SHANKSVILLE, Pa. - Johncie and Ronald Guerin have just driven five hours from their home in Charleston, W.Va. They've come to place two lawn ornament angels here at the site dedicated to the memory of the 40 passengers and crew members of United Airlines Flight 93 who died Sept. 11, 2001, when their hijacked jet slammed into the ground.
One of their angels stands upright. The other is prone and oozes what looks like water. "I don't know where the moisture came from," Johncie, 56, says in a gravelly voice. "It was like she was crying, and probably she was."
After spending 15 minutes at the temporary memorial created by volunteers and local officials, they'll hop in their car and drive the 300 miles back to West Virginia.
"Look at her, Ron," Johncie tells Ron, a wiry 61-year-old Vietnam veteran. "The water is still coming. She's shedding tears for the brave." Then the couple is gone, leaving the angels in their stead.
Today, on the anniversary of the shattering day now known as 9/11, the public and relatives of those who died on Flight 93 will gather in the Shanksville field where the plane crashed for a commemorative service.
They will also learn more about the design chosen last week for a permanent National Park Service memorial on the 2,200-acre site. The memorial, anchored by a "Tower of Voices" filled with 40 wind chimes, is expected to cost $30 million and be completed in four years.
The new memorial will replace the grassroots shrine that has drawn more than 130,000 pilgrims from around the world in the four years since 9/11. But the Tower of Voices, and the carefully researched, official account of Flight 93 that visitors will hear there, might never replace the story that has evolved at this remote reclaimed strip mine.
Fueled as much by emotion as facts, the story of Flight 93 has become a consummately American myth of faith, liberty and selfless heroism.
`Let's roll!'
The story, adorned with patriotic and religious imagery, is seared in the popular imagination: Through cell phone calls, Flight 93 passengers learned of the other hijackings and voted to storm the cockpit. Todd Beamer cried "Let's roll!" He and others forced the hijackers to take the plane down before it could crash into a Washington, D.C., target. In this story, the passengers deliberately chose an empty field to avoid killing anyone on the ground.
