Hancock spurred to where we stood, calling out as he reached us, “What regiment is this?” “First Minnesota,” replied Colvill. “Charge those lines!” commanded Hancock. Every man realized in an instant what that order meant — death or wounds to us all, the sacrifice of the regiment, to gain a few minutes’ time and save the position. And every man saw and accepted the necessity for the sacrifice… — Lieutenant William Lochren, 1st Minn. Infantry, writing in 1893
It was July 2, 1863, at Gettysburg. General Winfield Scott Hancock, trying to repel massive rebel attacks against the Union center on Cemetery Ridge, spotted a brigade of Alabamians advancing to exploit a gap in his lines. All he had at hand was a single, under-strength regiment.
At Hancock’s order, the 1st Minnesota launched a suicidal bayonet charge, briefly breaking the rebel line and halting their advance for a few precious minutes. The Alabama brigade was repulsed with heavy losses. Of the 262 Minnesotans, just 47 returned to the Union line unharmed.
There’s a fitting monument to them there, where Hancock ordered them in — a bronze soldier on a massive granite base, running forward at “charge bayonet,” face set in determination. The monument was dedicated a quarter century later by some of the survivors. It’s one of the most moving places on a field thick with them.
There’s another monument in another Pennsylvania field. It marks the scene of a sacrifice every bit as valorous and desperate as that of the 1st Minnesota. It was the first counterattack in the war on terror. And that monument is a disgrace.
The passengers who took down United Flight 93 in Shanksville, Penn., may well have saved the White House or the Capitol — surely they saved some part of Washington, D.C. from massive destruction and unknowable death. They accomplished something that morning that an infantry division might not have. Despite their terror and confusion, they — civilians, business flyers — took threads of information from cell phones and understood that a war had begun. They had a choice. They could be victims, like those they had learned about in New York and D.C., or they could be combatants. They chose the latter. How should we remember them?
Presently, it’s with something like embarrassment. The spot where Flight 93 hit the ground is marked by a single big rock that visitors can see from a “plaza.” Designed by architect Paul Murdoch, the permanent Flight 93 memorial is low to the ground, sleek, abstract. The National Park Service’s virtual tour calls it “heroic in scale, instilling both pride and humility.” The humility is there alright, but it’s difficult to see the pride.
In fact, the monument design seems desperate to change the subject to the surrounding landscape. It encompasses 1,000 acres, including wetlands and “memorial groves.” “The vistas still hint at its mining history,” says the virtual tour’s voice-over. “But today, the life of this land is being restored. It is now healed and, in return, nourishing our souls.” Praise Gaia.
The website for the memorial talks about it as a “field of honor.” It’s heavy on the field; not so much on the honor, telling us more about Murdoch’s aesthetic sense and our contemporary environmental piety than about Flight 93. Nothing says “let’s roll” like wetlands and meadow grass.
Maybe it gives comfort to the families of the passengers. I truly hope so. But what those people did that day means they no longer belong just to their loved ones. They belong to every American in the same way that every man buried at Gettysburg belongs to us.
And maybe the families are just relieved Murdoch’s design has been altered from its original form. It was named “The Crescent of Embrace,” causing an incredulous Mark Steyn to wonder how “‘Let’s roll!’ wound up as a Crescent roll.”
The symbol of Islam is a crescent. Tom Burnett Sr., father of Flight 93 passenger Tom Burnett, vocally opposed the crescent. “I explained this goes back centuries as an old-time Islamic symbol. I told them we’d be a laughingstock if we did this,” he said. “I got blown off.” “Embrace” means nothing, except perhaps to those for whom a vapid sentimentality is all they can take from a bloody, desperate and in many ways victorious day. Wars are not won with hugs.
On 9/11, barbarians turned our aerospace technology into weapons and our skyscrapers into crematoriums. They attacked symbols of our civilization. A handful of ordinary Americans on Flight 93 fought back in defense of themselves, their country and, ultimately, their civilization. A monument that emphasizes wildflowers and foliage willfully ignores that. America — Western civilization — has a right to defend itself. It has an obligation. Todd Beamer and the rest who charged that cockpit understood that. Sadly, the people charged with commemorating that action don’t.
Their monument should soar. At the worst, it should be a defiant fist thrust skyward (erect middle finger optional). It should impart something besides sadness, besides helplessness and victimization. Their action was as glorious as Bastogne, Belleau Wood — or the charge of the 1st Minnesota.
Matt Philbin is the managing editor at The Culture and Media Institute.
