Many Americans, me included, can tell you what the final score was and specific details of their favorite sports team’s competition from this past weekend, whether it was pro or college football, the Major League Baseball playoffs, college or professional soccer, volleyball, etc.
But I wonder how many of us are paying attention to what’s happening in Israel with the recent terrorist attacks, which were possibly backed by Iran, and how it potentially impacts us economically and in regard to our foreign affairs. How many of us are paying attention to the war in Ukraine, the billions of dollars we are spending and the military aid we have used amid the risk of corruption and fraud associated with that aid? How many of us really understand what’s taking place at our southern border and the fact that we have allowed millions of undocumented immigrants to flow into our country?
Well, we better wake up America or before we know it the freedoms that we constantly take for granted may no longer be ours. Having recently experienced a very emotional visit to the Flight 93 National Memorial in Somerset County, perhaps my antennae are up and I am more alert as a result, but I am personally worried about our homeland security.
It’s a shame that I had to move away to South Carolina and subsequently come north for a PSU football game in order to finally visit the Flight 93 Memorial outside of Shanksville. It took me 22 years to travel to one of the most sacred places in the commonwealth to pay homage to the heroes of Flight 93. I realized my youngest son, now 23, was a 1-year-old when terrorists attacked our country on September 11, 2001. Today’s college students probably have little sense of what took place in New York City, the Pentagon and ultimately in a common field in Pennsylvania on that fateful day.
Perhaps I visited just in time to awake from my own complacency to write this column. I feel compelled to tell you that we all need to wake up before we experience another 9/11, or worse.
“A common field one day. A field of honor forever.” – Captain Stephen Ruda
Our afternoon visit started with a walk down the Flight Path Walkway to the Visitor Center Complex. As we walked in, the majority of the people we passed leaving the center had clearly been crying. Some were shaking their heads in disbelief, and a few were noticeably angry at what they had just seen and experienced. It was heavily skewed toward an older demographic with the exception of one school bus with sixth graders.
The center is very tastefully designed and chronologically organized regarding the events of that terrible, awful day. The first set of panels describe the breaking news of a plane hitting the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City. I still struggle to watch the events of 9/11. I remember exactly where I was when the news first broke of a plane hitting the North Tower of the WTC at 8:46 a.m. and while we watched the reporters discussing the possibility of this being a terrorist attack, a second plane slammed into the WTC South Tower. I was in the Multi-Sport Complex on the Penn State campus on my way to meet my good friend and former colleague retired Lt. Colonel Dick Bartolomea to do a post-mortem on summer ice hockey camps.
When I saw the video of the first and second planes hitting the WTC, I was overcome with emotion. Shock, sadness, rage and anger. I vividly remember the disbelief that this was happening on U.S. soil. The next thing we knew another terrorist plane slammed into the Pentagon.
There were reports of another hijacked plane possibly heading toward Washington, D.C., to strike the Capitol or the White House. It suddenly dawned on me that my wife was attending a conference just north of D.C. This was 2001, before cell phones and texting were a thing. I had to track down my wife the old-fashioned way with a landline call to the hotel where the conference was being held. I told her to get in her car and get as far away from D.C. as she could.
The center’s second panel describes the details of United Airlines Flight 93. The Boeing 757 took off from Newark airport at 8:42 a.m. with 44 people on board, including seven members of the flight crew, en route to San Francisco. That meant a flight with maximum fuel on board for a cross-country flight. As Flight 93 reached Cleveland airspace, the air traffic controllers heard the pilot shout, “Mayday…hey get out of here!” That was the last time the United Flight 93 crew had control of the plane.
After the terrorists took over, a number of the concerned passengers began calling loved ones from the Airfones in the plane. They learned of the news reports that said the terrorists had hijacked several planes. We would later learn they were part of an organization called al Qaeda out of Afghanistan. Three of the four terrorists on Flight 93 were from Saudi Arabia, the fourth was from Lebanon and their mastermind was the notorious Osama Bin Laden.
