Flight 93 National Memorial

I stayed this past Saturday night in Somerset, Pennsylvania. I awoke Sunday morning to icicles and snow. I was about 20 miles away from the Flight 93 National Memorial, honoring the passengers who brought down the fourth hijacked flight on 9/11. Investigators believe this plane was headed for the U.S. Capitol where both houses of Congress were in session. The memorial is located at the crash site in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

The 40 passengers and crew resolved to wrest control of the plane from the terrorists who then crashed it. What struck me as I stood in the bitter cold and looked at their faces was how people who were so different, not all of whom were even Americans, came together and decisively took a brave and selfless action. I can think of few greater modern heroes.

The memorial is simple and stark. It almost faded into white nothingness on the snowy, windy morning I visited. In spite of the foot-high drifts and frigid cold, National Park Service rangers had shoveled a path down the quarter mile walkway past the crash site to a wall of forty marble panels, each with the name of a passenger or crew member. I'm glad I could pay my respects.