white marble Wall of Names that follows the flight path. The American fiction of the common man standing to become the reluctant hero when in dire circumstances becomes very real at this old mine site.

Remembering the pictures of Todd Beamer and the interviews with his dad, when I saw his stone, I became weak and wept in pride to be close to such an American.  I would like to think that I know what I would do in circumstances like those, but hopefully, I will never be sure.

Thirty-seven cell phone calls from 13 passengers confirmed the purpose of the takeover and the inevitable fate of the people on the plane.  The passengers and crew, by vote, decided to make an attempt to regain control of the flight.  In the process, control was lost and the plane crashed on a sparsely populated Allegheny mountaintop.

But what these 40 people, the flight crew and passengers on a airplane for all the same reasons you and I fly from place to place, deserve an honor like no other.  They became solders in a war that targets the innocent with a cloak of fire, blood and evil.  They fought in a manner with no less courage and honor than our best military special forces.

Consoled by the fact that even if their efforts to control the plane failed, the meanings of their deaths would be multiplied by the lives that would be saved, they acted.

A regiment of forty rows of forty oak and hard maple trees will grow to stand at silent respect for the passengers and crew of Flight 93.

Go there someday and show your gratitude; salute them on this peaceful mountaintop church and cemetery and thank God for the spirit of such people.