Trailheads

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that resulted in airliner crashes into the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Anyone old enough to remember 9/11 can recall the wall-to-wall news coverage and vivid sense of national grief about the destruction and lives lost. The...
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The Man for the Moment: Tom Ridge and the 9/11 Inflection Point

  On the cloudless, blue-sky morning of September 11, 2001, Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, unaware the State Police in Harrisburg were looking for him, was at his Erie home enjoying the crisp air while he cleared his raised flower beds of dead stems and dried leaves. Gardening was a favorite pastime for the Vietnam War veteran and former congressman. For Ridge, that peaceful moment in his...
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Col. Paul J. Evanko’s Field Notes from 9/11

The United States was changed forever on the morning of September 11, 2001, when it was attacked by members of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda. One of the four airliners that was hijacked as part of the attack was United Airlines Flight 93, originally scheduled from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco, California. Flight 93 crashed in a field in Stonycreek Township, near Shanksville, in...
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