Paul Evanovich of Princeton is coordinating the New Jersey segment of a 33-day, 3,800-mile run with Old Glory. The relay is expected to pass through the Princeton area on Route 1 around 6 p.m. Saturday.
By: Jeff Milgram
Paul Evanovich of Princeton flies American Airlines jets from New York to Los Angeles and San Francisco, and now he wants to give the country a lift after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.
And he thinks letting people see Old Glory carried across the country in a relay run is the way to do it.
"Our first instinct is to do what’s right for America … America needs to see a positive side now," said Mr. Evanovich, who is coordinating the New Jersey segment of a 33-day, 3,800-mile run from Boston to Los Angeles.
The American flag will be carried by employees of American Airlines and United Airlines and by military veterans. The relay run is expected to pass through the Princeton area on Route 1 around 6 p.m. Saturday.
"We’re trying to use … symbolic references to pay tribute to crew members" of the downed airliners, Mr. Evanovich said.
Runners left Boston on Thursday, a month after terrorists hijacked four jetliners and crashed one into each of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and one into the Pentagon in suburban Washington, D.C. A fourth airliner crashed outside Pittsburgh when passengers overpowered the hijackers.
Two of the doomed planes departed from Boston.
The run will end Nov. 11, Veterans Day.
The flag the runners will carry was flown over Iraq in the cockpit of a U.S. F-16 jet flown in support of Operation Southern Watch, which enforces a "no-fly" zone over southern Iraq, on Oct. 2.
The flag will be carried around the clock. The route will take the runners to ground zero at the site of the towers, through the Holland Tunnel, down Route 1 to Pennsylvania, Washington, Atlanta, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, Phoenix and Los Angeles.
The flag will pass through 18 municipalities on its trip down Route 1, and will be carried in relays of about 2 miles, Mr. Evanovich said.
The decision to do the run was made despite some security concerns, Mr. Evanovich said.
"We were all affected by the terrorism on a certain level, but we were all affected differently," he said.
For Mr. Evanovich, it is in the way he thinks about the Boeing 767 and 757 planes that he flies, the same type of planes that were hijacked on Sept. 11.
"Seeing an airplane you flew for the past nine years used as a weapon…" he said, his voice trailing off.
He said the flag run will help people deal with the emotions rising from the terror attacks.
"These people have been chomping at the bit because of the events of Sept. 11," he said.
Mr. Evanovich served in the Air Force with Leroy Homer, the pilot of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed outside Pittsburgh.
He was in Los Angeles when he got word that planes had been crashed into the World Trade Center. He was stranded there six days when the government banned all civilian aircraft from America skies.
He said passengers will have to get used to long delays in boarding planes and restrictions on carry-on luggage.
He noted that cockpit doors will be made more secure. But even now, Mr. Evanovich said, flight crews are taking nothing for granted when cockpit doors are opened by flight attendants.
"The doors are opening a lot less now," he said.
And, Mr. Evanovich said, crew members are much more aware of passengers who act "a little suspicious" or who make requests that are out of the ordinary.
But some good has come from the attacks, said Mr. Evanovich, the nephew of best-selling author Janet Evanovich. A religious person, Mr. Evanovich said Americans are praying together and spending more time with their families.

