Published: September 12, 2009 12:53 am      

Strong emotions on a solemn day

Dan Boeh traveled to Shanksville on Friday from Cranberry Township, Butler County. He was accompanied by his wife, Susan, and other family members.

It was a familiar trip for the retired ATF investigation team supervisor.

Boeh was one of the first responders on the scene Sept. 11, 2001, and spent several weeks in Shanksville. He returned Friday to help pay tribute to those who lost their lives in the tragedy.

Boeh rang a bell after each name was read during Friday’s service.

“It is an honor,” he said of his participation in the event.

For his mother-in-law, Betty Jones of Pittsburgh, the emotions of the day brought her to tears.

“It just choked me up,” she said. “To think of what those people went through.”

Linda Shrader of Davidsville is newly retired, and this was the first year she could attend the ceremony.

She arrived several hours early.

“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” she said.

“They’re true heroes. All of us should be eternally grateful.”

Also in attendance were more than 100 members of the Pennsylvania Loyal Order of the Moose.

The group sported shirts, ties, scarves and hats they sell to raise money for the permanent memorial.

David Graybill of Millers-town, Lancaster County, said the group had raised more than $700,000 for the memorial.

“To remember the people that have given their lives so others would not die,” he said.

For Roxanne Sullivan, a Fight 93 ambassador who lives about half a mile from the crash site on Skyline Drive, the day was personal.

“It’s still painful,” she said as she recalled events from 2001.

She was in a store with a friend when an announcement came over the speaker that a plane had crashed near her home.

She remembered the difficult time she had reaching her house and of finally being escorted to the door by a policeman who told her to stay put and not allow any visitors.

For several days, she had to check in and out of her own home.

Days later, when an officer wondered aloud what to do with items visitors were leaving behind, Sullivan created a temporary memorial in her yard. She tied yellow ribbons around her trees and put out potted flowers.

Visitors added their own items.

Sullivan has been a volunteer since the beginning – at first helping with archiving and later as an ambassador at the site.

She said the personal notes were the most poignant of the items archived.

“They poured out their hearts,” she said of the letter writers.

Boeh also retrieved items

– not those left behind by visitors but those that once belonged to victims of the tragedy.

He recalled how he and others spent days on their hands and knees looking for anything.

Boeh worked many disaster sites in his years with the department – including the first World Trade Center attack and the Oklahoma City federal building bombing that killed 168 people.

“You become hardened,” he said.

Yet finding some of the personal items at the site brought him to tears.

He was touched at finding a passenger’s credit card and recalled an aviation card and notebook that belonged to one of the terrorists.

Frances Watson of Fort Pierce, Fla., was in attendance Friday to pay tribute to her niece, Cee Cee Lyles, a flight attendant aboard Flight 93.

“We’re so proud of her,” Watson said. “Not a day goes by that we don’t think of Cee Cee.”