Let's Roll

With screams of Allah Akbar! echoing about the cockpit United Flight 93 rolled over and nosed into the ground outside Shanksville, PA. Thus ended the final phase of a reprehensible plan of terror executed by Islamic fundametalists on 9/11. The reason this plane crashed into an empty field, instead of reaching it's intended target, was that ordinary American men and women, warned of that day's earlier attacks, fought back, tooth and nail, against trained militants bent on exacting their god's vengeance. The passengers , male and female, black and white, gay and straight, young and old proved that the events of Valley Forge, the Alamo, Pointe du Hoc and, most recently, SFC Paul Smith's posthumous Medal of Honor actions outside a dusty village in Iraq, were not aberrations, but rather the indomitable spirit of the average American when he, or she, is confronted with extraordinary events. Knowing that their odds of surviving any counter-attack against armed, trained terrorists were less than slim, they still chose to fight back, rather than go like lambs to the slaughter. In sometimes gruesome, gut wrenching detail the latest movie to weigh in on the day's events, United93, depicts the actions of these ordinary heroes.

United Flight 93 departed the Newark International airport on September 11, 2001 bound for San Francisco. A 40 minute delay on the tarmac probably saved target number 4 from the fate of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The best evidence points to The Capitol as the intended target. The delay gave the passengers valuable time to make phone calls to numerous friends and family. Those calls alerted them to the fate that awaited them, and in a moment of pure understanding they bonded together and said, "not on my watch." It is also important to mention that Flight 93 was one terrorist short of the other planes because of the quick thinking of an INS agent named Jose Melendez-Perez. Jose turned back what the 9/11 Commission concluded was the twentieth hijacker one month prior to the attacks. Would the outcome have been the same had the terrorists had the extra muscle? We'll never know thanks to Jose's quick, street smart approach to law enforcement. What we do know of the the event's that transpired aboard United 93 has been gleaned from family members, airline employees and the cockpit voice recorder.

All that said, United93 is a work of fiction: one based stringently upon the known facts, but a movie nonetheless. The director does an admirable job of filling in the blanks without resorting to political rhetoric, in either direction. Those deserving blame get it, and the passengers are seen as a group, rather than a collection of individuals. No one passenger is singled out for special attention, and no marquee stars grace the screen. What we see are the known facts of the struggle, with the best guesses available to fill in the blanks. Family members will recognize their own, and we all will recognize some, but what truly stands out is the spirit of the passengers. I was glued to the screen for the entire two hours. I never once consulted the time, nor did I eat popcorn or drink soda. Nor should you. I did not learn anything new, and yet, I still inwardly cheered for these brave Americans. I went in knowing the outcome and came out a little taller. I entered anxious, and left saddened, enraged and proud.

The events portrayed in United93 did not just happen to the passengers and crew, they happened to all of us. I have seen the two earlier movies that depict the things that occurred on Flight 93. I have been to the makeshift memorial in Shanksville. I have read every credible source about that day, and still I left moved in a way I've never experienced before. I was so moved that, immediately after leaving the theater, I had a tattoo permanently inked into my bicep with Todd Beamer's last words imposed above the sentence: For the heroes of United Flight 93. No higher praise can I give. Whatever your political stripe, whatever you think about the events of that day, go see this movie, shed a few tears, utter a few curses, and, when you leave the theater, stand up a little taller. Do not ponder the issues that divide us these days, because on that plane, on that day, there were no republicans and no democrats. There were only Americans, and they have proven that the spirit that defines us as a people, still burns inside us all.