For more than 20 years, Josh Shapiro has worn the same pin to remember the lives lost on 9/11
Shapiro was a young staffer on Capitol Hill on Sept. 11, 2001. He keeps a reminder of the day close to his chest.
HARRISBURG — For more than two decades, Gov. Josh Shapiro has worn it almost every day.
The small, thin accessory affixed to his lapel — a compressed version of the 50 stars and 13 stripes — may require one to squint to see. But it carries significant meaning to the Democratic governor, with an origin story that began on Sept. 11, 2001, when Shapiro was a young staffer on Capitol Hill.
Shapiro was working in Washington when he experienced the pain and confusion of the deadliest terrorist attack in the nation’s history, he said in a June interview.
He was just steps away from the U.S. Capitol building in then-U.S. Rep. Joe Hoeffel’s office, where he served as chief of staff, when he watched as the Today show anchors announced a plane had hit the World Trade Center. And then another.
He realized, like thousands of Americans, that the nation was under attack — with Washington as a potential target. Less than an hour later, Shapiro said, he saw the smoke coming from the Pentagon. Staff were given mixed signals on whether to evacuate before ultimately being told to hunker down in legislative buildings until the situation was clear, he said.
When Shapiro arrived on Capitol Hill the next day, a woman who worked in the Capitol gift shop was giving out American flag pins to anyone who passed by — the “typical gift shop” pin depicting a waving flag that President George W. Bush and other politicians began to wear in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, he said.
The pin became a part of Shapiro’s daily business uniform. He wore it every day, even after he left D.C. and began working at a law firm in Montgomery County while preparing to run for state representative — his first foray into elected office and the start of a decades-long career.
When Shapiro was knocking on doors for his 2004 run for the state House, a veteran in Glenside told him his gift shop pin wasn’t cutting it. The veteran gave Shapiro a nicer one: an image of the American flag in a thin, metal bar.
“And I’ve worn it basically every day since,” Shapiro said in June ahead of his appearance at a special session of the U.S. House at Independence Hall to commemorate America’s founding 250 years ago. Widely rumored to be a future presidential contender, Shapiro often talks about his pride in America and its ideals, and his fears that the country is becoming too divided and straying from the founders’ aspirations.
“I am a proud, patriotic American,” he said, referencing his pin. “I don’t think patriotism belongs to one party. I don’t think it should ever be partisan.”
Over the years, Shapiro has made slight changes to the flag accessory; he shaved down the pin stem and made it into a magnet.
“It was destroying my suits,” he added.
He said he once lost the pin when it fell off a jacket that he had hung up on a plane.
“I freaked out. I literally freaked out,” he said.
He said he and the flight attendant were on their hands and knees trying to find it in the plane’s closet. They found the pin, but never found the backing, which was replaced much more easily.
“I found the most important thing, and I just got another magnet,” he said.
Shapiro will appear at the Flight 93 Memorial near Shanksville, Pa., alongside members of President Donald Trump’s administration, including U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, for a service on Friday to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the attacks, in which more than 2,900 people were killed.
United Airlines Flight 93, a San Francisco-bound passenger plane flying out of Newark, was hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001. It was believed to be headed to the White House or U.S. Capitol, near where Shapiro was working at the time — before its 40 passengers attempted to retake control and crashed the aircraft in a field near Shanksville.
