With incredible courage and composure, the passengers and crew of United Flight 93 waged our first counterattack against al Qaeda on 9/11. Recounting Todd Beamer’s call to GTE operator Lisa Jefferson, the AP’s Joann Loviglio began to piece the story together a few days later in “Last words from victims: ‘Let’s roll.’” In the video below, Jefferson recalls her conversation with Todd Beamer.
In a 2002 letter to William Buckley, Tom Burnett, Sr. added an account of Tom Burnett, Jr.’s four calls to his wife, Deena Burnett, from the flight. National Review republished the letter along with Mrs. Burnett’s reconstructed transcript of the calls in “A hero we’ll never forget.” One of the transcripts quotes Tom: “We can’t wait for the authorities. I don’t know what they could do anyway. It’s up to us. I think we can do it.”
Around the first anniversary of 9/11, Jere Longman published his 2002 book about the Flight 93 passengers and crew who fought back against under the title Among the Heroes. The New York Times posted an excerpt of chapter 1 here. Longman spoke about the book in one presentation that is preserved here by C-SPAN.
How much worse would 9/11 have been if not for the heroes of Flight 93? President Trump paid a fitting tribute to them in an eloquent speech at the Shanksville Flight 93 memorial yesterday. The White House has posted the text here.
