The Legend of United Flight 93

[robertpaulsen]

The Legend of United Flight 93
by Ted Rall


On the first anniversary of the crash of United Airlines Flight 93, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge delivered a speech at the site of the disaster in western Pennsylvania. "Faced with the most frightening circumstances one could possibly imagine," he told grieving relatives of the passengers and crewmembers aboard the fourth plane hijacked on 9/11, "they met the challenge like citizen soldiers, like Americans." He recited the now-familiar story of passengers learning by phone about the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, deciding to fight back and breaking into the cockpit--a heroic act that led to their own deaths while sparing countless others in Washington.

"The terrorists were right to fear an uprising," Ridge rhapsodized. "The passengers and crew did whatever they humanly could--boil water, phone the authorities, and ultimately rush the cockpit to foil the attack."

Ridge's boss repeatedly used United 93 to close his standard stump speech. Calling the passenger revolt "the most vivid and sad symbol of them all," George W. Bush said: "People are flying across the country on an airplane, at least they thought they were. They learned the plane was going to be used as a weapon. They got on their telephones. They were told the true story. Many of them told their loved ones goodbye. They said they loved them. They said a prayer; a prayer was said. One guy said, 'Let's roll.' They took the plane into the ground."

The legend of Flight 93 had everything a nation caught with its pants down needed to feel better about itself: guts, heroism, self-sacrifice. Best of all, it was marketable--by Hollywood and by a president willing to surf on a kind of heroism notably absent from his own life. (Theatrical release of the second "United 93" movie is scheduled to open April 28.) Lisa Beamer, widow of the passenger credited with the call-to-arms "let's roll," wrote a bestselling book by the same name, applied for a trademark on the expression, and is now working the Christianist lecture circuit.

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