Sunday, September 11, 2011

Have You Ever Thought: Who Were The First American Warriors/Heroes To Lose Their Lives After The Hijackings Of 9/11

The news quoted someone as saying who they had been. Funny, I never thought of it until today. Yet, when I heard it mentioned, today on the news, I realized yes, what they just said about the very first American Warriors to lose their lives due to the attacks of 9/11, made a lot of sense. We may never know with absolute certainty whether or not any of the crew or passengers, on the two jets that hit the World Trade Center or the one that hit the Pentagon, fought the hijackers but it is not believed they offered much resistance if any as far as I am aware. Yet, we are certain that at least the some of the passengers and some of the flight attendants, on United Airlines flight 93, in the skies near Shanksville, PA took decisive action to assure that their flight was not used as a manned missile of mass destruction against a target, as of then, unknown on the ground. Once they had realized their flight had been hijacked, many passengers and some flight attendant successfully telephoned relatives and or authorities to inform them of the situation. It was then that these same passengers and flight attendants learned of the other flights, the ones that had already hit their targets at the World Trade center and the Pentagon. After they had that knowledge, it was easy for them to figure what was next. Instead of giving up and caving in they took action. They assaulted the cockpit in which the hijackers had secured themselves and either gained entry and crashed the aircraft or caused the hijackers to crash the plane well short of its apparent intended target in Washington, DC. The hijackers had already dialed in coordinates to bring the plane to that location.

The flight recorder last recorded audio at 10:03:09 and a split second later the data recorder had ceased to function. The last words heard from any of the passengers were: "Roll it" as they assaulted the cockpit. Reading the flight recorder transcript, (or this one from Fox News) and looking at the last conversation of the hijackers, it is readily evident that that the hijackers were panicked, confused as to how to continue and had realized they were about to be defeated before their attack would succeed. To that they gave the standard line used by Islamic terrorists round the world, 'god is the greatest' or some balderdash to that effect, then then either put the plane down killing all aboard including themselves as any coward would do or were overpowered by the passengers who caused the plane to crash. Tell me one thing, here at this point, if Allah is so great, how come unarmed United States Citizens, American citizens, citizens of the so called Great Satan - America, citizens of various faiths and beliefs, were able to foil their evil Islamic plot!

Those brave souls, of United Flight 93, stood United. They who fought those evil cowardly hijackers were the first American Warriors, the first American heroes (for they actually acted heroically) to lose their lives because of 9/11. To them, our nation, the people of Washington, DC, the members of Congress, even then president George W. Bush himself (as it is hypothesized they meant to take out either the Capital Building or the White House) owe them a debt of gratitude beyond compare. Though unarmed, though already overtaken by surprise, though facing certain death, they stood their ground and then went on the offensive and saved other American lives while losing their own. They should stand as an example to the rest of America as to what it means to be a patriotic American and as an example to the rest of the world as to what it means to push us into a corner.

All the best,
GB

3 comments:

Humble wife said...

Amazing.

Becca said...

Hi there--just a small correction to your post: The last words were spoken by Todd Beamer and they were "Let's roll!". His wife, Lisa Beamer, titled her book about her husband's heroic act in helping to bring down the terrorists "Let's roll!".....Todd lost his life in so doing. It is a great book to read. Lisa Beamer eventually met Lisa Jefferson who was the last person who spoke with Todd before the plane crashed. Here is more from a Google article re him:

Todd Beamer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Todd Beamer
Born Todd Morgan Beamer
November 24, 1968 (1968-11-24)
Flint, Michigan
Died September 11, 2001(2001-09-11) (aged 32)
Shanksville, Pennsylvania
Cause of death Plane crash

Todd Morgan Beamer (November 24, 1968 – September 11, 2001) was a passenger aboard United Airlines Flight 93 which was hijacked as part of the September 11 attacks in 2001. He was one of the passengers who attempted to foil the hijacking and reclaim the aircraft, which crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.[1][2]
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Biography
* 2 Flight 93
* 3 After death
* 4 References
* 5 External links

[edit] Biography

Beamer attended Los Gatos High School, Wheaton Academy, DePaul University, California State University, Fresno and Wheaton College. In September 2001, he was an account manager for Oracle and resided in Cranbury, New Jersey, with his wife, Lisa Beamer, and two sons, David and Drew. Beamer and his wife taught Sunday school at their church for six years. His daughter, Morgan Kay, was born on January 9, 2002, approximately four months after Beamer's death.
[edit] Flight 93

After United Airlines Flight 93 was hijacked, Beamer and other passengers communicated with people on the ground via airphones and cell phones, and learned that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had been attacked using hijacked airplanes.

Beamer tried to place a credit card call through a phone located on the back of a plane seat but was routed to a customer-service representative instead, who passed him on to GTE supervisor Lisa Jefferson. Beamer reported that one passenger was killed and, later, that a flight attendant had told him the pilot and co-pilot had been forced from the cockpit and may have been wounded. He was also on the phone when the plane made its turn in a southeasterly direction, a move that had him briefly panicking. Later, he told the operator that some of the plane's passengers were planning to "jump on" the hijackers and fly the plane into the ground before the hijackers' plan could be followed through. Beamer also recited The Lord's Prayer with Jefferson. According to Jefferson, Beamer's last audible words were "Are you guys ready? Let's roll."[3]

Glenn B said...

Becca,

Maybe those were the last words of Mr. Beamer but they apparently were not the last recorded words on the flight recorder which records conversations in the cockpit and not in the passenger compartment (though some sounds from outside the cockpit were supposedly recorded by it as passengers attempted to retake control of the plane). It is very likely Mr. Beamer would have asked others if they were ready while still fairly far back in the passenger compartment and not while already struggling to enter the cockpit.

In addition, the flight transcript seems to give a very different story as to what words were spoken last. You can click on the links in my post for a copy of the flight recorder transcript. The Wikipedia link I also provided, further up from the transcript links, seemingly attributes the last known words of any passenger as "Roll it" though I imagine some other words in the transcript could have possibly by passengers and I can also understand why a hijacker may have said those two words instead of a passenger. Regardless of the last known words of any passenger, the last words recorded on the flight recorder, according to my sources for the transcript were: "Allah is the greatest".

All the best,
Glenn B