It’s been seven years. Although the grass has covered the crater where United Flight 93 crashed, the scars still run deep.
From all over the world they come. Over 150,000 visitors a year  journey to the temporary Flight 93 National Memorial. To visit the place where family, friends, and fellow Americans have their final resting place.
They visit for a breadth of reasons, from paying respects, to seeing the crash site. Whatever the reason, most leave the memorial with a personal emotional experience.
The day before the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks on America, many had tears in their eyes as they touched the cold stone memorials erected in memory of the heroes of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pa.
For Sara Jackson, of Cullowhee, N.C., this was a spiritual journey. Jackson — who has been wanting to visit the memorial for seven years — finally decided to make the ten-hour trip to Pennsylvania. She was so adamant to visit the memorial that she slept in her car along the way.
“I just want to observe as much as I can,” she said. “For me, coming here is a spiritual renewal to help me put away my negative thoughts about the way things were handled by President Bush. I felt the need to be in the presence of heros.”
For Kellie Mendenhall, the journey was about visiting the site. Mendenhall, of Taneytown, Md., took a side trip to the memorial as she traveled to South Dakota. She’s a disaster responder for the American Red Cross and responded to the Pentagon the day of the attack. She spent three weeks at the Pentagon feeding meals to military personnel, FBI agents, and other officials processing the crime scene at the Pentagon. She also fed the Joint Chiefs of Staff and workers who were on lockdown.
“Working with the Red Cross is wonderful,” she said. “I always come home feeling like I made a positive influence in someone’s life. I always come home appreciative of what I have.”
For others, the memorial has become a part of their everyday life. Forty-five volunteer ambassadors take turns  manning two hour shifts to give the public a detailed, up-to-date account of the events that shaped America’s young century.
One of these ambassadors is Sally Ware of Shanksville. 
“We usually see about 500 people a day, and we’re busy year round,” she said. We’ve seen people from all over the world — from Japan to Australia.”
Ware added that she was interviewed by a Russian reporter.
Ware and the volunteers meet a couple times a year to compile the  the latest information from the 9/11 Commission.
On March 7, 2002, federal legislators introduced legislation [H.B. 3917] “To authorize a national memorial to commemorate the passengers and crew who gave their lives to advert the path of Flight 93, that was headed towards the Nation’s Capital.”
The Boeing 757-200 airplane had a capacity of 182 passengers, but was only carrying a total of 44 people. There were two pilots and five flight attendants, 33 passengers. And four terrorist.
Ware said that of those 40 people on Flight 93, ages ranged from age 20 to age 79.
“The plane came northwest from Pittsburgh at a 45-degree angle, crashing upside-down creating a crater 15 feet dee and 30 feet wide,” Ware said. “That (crater) was later backfilled and planted with grass.”
A new permanent memorial is being built on 15,000 acres of land near the crash site, with hopes of $58 million completion on September 11, 2011. A year-long international design competition was started to generate designs for the memorial.  The winning design was announced on September 7, 2005 and was created by Paul Murdoch Architects of Los Angeles and Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects.
“The new design will consist of a tower of voices, containing 40 large wind chimes, and will represent the last voices of the 40 heroes,” said Ware.
There will be an entry portal with concrete walls marking the flight path, with walls that are the exact height as the plane’s before it crashed, added Ware. Additonally, there will be ponds, a field of honor, and 40 memorial groves of red and sugar maple trees, a sacred ground site, and a western overlook.
Many fellow Americans, including Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain will gather at the Flight 93 today. He’s also attending a service at Ground Zero in New York City with presidential rival Sen. Barack Obama, both putting politics aside in unity.
The aftermath of September 11, 2001 still resounds in the heart of many Americans — it’s as if that terrible moment is frozen in time for many.
“It’s like the Kennedy assassination,” Jackson said. “You remember exactly where you were and what you were doing.”
And we always will.