Tributes recall heroes of Flight 93

Thousands still flock to a memorial on a windy Pennsylvania hilltop.
SHANKSVILLE, Pa. (AP) -- The steady flow of visitors and the porcelain angels, American flags, poems and other tributes they leave behind perpetually reshapes the temporary memorial to the passengers and crew of Flight 93.
Although three years have passed since hijacked United Flight 93 slammed into a reclaimed strip mine in Somerset County, killing 40 passengers and crew, thousands of people every week still visit the stark and windy hilltop memorial that overlooks the crash site.
"I would have thought things would have tapered off," said Barbara Black, a member of the Flight 93 Memorial Task Force, one of the groups working on creating a permanent memorial at the site. "The story of Sept. 11 is not over yet. We still have turmoil, the security level changes, and it's on people's minds."
The scene
On a recent weekday afternoon, dozens of people traveled down dusty Skyline Road, past a junkyard and two rusting mining draglines to the memorial that sits about 500 yards from the crash site. Vehicles in the parking lot bear license plates from as far away as Florida and Nebraska.
Some visitors quietly sit on the wooden benches that overlook the crash site and the patch of woods behind it.
Some people scan the crosses, stuffed animals and trinkets left on the ground or add to the hats, flowers, rosaries and other items fastened to a 40-foot fence at the memorial.
Other visitors patiently pace around the site, reading the hundreds of messages people have left there.
Some are written on laminated sheets of paper and others are written in ink on the guardrails that separate the memorial from the parking lot.
Nearly all express gratitude to the passengers and crew, who presumably fought the flight's hijackers.
"Where would America be w/out heroes like those on Flight 93. Thank you for giving the ultimate to save others. In my heart, I treasure your strength," reads one message written on a guardrail.
'Pilgrims'
Somerset County Commissioners Chairman Jim Marker is hesitant to call the visitors -- which he estimates to be as many as 5,000 a week -- tourists.
"I prefer the word pilgrim," Marker said.
"The first blow against terrorism happened in the skies over Somerset County. People want to see where it happened and pay their respect to the people who heroically gave up their lives to protect our country."
Flight 93 was the only one of four planes hijacked Sept. 11, 2001, that did not take a life on the ground. It was en route from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco when it crashed just outside of Shanksville, about 65 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
The official 9/11 Commission report, released in July, said the hijackers crashed the plane as passengers tried to take control of the cockpit.
Long before the plane crashed in their back yards, most Somerset County residents would have described themselves as conservative, patriotic and neighborly, Marker said.
"If you live in the city and someone comes to your house at 2 a.m., you call the police. If you live in Somerset County and someone comes to your door at 2 a.m., you invite them in and ask them about their troubles," Marker said.
Perhaps it's those traits that helped the community not only cope with the chaos immediately after the crash, but also welcome throngs of visitors in the following years.
Solemn respect
Most visitors approach the temporary memorial and the crash site with the same solemn respect as they would a cemetery, said Wagner, one of 43 volunteer ambassadors at the memorial who point out aspects of the landscape and give people directions.
"Most people take their hats off and act just like they're entering a shrine. Some people laugh and giggle. It affects people different ways, but most are very respectful," he said.
It's not uncommon for visitors to have an intense urge to leave something at the site, perhaps as a way to show their respect, Wagner said.
Black, the curator of the Historical and Genealogical Society of Somerset County, which cares for and catalogs the items left at the temporary memorial, said most items are patriotic or religious.
But people also leave items that they happened to be wearing that day, such as jewelry.
One man signed his name on a light bulb and left it in the fence, Wagner said.
But visitors likely won't find a souvenir shop or a hot dog stand near the temporary or the permanent memorial.
Residents and family members of those who died have advocated for keeping the area free of business, and local officials have complied while a permanent national memorial is being designed, Marker said.
The Director of the National Park Service established the Flight 93 Advisory Commission, which is made up of family members, residents and local and federal officials.
The commission must submit a design recommendation for a permanent memorial to the Secretary of the Interior by September 2005.
Location
Because of its proximity to the Pennsylvania Turnpike -- about 10 miles -- some visitors make a stop to the memorial during a trip to another destination.
Others devote a day to touring the county, which usually includes the site of Quecreek Mine accident, where workers in July 2002 freed nine miners who were trapped in a flooded mine shaft for 77 hours.
They also might find their way to the "Thunder on the Mountain, UAL Flt 93 Memorial Chapel," a century-old building that had been used as a seed warehouse but was renovated in the year after the crash.
Last year, about 40,000 people attended Mass there or sat in the nondenominational chapel's small "meditation room" where pictures and profiles of each victim hang, said its founder, the Rev. Alphonse T. Mascherino.
A trip to the crash site can be emotionally tolling, the Rev. Mr. Mascherino said, and many people who come to the chapel are looking for a quiet place to contemplate the events of the last three years.
"We, as a nation, have been wounded. This is a source of healing," Mr. Mascherino said.
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