It’s September 11th. That particular date is burned into the minds of everyone who was alive twenty-one years ago. Like my parents’ generation and December 7th, 9-11 is for many of us our “inflection” point. It was the day the America was attacked by terrorists.
It’s hard to imagine: children born the day of the attack are “reaching their majority” today. If generations are marked by twenty years, then 9-11 was a full generation ago. Maybe a long time, but it still takes almost no effort at all to see the visions of the planes striking and the buildings tumbling down. The empty, hollow, shocked feeling is just there, right under the scar tissue of emotional protection.
Over the past six years I’ve been writing essays here in “Our America”. That’s several 9-11 anniversaries. Here are parts of two of those essays in honor of those we lost, and the now distant unity we found, as the planes crashed into our lives in September 11, 2001.
Key Largo
Fifteen years after 9-11, we retired. Like many couples, my wife Jenn and I wanted to do some travelling. So in 2016 we decided to take a week on the Florida Keys. We flew down to Miami, rented a Jeep, took the top down and headed to Key Largo to hang out with the iguanas by the swimming pool, look for manatees by the dock, and learn to love a drink called “mojitos”, a mix of rum, mint, sugar and lime.
We managed to make it down to Key West for a day, a place that we both would like to re-visit and spend more time. It’s a town that can make a party out of the sunset, with hundreds gathering on the pier and cheering as the sun drops below the horizon. There’s a few mojitos served there as well. Maybe more than a few.
We also took the glass-bottomed boat tour out of Key Largo, to see the coral and sea life. As we waited on the dock to board the boat, an older oriental couple sat down beside us. We began a casual conversation with the man, Mr. Young, who was from New York. We were headed to the “Big Apple” the next week, and he was excited to tell us about his city, and the restaurants, and how to get authentic Chinese food.
Red Bandana
Then he started to talk about his wife, who was sitting there beside him. He introduced us to her, Ling Young. She was a 9-11 survivor from the 78th Floor of the World Trade Center, saved by a hero of that day, the man with the “Red Bandana”. Ling was badly burned when the plane struck the building, and was surrounded by the bodies of those instantly killed in the attack. Through the smoke came a young man with a red bandana over his face. He picked her up and got her to the stairwell, and down to the 61st floor.
Then he urged her to continue to safety, and turned around and went back up to the fire. With help, she managed to escape the World Trade Center. The young man, later identified as twenty-four year old Welles Crowther, did not.
Mrs. Young had horrible burns, and told us there she endured more than twenty surgeries. She became a leader of the 9-11 survivor movement. She wanted to help the victims, but also keep alive the memory of heroes. Mr. Young told us how she didn’t like to speak in public that much, but, as he said, “When Vice President Biden calls on the phone and asks you, you go”. The horn sounded, and then we boarded the glass bottom boat. We enjoyed the trip, but learned so much more about strength and real heroism, than coral and barracudas.
Shanksville
Two years later, in the summer of 2018, we loaded up our new camper and heading out on the road. That week it was to Pennsylvania, and while our ultimate destination was Gettysburg (where I transformed into the history geek Jenn’s always worried about) first there was a stop in Shanksville.
Shanksville has a population of 232. It is a rural village in the hills and dales of the Laurel Highlands of Southwestern Pennsylvania. Shanksville is all about coal and farming and definitely is Trump country. And if that name sounds vaguely familiar, it should. Twenty-one years ago the quiet little village of Shanksville was ripped out of rural tranquility and placed front and center onto the world stage of terror.
Into a Field
In an old strip mined field of Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the fourth airliner hijacked on 9/11, United Flight 93, came hurtling into the ground at 543 miles per hour. It was bound for the Capitol Building in Washington, 19 minutes out, when the passengers decided that they were going to take control of history. They revolted against their terrorist captors. As passenger Todd Beamer was heard to say (on an airphone left connected) “Let’s Roll.” As they battled to take control of the aircraft, it flew, inverted, full power into the ground.
It was an act of desperation. They knew from phone calls that the Pentagon and the World Trade Centers had already been hit. The passengers understood that this was not a “hostage taking” exercise; they were in a flying bomb. They determined on an act of ultimate courage, willing to take the last chance, or at least choose their way of dying. It was forty passengers and crew versus four hijackers, and as the black box recording showed, the heroes succeeded in breeching the cockpit, as English and Arabic yells and curses mixed, and the hijackers, rather than be overcome, crashed the plane.
National Memorial
There are two memorials near Shanksville. The United States has created a National Memorial and a Visitors Center near the crash site. That Memorial has low black limestone walls surrounding the debris field, and a high white memorial wall, names of the passengers and crew etched in stone. The shape of the wall follows the plane’s path of descent. In the center of a large field, a boulder represents the covered impact zone, originally thirty feet deep, filled in as the final resting place for the fallen.
The Visitors Center gives a visual history of that day, from the clear blue skies that welcomed the children at the Shanksville school that morning, to the step-by-step realization that we were under attack, and finally the shocking assault from the sky. It is a National Monument to the heroic action of the forty, and it is an historic lesson so that the growing number of people who have no memory of 9/11 will learn. As Lincoln said, “…it is all together fitting and proper that we do this.”
The Chapel
But down the road is the Flight 93 Memorial Chapel. It isn’t mentioned at the National Memorial. It was an old church, turned into a grain barn. After the crash a local priest determined to buy it, and create a space for those who wished to mourn, meditate, and remember. “Father Al” with help from the Hardy Family of 84 Lumber, remodeled the chapel in time for the first anniversary of the crash. Here was where the families of the forty originally came. It is filled the not only with their memorabilia, but the gifts of thousands: stained glass from a Jewish temple, a US desert camo uniform from Iraq, a United Airlines service cart. Outside, United’s own monument to the passengers and crew is placed. A memorial bell vintage 1861 is rung, loud enough to be heard at the crash site four miles away.
While the National Memorial represents the history and honor of the nation, the Chapel represents the heart and soul of the people of Shanksville. It is their ongoing gift to the families of the fallen, and also a memorial to their own loss of innocence.
With the political divide our nation is faced with today, where we can hardly stand each other across the chasm of differing beliefs, it is strengthening to realize that there still is an America where we can reach across our differences to unite. We can celebrate both the strength of the forty, and the strength of the folks in Shanksville in dealing with this tragedy. We can believe in America once again.
