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Sunday, December 09, 2001
By Marylynne Pitz, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Relatives of those who died Sept. 11 on United Airlines Flight 93 will join Somerset County residents and a historian tonight to discuss building a memorial to the 40 passengers and crew members.
The meeting begins at 6 p.m. in the cafeteria of Shanksville-Stonycreek High School in Shanksville.
"If you overlook the [crash] site, you get a sense that it's unique, that it's hallowed ground. ... It literally is a cemetery and always will be," said Pamela Tokar-Ickes, secretary to the Somerset County commissioners.
Local officials and civic leaders feel an enormous sense of responsibility, Tokar-Ickes said, because the terrorist attack is "not just something that happened in Somerset County. It's part of the American story. It happened to us all."
The officials have a stack of unsolicited proposals for memorials, Tokar-Ickes said.
Late last month, National Parks Service leaders met with Somerset County officials and visited the crash site near Shanksville.
The visit encouraged Tokar-Ickes.
"I walked in that room and I thought, 'We aren't alone.' They said they would offer whatever support we needed."
Leading the National Parks group was Joanne Hanley, director of Fort Necessity National Battlefield in Fayette County. Hanley has seen all three sites -- the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Somerset County -- where airplanes crashed after terrorists hijacked them Sept. 11.
Hanley said her trips to the three sites convinced her that they were the beginning, middle and end of a story that started just before 9 a.m. Sept. 11 and continues.
Desperation pervades the site at ground zero in Manhattan, Hanley said. The atmosphere is different in Pennsylvania.
"They were victims, but they were heroes because they died by choice. It's just a different slant," Hanley said. Some of the passengers aboard Flight 93 are believed to have wrested control of the plane from the hijackers before it could be flown into a public building in Washington, D.C.
At the meeting tonight, Marie Cox, a professional facilitator who volunteered her services, will lead a discussion on why it is important to build a memorial.
Audience members will hear presentations from Edward T. Linenthal, professor of religion and American culture at the University of Wisconsin in Oshkosh.
Linenthal just published a book chronicling the building of a memorial to the 168 people killed in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City.
The Oklahoma City memorial features 168 empty chairs and the famous tree that survived the blast.
Robert Johnson, a lawyer from Oklahoma City who led the team that created the memorial, also will speak, as will Phillip Thompson, whose mother died in the bombing. Thompson co-chaired a committee of family members and survivors that participated in building the memorial.
Audience members will have a chance to comment and ask questions. "We would imagine that by the end of the night, we will have some recommendations on next steps. It's a huge task. It's a huge responsibility," Tokar-Ickes said.
Survivors of those who died aboard Flight 93, "are literally located all over the world. This is one of the most difficult aspects of this entire process. It is very important to everybody involved ... that we try to reach out to these families. This has affected them most of all."
Subsequent meetings, Tokar-Ickes said, will be held at sites that offer teleconferencing so family members who cannot travel here can participate.
Somerset County plans to ask the National Parks Service to manage the memorial once it is built.
Money for the memorial will come from the Mitsubishi Corp., which donated $100,000, and the Knight Foundation, which will commit between $250,000 and $500,000. In addition, $68,899 has been donated to a trust fund that Somerset County established for the memorial.