Hiking Slowly
In planning my road trip to the east coast, I made sure to reach out to friends who lived in areas I was going to be visiting. I honestly didn't think there was going to be much to see in some areas (and I was wrong about that), while in others there were too many choices. So, when I started planning my time in Pennsylvania, I asked a friend what I just HAD to do if I only had one day in that state. Being a history buff, his first suggestion was the Flight 93 Memorial.
Now, I am not a history buff and I'm not the kind of person who can spend all day in a museum. Nonetheless, I have vivid memories of sitting in a rocking chair, cradling my three-month old baby girl with tears streaming down my face while I watched as that plane hit the second Tower on live television. There was absolutely no way I could be so close to a monument honoring the brave men and women who probably saved our Nation's Capitol, along with hundreds of lives, and not stop and pay my respects.
I did a little bit of research, basically to find out the hours of operation, directions, and if there was an entry fee. I didn't expect to spend much time there, so I had planned a hike for later in the afternoon. Well, my friends, that hike never happened.
I didn't know much about Flight 93, other than the passengers on board rushed the cockpit, taking the plane from the terrorists, and crashing the plane so that it never reached it's intended destination. I had absolutely no idea the magnitude of the events that surrounded that flight.
As you walk from the parking lot to the first building, there is a noticeable black path leading to a giant, concrete wall with an opening leading to a viewing platform. That black walkway is the actual flight path the plane took before crashing at the edge of the hemlock forest. The opening in the wall is meant to draw your eye toward the sky and the view that would have been seen from the cockpit.
Between the wall and the overlook is the visitor center. There is a small gift shop on the left as you enter, and a row of parallel walls beyond that. Photos are not permitted in this area. And, while I wish I could share the experience with you here, it really is a solemn place, and I probably wouldn't have taken a photo even if it had been allowed, just out of respect.
The walls represent a timeline of the morning of September 11, 2001. It begins with the flight preparation and boarding of the first plane and continues through the crash of the last plane, and into the investigation of the crash. News reels from that morning are played on a loop, we hear President George W. Bush address the nation, we see quotes from shocked government leaders on the wall. There are displays of remnants of the plane, which only amounted to tiny pieces of debris. The impact was so great that there was basically nothing left.
There is a wall of green lights scattered over a map of the United States. Each light represents one of 4,500 planes in the air at the time of the attack. All but one of those planes was grounded within 90 minutes of US airspace being shut down. Flight 93 was the only plane left in the sky. Forty people on the plane, all civilians, rushed the cockpit causing the hijackers to crash the plane.
One of the displays allows you to listen to the final calls made from passengers and crew to their loved ones. You can hear the fear, sadness, and stifled tears as each one pleaded to express the magnitude of their love for the people they knew they were leaving behind. They knew their fate, and they unanimously chose to fight.
Drying my tears, I left the building and headed out to the debris field. Nature is really good at repairing damage, so the grove of Hemlock trees shows no trace of the crash. But, looking out over that hallowed ground, you can see a giant boulder laying where the nose of the plane made impact. As you walk toward the monument, there is a short, marble wall with shelves built in, where visitors and mourners have left their tokens of reverence and respect. Military medals left for Civilian Heroes. The Wall of Names honors these heroes; forty white marble panels, a name etched in each one (one with "and unborn child" in parenthesis), forty lights embedded in the ground below so that they will never be left in the dark.
The final monument, the Tower of Voices, is purposefully placed at the gateway to the Memorial landscape. Rising 93 feet above the ground, this beautiful instrument with a 15-foot diameter holds 40 chimes that are only activated by the wind. The chimes ring in tones of both harmony and dissonance, representing the voices of the 40 passengers and crew members who made the decision to give their lives that day so that others may continue to live.
9/11/2001
We will never forget.
