Shanksville<\/p>\n
It\u2019s summer in America, and for us it now means loading up the camper and heading out on the road. This week it\u2019s Pennsylvania, and while today will find us in Gettysburg (where I can transform into the history geek I\u2019ve always been) yesterday it was Shanksville.<\/p>\n
Shanksville has a population of 232. It is a rural village in the hills and dales of the Laurel Highlands of Southwestern Pennsylvania. It is coal and farming \u00a0and definitely Trump country. And if that name sounds vaguely familiar, it should. Sixteen 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.<\/p>\n
It was in a old strip mined field of Shanksville, Pennsylvania, that 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 on the plane, as passenger Todd Beamer was heard to say (on a airphone left connected) \u201cLet\u2019s Roll.\u201d They tried to take control back, and ultimately brought the plane down.<\/p>\n
It was an act of desperation, knowing from phone calls that the Pentagon and the World Trade Centers had already been hit, knowing that this was not a \u201chostage taking\u201d exercise, knowing that they were in a flying bomb. It was an act of ultimate courage, willing to take the last chance, to 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.<\/p>\n
There are several memorials near Shanksville. The United States has created a Memorial and a Visitors Center near the crash site. The 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, following the plane\u2019s path of descent. In the center of the field, a boulder represents the covered impact zone, originally thirty feet deep, filled in as the final resting place for the fallen.<\/p>\n
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 historical lesson so that the growing number of people who have no memory of 9\/11 will learn. As Lincoln said, \u201c\u2026it is all together fitting and proper that we do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Down the road is the Flight 93 Memorial Chapel. It isn\u2019t mentioned at the National Memorial. It was an old church, turned into a grain barn, that after the crash a local priest determined to buy and create a space for those who wished to mourn, meditate, and remember. \u201cFather Al\u201d with help from the Hardys\u2019 of 84 Lumber, remodeled the chapel in time for the first anniversary of the crash. It was where the families of the forty originally came. It is filled the not only with their memorabilia, but the gifts of thousands, from stained glass from a Jewish temple, to a US desert camo uniform from Iraq, to a United Airlines service cart. Outside, United\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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