STONYCREEK, Pa. — Hundreds of people stood shoulder-to-shoulder and bells rang out on a hill in rural Western Pennsylvania this morning to honor the heroes of United Flight 93 on the 15th anniversary of their sacrifice.
The ceremony honoring the men and women who thwarted an attack on the Capitol on Sept. 11, 2001, began on a breezy morning with the Newark Boys Choir singing "America the Beautiful." Flight 93 originated from Newark International Airport.
The bells rung by Shanksville-Stonycreek High School students sounded after family members read the names of loved ones lost that day:
"... My daughter Lorraine Grace Day ... My brother Captain Jason M. Dahl ... My son Jeremy Logan Glick ... Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas and unborn child ..." And so it went through 40 names, accompanied by tears and sniffles as the sun was released from the cover of clouds.
Everywhere you looked in the shadow of the Flight 93 Memorial Visitors Center, there were people in uniform — from all branches of the military, members of the National Park Service, site volunteers and those bedecked in pins and ribbons declaring them as friends, family and mourners.
A cluster of airline attendants carried one red rose each, tributes that were later left by the names of their fallen colleagues at the Wall of Names near the crash site.
Morrie Wiener of Cherry Hill, N.J., who retired as a United Airlines captain on Sept. 1, 2001, was in full dress uniform. He knew the Newark-based crew of Flight 93 and often flew the route the 757 jet took that day. Capt. Dahl had been one of his first flight instructors.
Mr. Wiener, who comes to the ceremony in Stonycreek each year on Sept. 11, wore a pin with a photo of flight attendant Lorraine Bay on his uniform. “I knew everybody,” he said. “I flew this trip twice a month and would have flown it in September if I’d still been there.”
He also was a firefighter who worked and trained with the Fire Department of New York. He said, “I lost a lot of really good friends up there ...,” then choked up and didn’t finish the thought.
He was among those who gathered among the rows of folding chairs stretched out from the Flight 93 Memorial Visitors Center to accommodate friends and families and those who came to honor the sacrifice of the passengers and crew on 9/11.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell told the gathering, "Certainly the men and women of Flight 93 had no idea that they would be our nation’s heroes and heroines or that they would lay down their lives for the nation on that day. But we come together as their champions, for their actions saved the lives of untold numbers of people.”
She spoke of the hundreds of thousands of people — nearly 400,000 so far this year — who have passed through the center and paid their respects at the Wall of Names, and shared the writings of some of the visitors to the memorial.
"United you stood so we could live,” she read. And then, through tears, she shared the words of a 17-year-old, thanking the 40 for their "completely selfless act" and promising they would not be forgotten.
Gov. Tom Wolf, whose father died on Friday, was unable to attend, but U.S. Sens. Bob Casey and Pat Toomey and Rep. Bill Shuster also addressed the crowd. They each shared that they would always keep in mind the intentions of the hijackers of Flight 93, whose target was their workplace. Also on hand, Penguins executive Tom McMillan, who has written a book about Flight 93 and is vice president of the Friends of Flight 93 Memorial, read a “Litany of Remembrance” by Roland B. Gittelsohn.
Gordon Felt, president of the Families of Flight 93 group, said he looked forward to the 2018 completion of the Tower of Voices, which would hold 40 wind chimes with 40 different tones at the memorial site.
“These structures are for tomorrow's children,” said Mr. Felt, whose brother, Edward, was a passenger on Flight 93. In his powerful speech, he said he feared the day Sept. 11 would become more of a holiday than memoriam, relegated to the nearest Monday as a day for picnics instead of a solemn day for us to remember together.
The ceremony lasted for about an hour, before the event shifted to the Wall of Names in a field below the visitors' center. There was the laying of a wreath and a ceremonial opening of the gate, allowing family members admittance to the crash site.
Throughout the day, the message was an assurance that the sacrifices made that day when four planes came down in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania would not be forgotten.
Julie Damjanovich of New Paris, 20 minutes from the crash site, was in training to be a policewoman on Sept. 11, 2001. She was hired by the Somerset County Sheriff’s Department and became part of the 24-hour security team at the memorial site for five years.
“I didn’t know anyone on the plane but I come every year and I cry every year,” she said. “It’s truly an honor to honor them.”
Her daughter, Jenna, 7, has picked up on her parents’ dedication to the site and recently created a PowerPoint about Flight 93 for a class project. Her mom said the second-grader is “curious, intrigued." She also is one of Mr. Felt's “tomorrow’s children," who were not yet born but who will keep alive the memories of 40 American heroes.
Sharon Eberson: seberson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1960.
First Published: September 11, 2016, 2:56 p.m.
