BOSTON — When Paul “Paulie” Veneto pushes an airline beverage cart toward ground zero, he doesn’t spend much time thinking about the miles ahead.
Instead, he looks at the faces of his former colleagues pictured on top of the cart — flight attendants who were aboard the four planes hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001 — and remembers why he started walking in the first place.
“My promise that day was, ‘never forget,’ ” Veneto told The Tablet. “We all said it: ‘We’ll never forget.’ ”
Twenty-five years after the terrorist attacks, the retired United Airlines flight attendant is making his fifth and what he expects to be his final “Paulie’s Push,” a 28-day journey from Boston to ground zero honoring the flight crews he calls the “first, first responders” of 9/11.
By the time he arrives in Manhattan on Sept. 11, the 67-year-old Boston native will have pushed the cart more than 1,000 cumulative miles since beginning the mission in 2021.
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Veneto frequently worked on Flight 175 and knew the crew members who boarded the plane on Sept. 11, 2001. He worked the night before the attacks and was off that morning.
In the days that followed, Veneto was troubled by the thought that the heroism of the flight crews could become overshadowed by the enormity of what happened after the attacks.
“When those buildings came down, the issue was the whole world,” he said. “I said to myself, ‘People are going to forget what happened at the beginning of the day.’ ”
For years since then, Veneto has been trying to make sure that doesn’t happen.
As a flight attendant, he understood details about what was unfolding aboard the hijacked planes that he said much of the public could not have known at the time. Crew members communicated information from the aircraft to people on the ground while confronting a situation unlike anything they had been trained to face.
“These people were American heroes,” he said. “They deserved to be recognized, not just in their hometown as a casualty in 9/11.”
That mindset ultimately became the driving force behind Paulie’s Push.
Just days after the attacks, Veneto had photographs of the crew members printed and attached them to his flight bag as his own way of keeping their memory visible. The idea of pushing an airline beverage cart along the route of Flight 175 came later, though it would take two decades before he was ready to make that first journey.
In 2021, Veneto pushed a beverage cart from Boston to ground zero in memory of the crew of United Flight 175. He followed with pushes honoring American Airlines Flight 77 in 2022, United Airlines Flight 93 in 2023, and American Airlines Flight 11 in 2024, retracing routes connected to each of the four hijacked aircraft.
He is calling the final journey “Everyone’s Push,” inviting 9/11 families, flight crew families, and members of the communities along his route to take turns pushing alongside him. Four additional beverage carts were donated for the journey, allowing as many as five carts to move together at points along the route.
In total, six beverage carts have now been part of Paulie’s Push since the mission began.
For Veneto, bringing others into the Push is also a way to pass the memory of Sept. 11 to a generation that may have no memories of its own.
“That’s what moves me when I see a mother come out with her young son or daughter to meet me,” he said. “I know that they’re talking about 9/11 after they leave.”
“All I do is push the cart,” Veneto added, “and this magic happens on the street.”
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As the nation marks 25 years since the attacks, he believes that act of remembrance has taken on a new urgency.
Over the years, he has met and formed relationships with relatives of the flight crew members he honors. As the parents and grandparents of those who died grow older, Veneto said he wants them to know that their loved ones’ actions have not been forgotten.
“I really feel it’s important for us, as a community and as a country, to come together and show these family members that might not be here much longer that we really recognize their loved ones,” he said. “If they’re going to be leaving us soon, at least they’re leaving us knowing that their family member was recognized and honored and never forgotten.”
Veneto said that mission is what keeps him moving when the physical demands of the Push set in. He has spent thousands of hours training over the years, but insists he does not view pushing the cart hundreds of miles as a sacrifice. Unlike the crews he honors, Veneto said, he can stop when he is tired, take a break, or drink water.
“I look at their pictures on top of the beverage cart,” he said. “I look at their faces, and I say to myself, ‘This is nothing compared to what these guys were doing.’ ”
A practicing Catholic, Veneto also credits his faith with carrying him through the mission’s physical and emotional demands, describing it as something personal that he often recognizes through the people he meets along the way.
“I know that something carries me,” he said. “God comes to me through other human beings. The more I’m out with the public and witnessing and seeing it and hearing it, I know he’s there following me.
“I couldn’t do this without a power greater than myself. No question about it.”
Veneto doesn’t know what will come after he reaches ground zero. He expects to keep speaking at schools and sharing the stories of the flight crews, but for now, he said, his attention remains fixed on Sept. 11.
Asked what he would tell his former colleagues if they could see what their memory has inspired 25 years later, Veneto fell quiet.
“I’m doing what you would do for me,” he said. “That’s all I’m doing.”
After a moment, he added that his mission has always been to comfort the families they left behind.
“I’m just doing what I’m supposed to do,” Veneto said. “Everything’s OK down here. And if I can do more, send me a message, and I’ll keep rolling.”
