Retired United Airlines flight attendant Paul “Paulie” Veneto was off work on Sept. 11, 2001, although his life was forever changed by the terrorist attacks that day that caused four airplanes to crash.
Mr. Veneto was normally scheduled on United Airlines Flight 175, between Boston and Los Angeles, which was one of the hijacked airplanes used in suicide attacks. It was deliberately crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing all onboard and many people inside the building. He lost several dear friends that day.
After that day, it was difficult for many in the airline field to go back to work, but they did, and they found various ways of coping with what happened.
Mr. Veneto said he flew for 10 more years but fell into opioid addiction to cope with the pain and grief of that day. Once he recovered from addiction, he knew he had to honor the lives that were lost.
In 2021, 20 years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Veneto took one of the tools of the flight attendant, a beverage cart donated to him by an airline, and pushed it 220 miles from Boston-Logan International Airport to Ground Zero in Manhattan. The approximate route taken by one of the hijacked airliners was to be the start of Paulie’s Push.
In 2022, he walked 35 miles from Washington-Dulles International Airport to the Pentagon National Memorial.
This year, for Paulie’s Push, he makes his longest journey, more than 300 miles, from Newark-Liberty International Airport in New Jersey to the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
“In the enormity of everything that happened that day, with all of the heroes that emerged, I just felt that my friends and colleagues weren’t going to receive the recognition that they deserved,” Mr. Veneto, 64, said in a statement. “I wanted their families to hear it said: They died as heroes.
Meaningful Trek
The beverage cart does have a few beverages. Mr. Veneto usually keeps bottled water and some sort of nutrition, such as fruit, in the cart. He also has two laminated sets of photos of the flight crews from Sept. 11.
On top of the cart are photos of friends and colleagues who died on United 175, plus photos of the crew of United Flight 93. Inside, he has a photo from his first push in 2021. People sometimes give him donations, and flight attendants often give him little gifts from their years of flying, and he keeps some of those in the cart, which is outfitted with a GPS system and a camera system that allows his followers to see his progress in real time.
“People tell me they’ve waited for hours in the sun, in the rain, just to watch me push my cart past them—how can I not stop and talk to them? I have to stop and talk to them,” Mr. Veneto said.
“I’ve met people who lost loved ones on 9/11. I’ve met people who lost loved ones who survived that day but were so affected by what happened that they succumbed to it later. The stories that people share with me are powerful. I’m just the guy pushing the cart—I say that a lot—but for some of these people, I’m a chance to share something from that day, or from the days since, and they take that opportunity. I’ve had people tell me it’s the first time they’ve talked about it. It’s moving, it’s emotional. It’s what keeps me going, what’s going to keep me going all the way to Shanksville.”
The push to Shanksville began on Aug. 14, with a ceremony held by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey at Newark-Liberty International Airport. Mr. Veneto was escorted past a water cannon salute and along the tarmac of the airport itself, then was greeted by a number of airport employees as he was led off from the airport grounds.
Over the next seven days, Paulie pushed westward through New Jersey, through Essex, Union, Morris, and Warren counties, before reaching Easton, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 19.
On Sept. 3, he was on Route 30 between Everett and Bedford, Pennsylvania. He expects to arrive at the Flight 93 memorial by Sept. 11.
“I’m pushing this cart for the flight crews of 9/11,” Mr. Veneto said. “I’m pushing this cart to share the story of the flight crews of 9/11. They were the first first responders.”
