Strength Amid Sadness

Around Reno, I began to notice the flags--tiny flags attached to the antennas of passing cars, larger ones on the sides of big rigs booming down the road, tied to overpasses, taped inside car windows. And then there was the spray-painted message on the back of a semitrailer: “Nuke ‘em.”

With three days’ worth of clothes, my camera gear and very little money, I’d left San Francisco on Sept. 12, setting out by car to chronicle what was surely a turning point in the life of this country.

In Wyoming, I met soft-spoken Ron Hawkins, who lives on the 5,000-acre Walker-91 Ranch west of Laramie. “We’ve got so much peace and quiet, and we are so far away ... that I felt the guilt of not being able to be a part of the solution,” he said.

In Shawnee, Kan., more than 5,000 people--in red, white or blue--formed a human American flag.

In southern Pennsylvania, where United Flight 93 crashed into a field outside rural Shanksville, someone had erected a large, wooden, cloth-draped cross at the crash site. Fog blew through the notch cut in the trees by the doomed jet. Nearby in Jennerstown, thousands of people gathered at a speedway on a rainy autumn evening to light candles and sing patriotic songs.

At Arlington National Cemetery , a bugler played taps for a naval officer killed in the Pentagon crash.

In New York, my destination, there were more of the seemingly endless funerals and memorial services. I’d been on the road for 18 days. Everywhere, there were tears and somber faces as people tried to make sense of events. But I also witnessed a sense of brotherhood and patriotism. The mood of America was strong and vibrant, even in the face of such great tragedy.

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For an expanded, multimedia presentation of Mark Boster’s photographs, go to https://latimes.com.