hopefulconcepts

On Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, two commercial planes struck the World Trade Center towers in New York City, and another commercial airline struck the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. United Flight 93 was aiming for another destination. Perhaps the Capitol Building? The White House? The passengers learned of the World Trade Center crashes when they phoned their loved ones and friends using cell and in-flight phones to tell them of the hijacking of their flight by terrorists. This book is well researched, and well written, and absorbing. It reads like a thriller. With information that their flight was predestined to be used as a missile, some of the passengers planned to charge their hijackers. Although I knew the outcome, I kept wishing it would be different. I still wanted them to succeed in gaining control of their plane and bring it down safely. Instead the plane crashed in the rural town of Shanksville in Pennsylvania, so severely that few body remains were found, most unidentifiable. I could not imagine an impact so great that it incinerated the bodies. Jere Longman gives identity to the passengers as he tells a little bit about each of them from what he learned through a massive amount of interviews with their families. As he describes each person, he moves slowly into the timeline of that fateful morning. He writes that each passenger and each crewmember on that plane was a hero for redirecting their flight from harming others on the ground. Each person on that flight was a hero for fighting back. ------------------- One passenger, Todd Beamer was greatly recognized for his cry “Let’s Roll” when he and other passengers decided to take action to charge the terrorists. His wife Lisa Beamer, with author Ken Abraham, wrote a book, "Let’s Roll! Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage!" I read this book in April 2004.

2023-01-04 12:54