In Shanksville, Preserving the Memory of 9/11 and the Wars That Followed

2 years ago 251

SHANKSVILLE, Pa. — When the level crashed successful the bare tract northbound of town, the schools fto retired early. Katlin Rodriguez, 11 astatine the time, waited successful a cafeteria afloat of crying and shocked classmates for her parent and stepfather to travel and instrumentality her home. When they showed up, they had brought on a household friend. “Don’t worry,” said the friend, a teen who announced helium had conscionable enlisted. “We’re going to get them. We’re going to get the ones who did this.”

On a muggy Friday greeting 20 years later, Ms. Rodriguez, present the woman of a Marine and the parent of a 6-year-old girl, was planting American flags successful a tiny tract not acold from wherever Flight 93 went down extracurricular Shanksville, Pa. About a twelve radical were with her, each emblem they planted representing 1 of 7,049 U.S. work members who had died successful the wars that were waged since that precocious summertime greeting successful 2001.

“A batch of the kids I went to schoolhouse with, they enlisted,” Ms. Rodriguez said, looking retired crossed the field. “It made a batch of america consciousness much connected to the larger world.”

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The Patriot Park memorial includes a emblem  for each   work  subordinate   killed during the wars successful  Iraq and Afghanistan.

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By the clip that the level went down successful Pennsylvania, the larger satellite was already reeling. The streets of downtown Manhattan were filled with particulate clouds and terror, arsenic the South Tower of the World Trade Center had conscionable collapsed. In Washington, national officials and metropolis residents were bracing for much attacks arsenic flames poured retired of the occidental broadside of the Pentagon. People crossed the state sat successful daze successful beforehand of their televisions, waiting to perceive what instauration mightiness beryllium deed next.

Unlike the Pentagon oregon the World Trade Center, Somerset County, Pa., was not a people connected Sept. 11, lone a spot that Flight 93 was passing implicit connected the mode to the terrorists’ grim nonsubjective successful Washington. People did not unrecorded successful Stoystown oregon Friedens oregon Shanksville, a tiny municipality without a postulation light, due to the fact that they wanted to beryllium adjacent the levers of planetary power.

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But erstwhile the passengers and unit of United Flight 93 attempted to prehend power from their hijackers and the level went plummeting into the Pennsylvania countryside, Shanksville abruptly became a battlefield successful an planetary conflict. Once unthinkable caller duties were present thrust upon the Fire Department, the region coroner, the adjacent authorities troopers, the section humanities society, the neighbors surviving adjacent the clang tract and, each crossed the state but present especially, the young radical who abruptly recovered themselves coming of property successful a clip of war.

“He was angry,” Kathy Hause-Walker said of her son, Brian, who grew up successful Stoystown, a small colony a fewer miles from Shanksville. “It was similar being violated.” A 22-year-old begetter of 2 successful September 2001, helium enlisted successful the Air Force that December. He was not alone.

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In the archetypal six years of the wars successful Afghanistan and Iraq, according to probe cited successful a 2016 nonfiction successful The University of Memphis Law Review, soldiers from Somerset County were wounded successful enactment astatine a complaint higher than 97 percent of U.S. counties.

Staff Sgt. Brian Hause was sent to Iraq successful 2008, said Ms. Hause-Walker, who was gathering a bundle of flags to works that Friday morning. One of the flags successful the tract was for him; helium died connected a basal northbound of Baghdad.

The tract was portion of a caller commemorative tract called Patriot Park, which is astir a 3rd of a mile down the roadworthy from the Flight 93 National Memorial. That memorial, tally by the National Park Service, sits connected a quiescent expanse of much than 2,000 acres, and includes a museum, a partition engraved with the names of the 40 passengers and unit members and an unfastened meadow of thistle and goldenrod. It opened to the nationalist 10 years agone and, with the 2018 dedication of a operation of upwind chimes called the Tower of Voices, is present complete.

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The groundbreaking for Patriot Park, which is tally by a radical of section residents — immoderate of them veterans, astir of them retirees — was this past July. Ultimately, the organizers envision a huge, star-shaped plaza with bronze statuary and walkways of engraved brick, but for present it is managed by section volunteers with powerfulness tools and escaped mornings.

In the archetypal weeks and months aft the attack, homegrown commemorations sprouted up each implicit Shanksville, erected by section residents and increasing each time with tributes near by the changeless watercourse of visitors. A tiny but committed radical successful Shanksville, including those who had been moving agelong days astatine the clang site, cooking meals for exhausted responders and gathering up each the tributes that were near retired successful the prima and rain, realized rapidly that they had go the superior stewards of this history.

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Donna Glessner, whose location shook upon the plane’s impact, recruited radical successful her religion to conscionable visitors astatine the tract and explicate what had happened, a radical that became the “Flight 93 ambassadors,” immoderate of whom unpaid astatine the nationalist memorial to this day. She and her sister Kathie Shaffer worked connected the National Park Service’s oral past project, interviewing hundreds of victims’ household members, authorities officials and section responders including Ms. Shaffer’s husband, the main of the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Department, for the authoritative relationship of the time and its aftermath. Their lad Adam, who had ever wanted to enactment for a humanities parkland but assumed that would mean leaving his small hometown, is present the main of mentation astatine the Flight 93 National Memorial.

“I could spot a need,” said Mary Jane Kiehl, a erstwhile Flight 93 ambassador, successful an interrogation that Ms. Shaffer conducted successful 2007 for the oral past project. “I deliberation that radical needed to beryllium told arsenic overmuch accusation arsenic we had astatine that clip — the truth, you know.”

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Some, similar Adam Shaffer, would go cardinal figures astatine the nationalist memorial. Many, similar Ms. Kiehl, stepped distant erstwhile the National Park Service took over, believing that thing was mislaid erstwhile the impermanent memorials came down. Others stay committed to creating oregon maintaining much integrated commemorations years aft the authoritative memorial was dedicated.

The Flight 93 Memorial Chapel, a crowded postulation of artifacts and relics archetypal assembled by a Catholic clergyman successful an aged Lutheran church, is inactive unfastened to visitors amid the cornfields retired connected Stutzmantown Road. On a hilltop conscionable extracurricular the memorial, the Remember Me Rose Garden is implicit aft much than 15 years of enactment by a retired authorities trooper and a big of volunteers; connected its grounds is simply a 16-foot-tall woody transverse that had stood for years by the clang tract but was taken down erstwhile the national memorial was built. Not acold away, connected the grassy lawns of a reclaimed aboveground mine, is Patriot Park.

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On the greeting of the emblem plantings, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan hung implicit the day’s labors; 13 flags had to beryllium added aft the termination bombing astatine the Kabul airport. It was unclear whether this was a memorial to an epoch of warfare that had ended oregon 1 that was ongoing.

Some of those successful the parkland that greeting said it would ne'er truly end, not for the radical who had been warring it implicit the past 20 years oregon for their families. There was speech of suicides, cause overdoses, a demoralizing nationalist indifference. For each grieving household represented by a emblem successful the field, Ms. Rodriguez said, determination were galore others whose lives were inactive enmeshed successful the warfare that had begun successful the aerial implicit Shanksville 20 years ago.

The household person who had greeted her successful the car that greeting did extremity up going overseas for aggregate tours, she said. Each clip helium came back, helium seemed to person changed some, becoming suspicious and fearful. “He was convinced the Taliban was inactive aft him,” she said.

She is not definite wherever helium is now. He moved distant immoderate clip ago.

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