The highlight of the day came later, when we were driving across Pennsylvania. My nephew had told us about the temporary memorial to Flight 93 in Shanksville, and so we decided to stop and see it. I have never been so touched by a memorial. The first time I saw the Lincoln Memorial, and read the Gettysburg Address, and his second inaugural address, and saw that face etched in stone, expressing a sorrow deeper than words, I was moved to tears. The first time I saw the Vietnam Memorial, with its sloping black wall of names that reflects back into all our faces, I was moved to tears. But yesterday, standing on that windswept field looking at the sad chain link fence and myriad tributes pinned to it, from little stuffed animals to keychains and pictures, to a fireman’s jacket signed by the members of the Shanksville Fire Department, I felt my heart break, and sorrow wash over me, immediately followed by such a sense of wonder, that there on that lonely field  over the course of the last six years hundreds of thousands of people have made the pilgrimage to this site to honor the individuals – people just like us – who on that September morning won the War on Terror. What they did on that day, the choice they made, that was the truest victory. 

The National Park Service is now in charge of the site, and an architect has drawn up plans for a formal memorial that will be finished, the now estimate, in 2011. But what is there now, and the volunteers from the tiny community of Shanksville who act as the “ambassadors” and tell the story of that day, is an act of such honor and respect that there are no words that can adequately describe it. Go, take the time and see it. I could barely get the words out to thank the woman who told us the story. We’re donating to the memorial, as it is a worthy tribute. But if you get a chance to see what is there now, I guarantee you will not be sorry you made the effort.