17 years ago....."Let's Roll!" ~ Todd Beamer

[ckelly78z]

Last night I watched a show that featured some of Todd Beamer's actual conversations with his mother from the doomed flight. The show oulined the air traffic controllers, and the military's conversations as well, and interviewed many of the one's involved.

[Baz]

If you have not seen this story.....it is worth watching......powerful.......

[fintstone]

Almost everything I see seems to forget/omit the attack on the Pentagon where many also died that day. I was TDY there (AF Officer)...to try to wrangle some funds for a project I was working on and it was pretty horrible (lingering stench of the burning building). It was different than NY because there were a lot fewer casualties in DC (so many rescuers were killed in NY) and many in the Pentagon were well trained (evacuation/rescue and first aid) as well as the greatly different building design.

I was just arriving on the Metro that used to let you out right into the Pentagon area (had my bag so I could go straight to the airport afterwards). I had seen the NY attack a little earlier and knew that was what had happened here. They would not let us into the Pentagon from the Metro and I had to get out and run down through Arlington to try to help out. Lots of smoke and people evacuating. I tried to help out, but security turned me away.

I was stuck in DC for a week and could not get out to go home. Was supposed to go back that day and my flight was cancelled. My wife was also there. She had just come out for another Fed meeting and we were crossing that day and i was going home so i would be home that night when my teen daughter (got home from school...so she was alone for a week. They kids had watched the attack at school on TV and she did not know if her Mom or I were on one if those planes...so I called her at school and let her know we were ok. She was home alone all week, but there was plenty of food in the house and she got herself to school and home and fed herself all week. She walked a couple of miles to a grocery near the end of the week and bought some things as well. Now, she is a Major (Doctor) in the AF. My wife had a hotel room downtown near the Capitol because she was supposed to stay in DC for several days...so we had a place to stay (all rooms were full and there were no rental cars available). DC was essentially shut down and most restaurants were closed...but the metro ran and you could get out into nearby suburbs/restaurants to eat.

It was the most time I had alone with my wife since we were married (25 years earlier)...and due to the stress of the situation and relief that our family was ok...it was oddly quite enjoyable...knowing that when we returned home, my upcoming retirement would be cancelled and I would be under "stop-loss" and we would likely be at war (which is exactly what happened). Felt like we had dodged a bullet since we were both traveling that day and were safe.

[Mike80911]

I get a good laugh every time I see a never forget bumper sticker. I spent a year at Ground Zero and months at the family center where family members came to give DNA samples and search for missing loved ones. I sat with them and talked about their loved ones and tried to help them get some sort of closure after this horrific event. I have health issues from the exposure to the air that was supposed to be fine to breath. I am still burying friends who died from cancer, two this year alone both some of the finest Police Officers and people I have ever known. . I saw everyone from the ordinary citizen to first responders come together to help others. My brother was in the WTC when the first bombing occurred and died of cancer at 39 one of the same cancers effecting many first responders. But believe me when I say all of this has long been forgotten. That is shown everyday in the media, on the streets and even here in PARF. I was disgusted by the memorial service yesterday that turned into a political circus. Even some of the family members announcing the names used that time to make political statements. Some of us will never forget what we saw and had to do there that year but others could care less. As the saying goes Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

[DonDavis]

Originally Posted by Bill Douglas

I remember one of our guys here on Pelican Parts, Marc Weintraub, had a close call.

Was that OnlyCafe?

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by Baz

If you have not seen this story.....it is worth watching......powerful.......

If you were trying to produce wet eyes...it worked.

There were no political divisions on 9-12-01. We were a nation united against an enemy. I hope it won't take another tragic event to be so again.

[Hawkeye's-911T]

Nov. 22, 1963 & Sept. 11, 2001 - two dates indelibly burned into the minds of people of my generation, no matter from which country in the free world they lived.

[Bill Douglas]

Originally Posted by DonDavis

Was that OnlyCafe?

No, different guy. I googled the "Marc Weintraub Porsche" and it came up with a few Pelican posts. He was into (I think) 1971 911S cars. He knew the correct this and thats about them and what to look for to help others buy a real S.

If the meeting was on, and not canceled, he would have died along with the others.

[Por_sha911]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye's-911T

Nov. 22, 1963 & Sept. 11, 2001 - two dates indelibly burned into the minds of people of my generation, no matter from which country in the free world they lived.

