93

last night i sat down and watched A&E's made for television movie: Flight 93 about the plane that never reached its target on 9/11.

i don't know what compelled me to do it; i typically hate movies where i know that the main characters will die in the end. i had that same feeling last night that i alwasy get, where i hope that the ending will be different, happy. it wasn't. they still crashed.

watching it was interesting for me. the day of 9/11 i was in the car when the first reports of a small plane crashing into the world trade center had just occured. when the dj's on my favorite rock station told me that a second plane had crashed there i didn't get it; was one plane following the other? i was in denial until a member of the church rushed into the church saying he needed to pray... that another plane had rammed into the pentegon.

it wasn't until about 4:00 in the afternoon before i made it home and was able to watch a tape of what had happend. watching the actors watching the planes in "real" time brought me right back to that moment. not that the movie was that good (though i suppose it was well done enough) just that i had missed the experience that they were having.

like most americans, i didn't lose anyone that day that i knew personally; except that we all lost people that day.

and so much has changed since then for the worse. people are less giving now, too many people don't care if they loose freedoms now, we've become far too conservative, we've gotten used to being afraid... a stark contrast to what the passengers on flight 93 did.

i get frustrated by movies where i know the main characters are going to die... how do we know what really happened? how can we know just how heroic they really were?

except that we know that these people made a decision to do the bold thing. it wasn't a safe thing and most had said final good-byes to those they loved. they gave up the freedom of life for others. it wasn't a conservative decision; it wasn't a selfish decision. they didn't question whether or not the people they might save were gay or straight, republican or democrat, christians, jews, or pagans, rich or poor. they just did what they knew they needed to do.

God bless them for it and God bless their families.

take a moment and remember them:
The Crew
Jason Dahl
LeRoy Homer, Jr
Lorraine Bay
Sandra Bradshaw
Cee Cee Lyles
Wanda Green
Deborah Anne Jacobs Welsh
The Passengers
Christian Adams
Todd Beamer
Alan Beaven
Mark Bingham
Deora Bodley
Marion Britton
Thomas E. Burnett Jr
Willam Cashman
Georgine Rose Corrigan
Patricia Cushing
Joseph DeLuca
Patrick "Joe" Driscoll
Edward Porter Felt
Jane Folger
Colleen L. Fraser
Andrew Garcia
Jeremy Glick
Lauren Grandcolas
Donald F. Greene
Linda Gronlund
Richard Guadagno
Toshiya Kuge
Hilda Marcin
Waleska Martinez
Nicole Miller
Louis J. Nacke II
Donald and Jean Peterson
Mark "Mickey" Rothenberg
Christine Snyder
John Talignani
Honor Elizabeth Wainio
Kristin Gould White

God's peace y'all.