The next panel had a rack of phones for visitors to listen to the recordings of the passengers’ calls to their loved ones. I was overcome with emotion and found myself standing next to several other people who were openly crying. I turned around to find my wife crying after she had listened as well.
“It was a beautiful September morning with a blue sky…Just a normal day.” – Joy Knepp, teacher, Shanksville-Stony Creek School
At 9:44 a.m., one of the many heroes of Flight 93, Tom Burnett, tells his wife, “A group of us are getting ready to do something.” At 9:55 a.m. fellow passenger Todd Beamer, speaking with an Airfone operator, asks her to pray with him. Then she hears him say, “Are you guys ready? OK, let’s roll.” At 9:57 a.m. the passengers and crew begin their assault on the terrorists. Air traffic controllers could hear the passengers as they broke into the cockpit: “Go, go! Move, move!”
A terrorist is heard yelling out, “No! Allah is the greatest!”
At 10:03 AM the crash occurs just 20 minutes flight time from our nation’s capital.
“There was an airplane that just crashed near Shanksville. Oh, my! It’s on fire…it’s unbelievable.” – a 911 caller from the nearby village of Lambertsville.
The Boeing 757 slammed into the ground at 563 mph with 5,000 gallons of jet fuel. It left a 45- foot crater that resembled the outline of the fuselage of the plane. The fuel and debris burned down over 100 nearby hemlock trees. The largest pieces of debris from the plane that were recovered were just 6 to 7 feet in length. The Flight 93 flight recorder was the only one of the four terrorist’s planes that was recovered. It would prove invaluable in the investigations that followed the crash.
The passengers were heroes who chose to act. The damage of their plane crashing into the U.S. Capitol or the White House would have been catastrophic.
We walked around the corner to see the photos of the victims. I simply broke down at this point. There was a video of the Flight 93 Memorial Dedication including speeches from former Presidents’ George W. Bush and Bill Clinton that tugged hard at my heartstrings.
“For generations, people will study the story of Flight 93. They will learn that individual choices make a difference, that love and sacrifice can triumph over evil and hate, and that what happened above this Pennsylvania field ranks among the most courageous acts in American history.” – Former President George W. Bush
“With almost no time to decide, they gave the entire country an incalculable gift. They saved the capitol from attack. They saved God knows how many lives. They saved the terrorists from claiming the symbolic victory of smashing the center of American government. And they did it as citizens.” – Former President Bill Clinton
The final wall in the Visitor’s Center lists all the victims who passed away on 9/11.
Standing in line to purchase souvenirs, all you heard were people sniffling and you could see looks of shock on their faces. As we walked out to the observation deck you could see the flight path and the crash site in the distance. As we took the flight path walkway to the crash site, we could see deer out in the field where a boulder that represents the impact point was placed. It was a calm, cool and peaceful September day. A far cry from the horror of 9/11.
I came away from the experience with one thought: Never forget.
Yet, I cannot help but worry that we are watching the next attack against our nation occurring on our southern border in real time. This time it’s potential terrorists and operatives from the drug cartels sneaking into our country. How can anyone with common sense, regardless of political party, say this is a good strategy? How can we be so naive, again. There is a right way and a wrong way to enter our country. There is a right way to gain citizenship. It’s the fault of both parties and I, for one, want them to start acting like adults and find a workable solution. Fix the immigration process. Quit politicizing it.
I want to support Ukraine, but we need to do it with a firm sense of accountability for the support we are providing. I want our leaders to find diplomatic ways to calm the current conflict in the Middle East. We need to get support from our allies around the world so we can avoid the start of World War III.
I don’t want to live through another 9/11, or another prolonged war like Vietnam or Afghanistan, and I certainly don’t want to see another World War, and neither should you. That’s why we need to stay on guard and avoid complacency. So, while you are following your favorite sports teams and stressing over your DraftKings bets or fantasy league results, don’t forget there is a real world out there to pay attention to as well.
Never take our freedoms for granted. And never, ever forget the heroes of Flight 93.
