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Chip Wells was working at the Department of Agriculture, on Independence Avenue in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 11, 2001. He recalls plumes of black smoke drifting skyward from the Pentagon, the utter confusion and the swirl of rumors that paralyzed the city for hours.

Dan Kaattari was in Manhattan that day. Arriving late at his Midtown office, he was greeted by 32 urgent phone messages. The first was from his mother who wanted to know what was going on and was he safe.

These men and others -- all members of a Washington, D.C., rugby team -- spent Saturday in Shanksville, Somerset County, a few hundred yards from the Flight 93 crash site.

They volunteered their time -- hauling, shoveling, patting down and smoothing out 20 tons of limestone gravel -- at the temporary memorial to the victims of Flight 93, the fourth doomed aircraft of 9/11.

One Flight 93 passenger was Mark Bingham, a 6-foot-5-inch San Franciscan and a rugby player.

In May, Ned Kieloch and the other members of the Washington Renegades will play in New York City at the Mark Bingham Rugby Tournament. They played in the inaugural tournament in London two years ago.

"We are honored to be here," said Kieloch, who had been a civilian employee of the U.S. Army in the fall of 2001. He was two corridors away when a hijacked aircraft slammed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11. "We feel a real connection to (Shanksville)."

Forty passengers and crew lost their lives when Flight 93 went down in a field in Stonycreek, not far from Shanksville. The hijackers were apparently bound for the nation's capital.

Flight 93 originally was headed to San Francisco from Newark, N.J. Near Cleveland, the plane turned abruptly east.

Bingham is believed to have been among the passengers that stormed the cabin in an attempt to thwart the hijackers. Tapes played last week at the trial of accused 9/11 terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui suggest a struggle inside the airliner during its final moments.

"I don't doubt for a moment that (Bingham's) rugby experience had something to do with the way he reacted that day," Kieloch said.

"Every game you get knocked down and get back up -- not once but several times," Risinger noted. "I can imagine him saying: 'The hell with this' and then rushing forward."

None of the 12 Renegades who made the trip yesterday to Somerset County had known Bingham.

The limestone gravel is expected to make the memorial easier to navigate, especially for wheelchair-bound visitors, said Donna Glessner, of Shanksville, one of 40 Flight 93 "ambassadors."

"It's great to have the guys here," Glessner said.

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