There are never enough words to describe the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001. Twenty-one years after radical Islamic terrorists from al Qaeda attacked the country, it seems we move further and further away from honoring our national pledge to “never forget.”
2,606 people had just started their day. Thirty-three airline crew members readied their planes for flights across the country. 232 passengers boarded their aircraft for transcontinental journeys. 184 people began their day at the Pentagon. 343 firefighters, 60 police officers, and eight paramedics thought it would just be another uneventful day. But 19 Islamic jihadists had other plans. On that fateful day, nearly 3000 people left for work, never thinking they would not return home that night.
On Sept. 11, 2001, the world changed forever. Yet while the entire country was engulfed in fear, the Americans on United Airlines Flight 93 gave their lives so countless others could still have theirs. It’s a sacrifice that can never be repaid — but one our entire country should always cherish. There may never be enough words to describe that day, but if we should only remember a couple, those words should be: “Let’s roll.”
As news began to spread about the other attacks on the plane, the passengers realized their likely fate. But they were not going down without a fight. Todd Beamer and passengers Mark Bingham, Tom Burnett, and Jeremy Glick devised a plan to ensure no more innocent people would die that day. They were courageously joined by William Cashman, Alan Beaven, Lou Nacke, Rich Guadagno, Honor Elizabeth Wainio, and Linda Gronlund, along with flight attendants CeeCee Ross-Lyles and Sandra Bradshaw.
“Let’s roll,” Beamer said — and the resistance began.
There are many famous counteroffensives in military history. However, none were designed by civilians, at a moment’s notice, thousands of feet in the air, against an unseen and unknown enemy. It was an act of ultimate sacrifice.
These heroes knew they couldn’t let the hijackers carry out their attack. They decided they would storm the cockpit, confront the terrorists, and try to regain control of the plane. If all else failed, they would fly the plane to the ground, preventing the terrorists from completing their objective. Either way, they knew they would die fighting. Their heroism echoed the valor expressed in Alfred Tennyson’s iconic poem “Charge of the Light Brigade.”
“Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die,” the poem reads.
Before Beamer and the others mounted their resistance, he was on the phone with Verizon Airfone Supervisor Lisa Jefferson. Jefferson swore to stay on with Beamer until the very end. Together, they recited the Lord’s Prayer and the 23rd Psalm.
He told Jefferson, “If I don’t make it, please call my family and tell them how much I love them.” After this, Beamer turned to his fellow passengers and said, “Let’s roll.” According to the findings from the 9/11 Commission Report, United Flight 93’s voice data recorder detailed the final moments:
“Let’s get them!” a passenger cried. A hijacker shouts, “Allahu akbar.” Jarrah repeatedly pitched the plane to knock passengers off their feet, but the passengers continued their assault, and, at 10:02:17, a male passenger said, “Turn it up!” A second later, a hijacker said, “Pull it down! Pull it down!” At 10:02:33, Jarrah was heard to plead, “Hey! Hey! Give it to me. Give it to me. Give it to me. Give it to me. Give it to me. Give it to me. Give it to me. Give it to me.”
The plane crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, shortly after that. Jefferson stayed on the phone through it all.
“After he said, ‘Let’s roll,’ he left the phone, and I would assume that’s at the point that they went to charge the cockpit,” Jefferson said later in an interview. “And I was still on the line, and the plane took a dive, and by then, it just went silent. I held on until after the plane crashed—probably about 15 minutes longer, and I never heard a crash—it just went silent because—I can’t explain it.”
“Let’s roll” were the last known words of Todd Beamer and the rallying cry of the resistance against radical Islamic terrorism. As Islamic terrorists were causing death and destruction in New York City and Washington, D.C., Beamer and the rest of the brave souls on Flight 93 fought to save their country.
Thousands of feet in the air, they looked their attackers squarely in the eye and said, “No.” Their sacrifice was the ultimate act of bravery and defiance. It’s truly something, as a nation, we must never, ever forget.
