To Honor 9/11’s Fallen Flight Crew, a 62-year-old Former Flight Attendant Pushed a Beverage Cart 200 miles
On the sweltering Manhattan morning that marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the sea of traffic on Broadway parted for Paul “Paulie” Veneto, a 62-year-old former flight attendant who sported a backward hat, a stubbly mustache, tattoos, huge biceps, and a muscle-tank that read, Miracle.
To commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the greatest sacrifice made by flight attendants, or “9/11’s first-first responders,” as Paulie put it, the former flight attendant pushed an airline beverage cart 219 miles from Logan Airport in Boston to Ground Zero in New York Cityon a journey he would call “Paulie’s Push.”
United Airlines Flight 175 was a flight Paulie regularly worked, a flight that by a stroke of luck, he was off the schedule for, a flight that terrorists hijacked and rammed into the southern Twin Tower twenty years ago. His colleagues Amy Jarret and Kathryn Laborie, who served doubly as his close friends at United, lost their lives on this flight, which sent Paulie down a dark path. The doctor prescribed him pain medication to cope with the loss, which instead kickstarted what would be a decade-long opioid addiction.
“I wish I was there. I knew it wouldn’t have changed anything, but I could have helped them fight,” Paulie’s sister Maurine Veneto remembers Paulie saying. “Ever since then,” she added, “the guilt has eaten away at him over the years that he really needed to do something.”
Not only does September 11, 2021 mark the twentieth anniversary of the tragedy at the World Trade Center, but it is also the six-year anniversary of Paulie’s sobriety, driven by his promise to call attention to the friends he lost and the role of flight attendants in sacrificing their lives for others.
“It was such a shock to witness the towers fall that everybody forgot about what happened at the beginning of that day. These crew members that I was friends with on Flight 175 were fighting terrorists, innocent people just doing their jobs — trying to protect those passengers and trying to protect us on the ground,” Paulie shared in a personal interview at the start of his final mile.
His disappointment in the lack of awareness of the sacrifice his flight crew made twenty years ago motivated his trek and pledge to sobriety.
“They were American heroes really — the first ones, but their families never heard about it. Their children went to school year after year and nobody said, ‘You know, your mother or father was a hero of 9/11.’”
Since the relatives of flight crew members live across the country, Paulie knew he needed to raise awareness nationally. He dreamed up an idea no one had ever done before, pushing a flight attendant beverage cart the exact flight path of UA 175 two decades ago, but to him it was just common sense.
“If I pushed a wheel barrel, if I rode a bike, how would people know that I was a flight attendant?” he asked.
The three-week-long, interstate push put Paulie’s tenacity to the test. Leaving Boston on August 21 meant having to endure the heavy rains and winds of Hurricane Ida. He powered through the hurricane for 18 miles on the first day alone.
“My guys that were with me didn’t think I could do five miles,” Paulie said, shaking his head with conviction. “But I just stayed out there. I was determined. I knew that there’d be no object that would keep me from doing this.”
On September 11, 219 miles later, he approached Ground Zero with a sparkle in his eyes and a youthful energy in his voice.
The streets were lined with supporters. Little kids carried homemade signs, a motorcycle gang honked loudly on a street corner, and a throng of onlookers held up their phones to film his journey. To them, Paulie looked like a bona fide celebrity, and he acted like one too.
“He’s one of those guys who takes time for everyone. I even told him, ‘Paul, just keep walking. You don’t have to talk to everybody.’ But he’s soft, he likes to talk to everybody,” said his close friend Kevin Stevens, who battled an opioid addiction at the same time as Paulie.
Paulie’s Push raised over $100,000 to support families deeply impacted by 9/11, as well as for a sober living scholarship program. “It’s gonna help people after they get out of treatment. A lot of people fall off at that point, so this is a good game plan for us to help those people get home,” said Kelli Wilson, the founder of Power Forward, the non-profit sponsor of Paulie’s Push.
At just a quarter of a mile from Ground Zero, Paulie detoured and led the crowd to a firehouse. He ran inside to use the facilities and then informed the crowd he would be sliding down the firepole. His camera crew quickly assembled, as did his fellow flight attendants in uniform, family, friends, and Paulie’s Push organizers. In a humorously slow descent from the upper story of the firehouse to the ground level, Paulie landed with his palms in the air, like a gymnast.
“Classic Paulie,” his sister beamed.
The smiling faces turned serious as he neared Ground Zero. Once at the gate, Paulie was swarmed by press, but he stood stoically, independently, glaring up at what used to be the home of the Twin Towers, where he had lost his colleagues and friends.
Paulie parked his cart, but continued to clutch it with conviction. Two decades after 9/11, six years after breaking his addiction, 219 miles after leaving Boston, his voice quivered as he thought aloud to an anticipatory crowd. “It’s a miracle. It really is a miracle,” he mused.
On a day met with tears across the world, the wet eyes at Paulie’s Push were filled not with sadness, but with gratitude. Paulie proved persistence can prevail and that memorialization can take many forms — even a beverage cart.
