Flight 93

If you’ve never been to the Flight 93 temporary memorial, go. Do it today, do it tomorrow, do it next week, but get there.
The memorial is in Somerset County, near Shanksville, not too far from Pittsburgh, over a small rise on a dusty gravel road, near a long low wide field with a single American flag flying in the middle.
The memorial itself is not physically big, not grand, not fancy, artistic, or sweeping … but emotionally, it is all these things.
Even after 8 years, it still evokes a sacred hushness and respect. You talk in whispers and move about in measured slow paces through the gravel, which holds a few headstone-style marble pieces with bronze plaques. A wall stands across from a large wooden cross next to rows of homemade wooden angels – one painted with the name of each passenger and crew member. In, around and on the plaques, the cross, and the wall are thousands of personal pieces left by visitors: toy cars, buttons, flag pins, cards, guitar picks, rosaries, crosses, keys, peace symbols, necklaces, stuffed animals, flags of every size, fire fighter helmets and jackets, coins, hats, t-shirts, sweatshirts, flowers, dog tags, prayers, angels, statues and license plates, each left in a fit of emotion creating a memorial, not commissioned, but sculpted by thousands of everyman-artists in honest remembrance.
In the midst of this, from one moment to the next, I was proud, I was angry, I was sad, uplifted, furious, humbled, amazed, sickened, awed, inspired and afraid; I wanted to sit down and cry, and I wanted to stand up and cheer, I wanted to laugh, I wanted to shout, I wanted to hug, and I wanted to fight; and standing in that tiny gravel makeshift memorial looking out over the long, low field at that single American flag planted on the spot where a plane crashed, I felt, for the first time in my life, the price of freedom.
You should go.