Twenty-five years ago, when hijackers crashed a plane into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, Reverend Robert Way was a new minister in town.
This is a conversation he had with WPSU’s Emily Reddy on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. She talked with Way about that day and about the Flight 93 National Memorial, which was being dedicated at that year's ceremonies.
Emily Reddy:
Reverend Robert Way had only been a minister for 41 days when United Flight 93 crashed on the outskirts of the 240-person town of Shanksville. He says, as a minister, he wasn't prepared. And that, really, it's the kind of event there's no preparing for.
Rev. Robert Way:
Coming directly out of seminary… Seminary doesn't train you anything for this type of crisis ministry. Nobody was prepared for September 11, 2001. That'd be like saying, could you be prepared for Pearl Harbor? I mean, I literally just trusted God to guide me in what I should be doing, when I should be doing it. A lot of prayer. On the morning of September 11th, 2001, Reverend Way was in a meeting with other ministers, when a congregant called to tell him a plane had crashed in her backyard. He told the girl, I'm on my way. But as he drove to her house, he was flagged down by a local fireman.
Rev. Robert Way:
One of the fire police said they were asking local clergy to go down into the crash site to give last rites to those people. I only got probably within 100 yards of the crash site when one of our local firefighters...matter of fact, the fire truck was coming out of the site, and the FBI had literally told everybody they had to leave the site. I think it was people trying to do what they could do. They were gathering stuff up, but in gathering stuff up, the FBI said that they were disturbing a federal crime scene.
Emily Reddy:
Since Reverend Way couldn't help at the crash site, he tried to figure out what he could do. All the schools had sent students home for the day. Way found kids gathered in the streets trying to make sense of what had happened.
Rev. Robert Way:
So, the questions that were posed to me, were very heartfelt questions. One asked whether or not this was the end of the world. You know, if a plane falls in Shanksville, then planes must be falling all over, everywhere. And being crashed, and not just falling. But some terrorist activity is taking place. Where's the next place? And quite literally, can it be right in the center of town, rather than on the outskirts of town?
Emily Reddy:
The kids had lost the feeling of security that comes with living in a tiny town full of people you've known all your life. The world had come rushing at them.
Rev. Robert Way:
We were so small, so isolated from all of those problems of the world. Sure, we we've sent people to war just like every other small community. But those wars have always been someplace else.
Emily Reddy:
No one from Shanksville was killed in the crash. But Way says the town has adopted the crash victims as their own. Shanksville residents served on the committee to create a memorial to the victims. And they served as ambassadors at the site of the crash even before the memorial was begun. A group of locals took turns manning the site and answering visitors’ questions.
Rev. Robert Way:
I mean, very similar to Lockerbie. The people of the area embraced the fact that people died here. And because people died here, we need to treat this land with the sacredness that it is. I mean, there are 40 bodies. In fact, the truth of the matter is, there's 44 bodies that are there. They were only able to recover 7% of the bodies by weight. So, 93% of them remain there. It is a cemetery and we try to treat it as such.
Emily Reddy:
Because the crash site is like a cemetery, the memorial will be nearby, not at the site. That includes the memorial plaza, with the names of the 40 passengers and crew members on board engraved in a wall of marble.
Rev. Robert Way:
And it's going to be it's going to be hard, having that opportunity to see this finalized for some of them and recognize at the same time that it'll never be final. The healing process is happening with them. For some family members, even more so than others… I should say that the other way around. For some family members, less so than others.
Emily Reddy:
Reverend Way says what family members get out of the site will depend on what they bring to it.
Rev. Robert Way:
I believe that people who come to that site with a sense of anger, um, find something at the site to be angry about. So, they leave angry. People who come with a sense of patriotism, leave with that sense of patriotism. People will come with a sense of the somberness of the area, I'll leave with that same sense. There are some who come very peaceful, and they leave very peaceful.
