McCain visits crash site

BY KIRK SWAUGER
The Tribune-Democrat

SHANKSVILLE September 11, 2008 11:02 pm

— As the late morning sun began piercing steel-gray skies, U.S. Sen. John McCain thought back seven years.
Directly above where the Republican presidential nominee was standing Thursday morning on a reclaimed strip mine near Shanksville,
40 heroes fought back against terrorism.
McCain said their actions may have spared his life, and the lives of thousands of others, from hijackers believed to have been intent on crashing Flight 93 into the Capitol in Washington.
“I am in awe of it as much as I am in debt to it,” McCain said at the Flight 93 temporary memorial on the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “May God bless their souls.”
McCain focused on the solemnity of the moment, although he and his wife, Cindy, exchanged handshakes with family members before the ceremony and well-wishers in the crowd afterward.
When McCain was introduced by Joanne Hanley, Flight 93 superintendent for the National Park Service, some in the estimated crowd of more than 500 cheered and applauded.
“No American should ever forget the heroism that occurred in the skies above this field,” McCain said.
As has become tradition, family members and those who responded immediately after the crash read the names of the 33 passengers and seven crew members who died. After each name was read, two tolling bells echoed across the hills.
“Each year that I have the privilege of coming here, I’m reminded about how often in life events transpire that cause the intersection of different and varying emotions,” Gov. Ed Rendell said.
Addressing the grief still felt by relatives of those who died, Rendell said: “With that dominant emotion is also the emotion of terrific pride – pride in what their loves ones did, what they accomplished.”
Gordon Felt, president of Families of Flight 93, said a meeting with elementary school students last week in upstate New York underscored the drive for a permanent memorial.
Although developers have a “magnificent design” and have secured hundreds of acres around the crash site, he said, construction has yet to begin on a memorial set to be dedicated on the 10th anniversary of the crash.
For adults, 9/11 is a bookmark moment, as when President Kennedy was assassinated or the Challenger exploded. For children, it is history, said Felt, a member of the federal Flight 93 Advisory Commission and the Flight 93 Task Force.
“The 9/11 of our young children is our Gettysburg, our Pearl Harbor,” added Felt, whose brother was killed on Flight 93.
“What a rare opportunity we have to create a tribute through the fresh eyes of those who experienced 9/11.”
Others in attendance included U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who is traveling with McCain; state Sen. Richard Kasunic, D-Dunbar; state Rep. Bob Bastian, R-Somerset; and the Somerset County commissioners.
Homeland Security Director Ken Wainstein represented President Bush at the ceremony. Bush was in Washington for the dedication of a memorial at the Pentagon.
“It may sound odd to refer to beauty while referring to a tragedy,” Wainstein said. “But that’s exactly the word to use today: The beauty of the land, the beauty in the story of Flight 93 itself.”

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