Scoop Images: Shanksville, UA Flight 93 Memorial

Pennsylvania native Bob Resconsin is 80-years-old and fought alongside Kiwis against Rommel in North Africa during WW2.

United Airlines Flight 93, one of the Sept 11th disasters, crashed only about 20 miles west of my home, on the Allegheny plateau, which is another world, especially in winter.

The village of Shanksville is a very small settlement and the people who live there are mostly retired coal miners, so they are not very well heeled.

I was astounded at the effort they put in to making a memorial to the victims, albeit temporary. Apparently the effort has attracted some attention because they are deluged with funds and offers of help from all over the world to build a permanent memorial.

On a very cold, windy and snowy day there were lots of people in the God forsaken location to see the thing. The plane crashed on a resurrected strip mining area so it's very flat and barren.

Alan Beaven is the New Zealand-born lawyer who appears to have been one of the heroes on the flight, who caused it to crash before it could get the White House. For more about Alan Beaven, see… http://www.opendemocracy.net/forum/document_details.asp?CatID=95&DocID=681&DebateID=152

I was very much taken by just being there, in fact it was all I could do to hold it in. The spot where the plane went in is about 100 yards from the memorial and fenced so one cannot go up to it.

They are still sifting through the remains. They said that the biggest piece of wreckage that they found would fit in a wash basin. Of course all they found of the victims were parts, and not much of that. Parts of metal were dug up from 25 feet down.

You may notice the large American flag is an old 48 star flag. It's one that had flown over the US Capitol in Washington many years ago and was put up on the memorial by the Congressman who represents that area. He has been retired for many years and felt that the flag somehow belonged there.

A piece the local paper said that they have finally found artifacts from all of the victims and that they have been returned to the survivors. Things like wallets, papers, jewelry and so on. Only human tissue has been found of the bodies and it took a monumental DNA project to identify all.

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