At Pennsylvania's Ground Zero

By Jodie Morse

You would have to leave the country to find a place further in spirit from downtown Manhattan than Shanksville, Pa., the rural hamlet where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed on Sept. 11. It is a town with no stoplights or sewers or banks. It's home to just 245 residents--244.5 of them white--who attend three lively churches and are embarrassingly nice to strangers. The closest Starbucks is a two-hour drive.

Yet on any given day, a steady stream of cars find their way there. On weekends, more than 1,000 visitors may show up to look at the little town that taught us that no place is beyond terrorism's reach. They come from every state in the union, climbing to the crest of Skyline Road to see what remains of the now legendary Flight 93: absolutely nothing. With the crater long ago filled in, they can only gaze out on a rolling field that protrudes like a bald spot from a grove of hemlocks. "The horror of the event and the beauty of the place are so stark," says Edward Linenthal, the author of The Unfinished Bombing: Oklahoma City in American Memory, who visited Shanksville in December. "It reminds me of the extermination sites the Nazis built in such magnificently beautiful forests."

The pilgrims to Shanksville still exude the same manic patriotism that swept the U.S. immediately after Sept. 11. On a recent afternoon, 150 members of Rotary International, brandishing small American flags, descended on the site in three tour buses. The Rev. Duane Slade paid homage to the passengers who went down fighting: "We must recognize those who died to save our country from even greater loss," he intoned, before leading the crowd in a rendition of God Bless America.

The Rotarians then solemnly affixed silk tulips to the chain-link fence that has become a thriving impromptu memorial. Well-wishers have left everything from origami cranes to a United Airlines uniform. The offerings are fiercely protected by Shanksville's residents, who eight months after the crash are still finding shreds of airplane in their backyards. "We see this as our calling, to make sure this final resting place is well kept," says Kim Friedline, who has cut back her hours at the county courthouse to stand sentry at the site several days a week. "The families can't be here every day, but we can."

Plans for a more permanent memorial are beginning to take shape, and as in New York City, passions are running high. Seven landowners share the 400-acre site, which was long ago strip-mined for coal. In March a bill was introduced in Congress to designate it a national memorial, which would bring a much needed infusion of funds to the community. A formal planning committee will be named in the next few months. The announcement can't come soon enough for the locals, who find the whole process maddeningly bureaucratic. Meanwhile, a garishness is sweeping into town. Flight 93 trinkets are popping up everywhere, including Ida's Country Store on Main Street, and visitors talk of touring the nation's "disaster circuit"--ground zero, the Pentagon, Oklahoma City and Columbine.

The families of victims consider Shanksville first and foremost a mass grave. When they speak of the site's future, some invoke Arlington or Gettysburg; others want their own private place to mourn. But to most, a memorial conveys a measure of finality that is still too much to bear. "The shock keeps me living in perpetual rawness," says Kimi Beaven, whose husband Alan perished on Flight 93. "As much as I would love to put my heart and mind around my husband's final resting place, I would far rather just let it be the peaceful place that it is; just let it be until I'm ready to honor him."

--By Jodie Morse