25 years after 9/11, Shanksville carries on the legacy of Flight 93's "heroes"

On this day 25 years ago, not many people had heard of Shanksville, Pennsylvania, a small town in Somerset County, but that changed in an instant. 

Ever since Sept. 11, 2001, it has been in the national and international spotlight. People who live there said the story has never been about them, but about carrying on the legacy of the people on United Airlines Flight 93. 

The day life changed

For those old enough to recall the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Somerset County, like much of the eastern United States, had a blue sky on a sunny late-summer day. All was beautiful, all was normal, until it wasn't. 

"We were in this room at the bank. We were having a meeting," recalled Barbara Reed. "Me and my sister-in-law had a daycare." 

Seven miles from Shanksville, hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists, United Flight 93 with 40 passengers and crew aboard slammed into a former strip mine. 

"I went to shut the door, and I heard a loud boom," Reed said. 

From that moment on, for those who lived there, everything changed. 

"By that time, my husband came down and said, 'Keep the kids inside. The plane went down. Planes went down in New York, and I don't know what's going on,'" Reed said. 

In the seconds, minutes, hours, and days after, Somerset County and Shanksville seemed to be cast into a horrific whirlwind of confusion, desperation, and grief. 

"I sat, and I cried; I couldn't imagine," Reed recalled. "No one quite understood what was going on. Why was this plane here?" 

Shock turns to resolve

On Sept. 11, 2001, Henry Cook was the CEO of Somerset Trust. 

"Everybody felt a little bit of stress," he said. "Everyone felt a little more unsure of what their futures were." 

After the smoke literally cleared, recovery of the victims' remains began, as did the cascade of visiting officials, the curious, and the media. 

"It was busy," Cook recalled. "All the people were coming to town, going to the crash site, and asking questions about it." 

However, shock soon turned to resolve. The night after, the families of those killed on Flight 93 visited the crash site, and the courthouse became a place of refuge and of love. 

"We help our fellow man when things go wrong," Cook said. "Right in the center of town, people crowded in. In the inner circle were the families of Flight 93, and the community was sort of an outer band." 

Not long after that, with the eyes of the world watching, Somerset County would soon be challenged again. This time, another desperate situation unfolded just 15 miles from Shanksville. 

"Very interestingly, 11 months later, nine coal miners were trapped, and the same group of volunteers stepped up and saved nine of our own," Cook recalled. "I've always thought that was a healing event for a lot of our people." 

Flight 93 memorial

Today, the legacy of Flight 93 lives on at the national memorial, which sits right where it occurred. That fateful morning, the only things near the crash site were dragline excavators called the "Silent Sentries," which were turned into a symbol of American fortitude. 

"Much of the steel was melted down and is part of the keel of the USS Somerset, named for our county because of 9/11," Cook said. 

Finally, for Cook, what happened during and after 9/11 provides a lesson in what a community and country can become in the worst of times, but in the best of ways. A lesson, perhaps, that needs revisiting today. 

"We need to see each other, and people, not political entities," he said. "It brought us together. Let's use that again as an impetus to come together." 

First responders, "our true heroes" 

Before Sept. 11, 2001, America's first responders, while not invisible, seemed to be in the background. Always there when needed, but not recognized for their efforts. After that fateful morning, all of that changed. 

"First responders started to be recognized as our true heroes," Somerset Regional Volunteer Fire Department Chief Jim Clark said. 

A sentiment forged after the loss of 415 firefighters and police officers in New York, and the trauma faced by those who endured the carnage at the Pentagon and in Shanksville. 

"You join a fire department because it does meaningful, positive things in your community," said Cook, who is also the president of the Somerset Volunteer Fire Company. "This was a loss from the first instant." 

Cook was the chief when Flight 93 crashed, and Clark is the current chief of the same company. Clark rolled up to the site of the crash with his fellow first responders that day. 

"Once we arrived on the scene, we saw it was nothing but a recovery," he recalled. 

For both men, the images of that day, and the ones that followed, fill their collective memory. First responders are by nature tough and can endure a lot, but they are hardly immune to human emotions. 

"Was it hard, and [were there] some tears? Yes, it was," Clark said. 

"I was surprised more of them didn't need counseling," Cook said. 

Never alone

For departments like the ones in Shanksville and Somerset, the tasks were many and great, but they soon discovered they would not bear the burden alone. 

"The biggest image that inspired me was all the first responders that were called that day dropped everything they were doing, left their jobs, left their families, with a huge, I mean, a huge turnout of people in the emergency response communities to want to help that day," Clark said. 

There was another volunteer mass support effort underway at the same time in places like the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Department by people like Reed. 

"I would help night shift overnight," she recalled. "We'd meet and put food on the pickup trucks and take it out to the crash site." 

Reed has her share of haunting memories etched in her mind, as well. 

"It was a sight. You'd go to this one place, and you could see the flashlights coming out of the woods to get their food for the evening," she said. 

Called heroes for their selfless dedication that day, many of the first responders will tell you they appreciate the compliment, but will also say they arrived after the men and women aboard Flight 93 committed the ultimate act of selfless sacrifice and heroism. In that moment, they decided they, and not the hijackers who commandeered the plane's cockpit, would determine their fate and, in a way, give others the chance to have a tomorrow. 

"I think about them people all the time," Clark said. "The heroes on that Flight 93 saved a lot of lives that day."