Memorial to Flight 93

Personal memorials dedicated to courageous Americans.
see all photos »

Before we visited the Frank Lloyd Wright buildings, we drove a few miles north of Somerset to visit a touching memorial to some very brave Americans. As we come to terms with what happened  on the day that they died, we will  truly begin to appreciate what they have done.

When the World Trade Center was struck in September 2001, and the Pentagon was attacked, the networks reported that one more plane was still in the air. Flight 93 had headed west apparently without incident and suddenly turned around and was headed for Washington. One news network showed staff fleeing from the White House and members of Congress were summarily ordered into hiding. Two fighter jets that had taken off on a training mission were ordered to search for the plane. They were unarmed and would probably have been told to bring down the airliner by ramming it. But passengers on the plane had seized back control of the main cabin and the last that was heard of them was a cell phone message announcing that they were attacking the hijackers, and the last words spoken were, "Let's roll." When the fighter jets found the plane, it was smoldering wreckage in a Pennsylvania field near Somerset.

A Memorial To Ordinary Americans Who Became Heroes

The formal memorial was still being built when we were there. A mesh had been hung up like the wall on the Vietnam memorial and all sorts of mementos were  there -- teddy bears, plastic flowers, flags. A series of little cut-out angels, with the names of every passenger on Flight 93, was placed a short distance away, with little plastic toys and other mementos left by people who had come to pay their respects to these ordinary Americans. These were people -- men, women, and children -- who left on a flight to the sorts of places we all go to, and ended by giving their lives in defense of their country. You will be moved.

Ask for directions in Somerset, which is just off the Pennsylvania Turnpike about 40 miles east of Pittsburgh.