I can tell you exactly where I was on those dates and one more: January 28, 1986

[TimBer]

Last night my fifth grader asked me if I knew there was a fourth plane. I told him yes and asked him what he knew about it. He had pretty good detail for a ten year old. I grabbed my computer and looked up this article.

https://www.si.com/vault/2001/09/24/310979/four-of-a-kind

I read it out loud to my wife and both kids. I made it about 3/4's of the way before they could hear in my voice that I was trying to keep it together. By the last paragraph I couldn't keep back the tears.

"The huge rugby player, the former high school football star and
the onetime college baseball player were in first class, the
former national judo champ was in coach. On the morning of Sept.
11, at 32,000 feet, those four men teamed up to sacrifice their
lives for those of perhaps thousands of others.

Probably about an hour into United Flight 93's scheduled trip
from Newark to San Francisco, the 38 passengers aboard the
Boeing 757 realized they were being hijacked. The terrorists
commandeered the cockpit, and the passengers were herded to the
back of the plane.

Shoved together were four remarkable men who didn't much like
being shoved around. One was publicist Mark Bingham, 31, who
helped Cal win the 1991 and '93 national collegiate rugby
championships. He was a surfer, and in July he was carried on the
horns of a bull in Pamplona. Six-foot-five, rowdy and fearless,
he once wrestled a gun from a mugger's hand late at night on a
San Francisco street.

One was medical research company executive Tom Burnett, 38, the
standout quarterback for Jefferson High in Bloomington, Minn.,
when the team went to the division championship game in 1980.
That team rallied around Burnett every time it was in trouble.

One was businessman Jeremy Glick, 31, 6'2" and muscular, the 1993
collegiate judo champ in the 220-pound class from the University
of Rochester (N.Y.), a national-caliber wrestler at Saddle River
(N.J.) Day School and an all-state soccer player. "As long as
I've known him," says his wife, Lyz, "he was the kind of man who
never tried to be the hero--but always was."

One was 32-year-old sales account manager Todd Beamer, who played
mostly third base and shortstop in three seasons for Wheaton
(Ill.) College.

The rugby player picked up an AirFone and called his mother,
Alice Hoglan, in Sacramento to tell her he loved her. The judo
champ called Lyz at her parents' house in Windham, N.Y., to say
goodbye to her and their 12-week-old daughter, Emmy. But in the
calls the quarterback made to his wife, Deena, in San Ramon,
Calif., and in the conversation the baseball player had with a
GTE operator, the men made it clear that they'd found out that
two other hijacked planes had cleaved the World Trade Center
towers.

The pieces of the puzzle started to fit. Somewhere near Cleveland
the passengers on Flight 93 had felt the plane take a hard turn
south. They were now on course for Washington, D.C. Senator Arlen
Specter (R., Pa.) believes the plane might have been headed for
the Capitol. Beamer, Bingham, Burnett and Glick must have
realized their jet was a guided missile.

The four apparently came up with a plan. Burnett told his wife,
"I know we're going to die. Some of us are going to do something
about it." He wanted to rush the hijackers.

Nobody alive is sure about what happened next, but there's good
reason to believe that the four stormed the cockpit. Flight 93
never made it to Washington. Instead, it dived into a field 80
miles southeast of Pittsburgh. All passengers and crew perished.
Nobody on the ground was killed.

In the heart of San Francisco's largest gay neighborhood, a
makeshift memorial grew, bouquet by bouquet, to the rugby player
who was unafraid. Yeah, Bingham was gay.

In Windham, a peace grew inside Lyz Glick. "I think God had this
larger purpose for him," she said. "He was supposed to fly out
the night before, but couldn't. I had Emmy one month early, so
Jeremy got to see her. You can't tell me God isn't at work there."

In Cranbury, N.J., a baby grew in Lisa Beamer, Todd's wife,
their third child. Hearing the report last Friday of her
husband's heroics, Lisa said, "made my life worth living again."

In Washington, a movement grew in Congress to give the four men
the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award a civilian
can receive.

At a time like this, sports are trivial. But what the best
athletes can do--keep their composure amid chaos, form a plan
when all seems lost and find the guts to carry it out--may be
why the Capitol isn't a charcoal pit.

My 26-year-old niece, Jessica Robinson, works for Congressman
Lane Evans (D., Ill.). Jessica was in the Capitol that morning.
This Christmas I'll get to see her smiling face.

I'm glad there were four guys up there I could count on."