by Kathryn Jean Lopez

Jere Longman, Among the Heroes: United Flight 93 and the Passengers and Crew Who Fought Back (HarperCollins), 288 pages, $24.95

Lisa Beamer, Let’s Roll! Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage (Tyndale), 317 pages, $24.99

If you were in the Northeast corridor on the morning of September 11, 2001, you remember well what it was like that day—you will likely never forget it. It seemed to be a perfect fall morning: “The sky on September 11 dawned cerulean blue, one of those unblemished skies that often appeared in late summer after heavy rains or hurricanes—rinsed, cloudless, apparently cleansed of tumult,” Jere Longman writes.

Longman, a reporter for the New York Times, is the author of Among the Heroes: United Flight 93 and the Passengers and Crew Who Fought Back, a compilation of stories about what that morning was like—best as anyone can tell—for the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93, the hijacked commercial airplane that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and for the loved ones they left behind.

We, of course, have read the profiles of so many who were murdered on September 11 and heard from their families. We remember some names and faces better than others because they called loved ones to say goodbye or to ask, “What should I tell the pilot to do?” as my late colleague, Barbara Olson, wife of U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson, did. But, among all those murdered by al Qaeda that day, we know the most—and continue to hear and read about—those who died on United Airlines Flight 93. A crowded runway delayed the flight, and by the time Flight 93 was in the air, the other planes had already been hijacked. The passengers of that one flight have captured the most media attention because they alone knew what would happen if they did not act, and they alone successfully thwarted one of the terrorists’ missions.

It was on that plane en route from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco that “the first battle in the new war against terrorism” was won, Longman writes.

The flight, of course, did not start out that way.

Heartbreaking are so many of the individual stories Longman tells. Flight attendant Sandy Bradshaw’s husband, Phil, a pilot, begged her not to take the flight, wanting her to himself that day. From a taxi en route to Newark, Tom Burnett, chief operating officer of Thoratec Corporation (which manufactures heart pumps for patients awaiting transplants), left a voicemail message for his boss saying that he would be taking the 8:00 A.M. instead of the 9:20 flight because he wanted to get home an hour early to his wife and kids in San Ramon, California.

Those who wound up on that flight were an interesting group, full of remarkable skills, backgrounds, beliefs, and coincidental connections. Longman argues that the passengers were not in fact average folks who somehow managed to respond appropriately to an extraordinary situation, as many have suggested, but that they were uniquely prepared to act in the courageous way that they did. Donald Greene was a licensed pilot. Andrew Garcia was an air-traffic controller. Richard Gaudagno was a federal agent. Linda Gronlon, Lauren Grancolis, and Jean Peterson were all emergency medical technicians (EMTs). Jean Peterson and her husband Donald were crisis counselors. “The hijackers picked the wrong plane to hijack,” Longman writes.

Longman does not raise the possibility of divine intervention, but one person who does is Lisa Beamer, the widow of perhaps the most famous September 11 victim, Todd Beamer, who famously said “Let’s roll!” just before he and other passengers stormed the plane’s cockpit. Earlier, Mr. Beamer had called a 911 operator on his cell phone and asked her to say the Lord's Prayer and Psalm 23 with him. In her book, Let’s Roll! Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage, Lisa Beamer writes that her husband’s story is that of a man “willing to live for his faith.” Her own faith appears to have remained intact as well. Mrs. Beamer writes,

Could God have prevented the atrocities of September 11 from being carried out? Absolutely! He is all-powerful, and he hates evil. Could God have chosen to pull Todd off that plane? Absolutely! Miraculous stories abound of people who didn’t get to the World Trade Center on that morning, as they had planned, and were spared. But I could drive myself crazy with all the “if onlys” and the “what if” questions. If only Todd had taken another flight. . . . What if the plane had stayed on the ground in Newark another 10 minutes? . . . Instead I must rest in the knowledge that, for some reason, God allowed these things to happen.

Later she writes,

Although I never could have imagined the awful circumstances brought about in the life of my family by the events of September 11, I know that promise from God proved true for Todd on that day. God provided Todd with what he needed—strong teammates in his fellow passengers, a steady voice of reason in Lisa Jefferson [the 911 operator who spoke with him in his last minutes], an opportunity to knowingly make a difference in the course of events, and, of course, after the crash of United Flight 93, the reality of heaven.

The White House was very possibly the intended target of the terrorists aboard Flight 93, though President Bush happened to be in Florida at the time. The president said of those on board, “Flight 93 redefined sacrifice for me. And if a handful of people will drive an airplane into the ground to save me, or the White House, or the Congress, you know others in our country will make the sacrifice to save us down the road.”

Indeed, the example of those courageous Flight 93 passengers has inspired and prepared people to act when faced with a threat. In December 2001, al Qaeda terrorist Richard Reid, a passenger on American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami, attempted to ignite his shoes, which were packed with explosives. However, a flight attendant and several passengers subdued him, a doctor on board sedated him, and the plane was diverted to Boston. Longman writes: “Given the bold lesson of United Flight 93, people knew exactly what to do. No longer would passengers and crew sit idly by while someone attempted to hijack or blow up a plane. No longer would passivity be an expected response to terrorism in the sky.”

Ironically, those aboard United Flight 93 did exactly what airlines had long advised against. Longman writes:

In the event of a hijacking, flight attendants were to phone the cockpit and mention the word “trip.” Something along the lines of “We have something to discuss with you about this trip.” Both pilots and flight attendants had been taught passive compliance: Take the hijackers where they want to go. Get the plane down safely. Disable the plane, if you can, on the ground. Take care of the passengers and crew. Cooperate the best you can. Protect yourself, stay calm, be non-threatening.

Obviously, times have changed dramatically.

But although the country is united in its gratitude and admiration to the passengers of Flight 93, there is a tendency, expressed in Longman’s book particularly—including the title—to conflate courage and heroism.

For instance, Longman writes,

They took solace in the gallant death of the passengers and crew, in the final phone calls, in the brave resistance and defiant attempts to regain control of the plane. It is clear the passengers and crew acted with heroic defiance. They accomplished what security guards and military pilots and government officials could not—they impeded the terrorists, giving their lives and allowing hundreds or thousands of others to live.

Elsewhere in the book Longman writes, “[The Flight 93 passengers’] actions reminded [President Bush] of the selfless heroism of Normandy and sent a message about the vitality of the American spirit.” Of course, there’s an important difference between the soldier and the innocent who is faced with imminent murder for doing nothing more than being on an American airplane the day Islamic extremists decide to kill Americans. The soldier will do whatever his country calls him to do, follow whatever commands he is given, and always be willing to sacrifice his life, if necessary, for his fellow countrymen. They didn’t call G.I. Joe an “American Hero” for no reason: That is what soldiers sign up to be. Those aboard that United Airlines flight on September 11, 2001, had not enlisted in the War on Terrorism before boarding the plane. In fact, they would never hear the words “War on Terrorism.” But those passengers, faced with the knowledge that they were headed for death and that the hijacked plane that they were in was meant to be used as a murder weapon, displayed undaunted courage, sparing the lives of other innocents—and sparing the families of those innocents and the nation more casualties on an already devastating morning.

Neither Among the Heroes nor Let’s Roll, both bestsellers, is a definitive history, but the books are appropriate reading in this time of war. They are both reminders that so many of us are in the line of fire, every day, as we live our lives—lives for which the enemy hates us.

Kathryn Jean Lopez is an associate editor of National Review and editor of National Review Online (www.nationalreview.com).

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