By Daniel Lovering
SHANKSVILLE, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - Former U.S. President George W. Bush Saturday said the 40 passengers and crew on United Flight 93 carried out one of the "most courageous acts in American history" when they attacked the plane's hijackers on September 11, 2001.
Former President Bill Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden joined Bush in speaking at the dedication of a memorial to the victims on the eve of the 10th anniversary of al Qaeda's attacks on New York and Washington.
"For as long as this memorial stands, we'll remember ... the sacrifice they made and the lives they spared," Bush said at a memorial at the rural site where the flight crashed following an onboard struggle to thwart the hijackers.
Investigators believe the hijackers of that plane wanted to hit the U.S. Capitol or the White House.
"What happened above this Pennsylvania field was among the most courageous acts in American history," Bush said.
Biden also spoke about the courage of those aboard Flight 93 and the "debt we can never repay."
"They didn't board that plane to fight a war but when they heard the news ... they stood up and they stood their ground," Biden said.
Clinton thanked Bush and President Barack Obama, who is scheduled to appear at the site Sunday, for "not letting us get attacked again." He also thanked the families of the victims.
"They gave the whole country an incalculable gift," he said.
The memorial, which is about 40 percent complete, includes a marble wall etched with the names of the 40 passengers and crew members. The wall follows the plane's flight path and a large boulder marks the approximate crash site. Nearly 1.5 million people have visited it.
MONEY NEEDED TO FINISH MEMORIAL
Forty groves of trees will be planted in a nearby field, and there will be a walkway along the groves that will pass between two large walls. There will be an overlook that will allow visitors to see the expanse of the field and the crash site. The memorial is scheduled to be finished in 2014, according to architect Paul Murdoch.
Organizers say $10 million still needs to be raised to complete construction of the permanent Flight 93 National Memorial. At the ceremony, Clinton, a Democrat, said he and House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, had agreed to have a bipartisan event to raise money for the memorial.
About $52 million has already been raised in public and private funds.
At Saturday's two-hour ceremony, FBI agents raised a flag that flew over the U.S. Capitol on September 11, 2001, and a bagpiper played "Amazing Grace."
The ceremony was uplifting for some relatives of the victims, including Calvin Wilson, 55, of Herndon, Virginia, whose brother-in-law was co-pilot Leroy Homer.
"What was special for me was that we have the acknowledgment
from our country that they were heroes ... I feel good. I feel recharged," Wilson said.
Before the ceremony began, hundreds of visitors walked along a black concrete path that skirted a tree-lined area where debris from Flight 93 was found.
"I had more feeling for this place than Washington or New York because these people averted something that much bigger, that much deadlier," said Merrie Keller, 57, of Harboro, Pennsylvania, who came on a bus trip sponsored by a radio station.
Phillip Moses, 35, a high school civics and government teacher from Greensburg, Pennsylvania, said he had been teaching his students about the importance of remembering people.
"I had to be a part of it and bring back what I saw to them," Moses said.
(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst, Barbara Goldberg, Greg McCune and Bill Trott)
