In a farm field near the remote town of Shanksville, Pennsylvania stands a memorial to some very brave souls. This is the “temporary” flight 93 memorial which honors the 40 passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93 who took it upon themselves to over power the terrorist who had taken over the flight with goals of crashing it into an unknown target in Washington D.C. The temporary memorial includes traditional marble memorial stones along with plaques, flags and a collection of hand made memorials, many of them made by common citizens and some by school children. There are also trinkets of remembrance scattered among the stones and plaques. Things like hand written notes to God telling him to take care of the people who lost their lives on the flight. It’s incredibly moving just standing there and trying to take it all in.
Over 150,000 people a year visit the memorial but on this early morning of 11-8-2008 when I arrived, I was the only person there. It was a warn Fall day and a slight wind blew over the hill side and I don’t think I ever felt so alone in my life and yet lucky to be alone with time to think and remember.
They are going to build a very large, elaborate memorial in place of this temporary one but I can only imagine it will never have the impact that this one has on the common U.S. Citizen who visits here.
I had posted this last year but with the anniversary of the attacks upon us, I felt the need to go back and rework this image a bit with some of the newer tools I have and do it the justice it deserves.
