Ordinary Heroes | The Professor's Convatorium

Remember our history so that we don’t keep repeating it as Marcus Tullius Cicero taught us over 2-millenia ago.

Every September 11th of every year brings back to me, and so many Americans, the grim painful horror of the terrorist attacks upon both World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon and what would’ve been later upon our federal Capitol Building if United Airlines 93 had not been overtaken by five of its brave passengers late that Tuesday morning.

I don’t like, I even dread September 11th in this country because it makes me very emotional and very sad what happened to nearly 2,100 innocent Americans both on the ground and on those four jet airliners. Why? Because of two primary, unhuman, most courageous and honorable things so many EMT’s, fire-fighters, and Flight 93 passengers did that day for the sake of other American lives. What are the two sacrifices that make me bawl and hurt every 9/11?

All the New York Firefighters — and officers, guards, the ones down in the ground floor lobby of the North and South Towers organizing and planning how they’d go UP into the jaws of death, rescue those possibly alive, as human bodies that had jumped from 80, 90, 110 stories up, were hitting the ceiling above them… every minute or two as they stood there listening to their commander while BAAM, BAAM, BAAM, BAAM, in a never-ending concussion above them of one, and another, and then another and another person impacting just above them before they climbed up, and climbed up, and climbed up those never-ending exhausting flights of stairs as people flooded down the stairwells in front of them. I choke up bad every time I watch this live footage watching those firefighters climb and climb and climb. 😢
And the other part of 9/11 that puts me literally into tears are the five main men on United Flight 93, that was headed for the Capitol Building, quickly grasped the bigger picture they were thrust into, their destiny. They broke through the cockpit door over Pennsylvania, overtook the terrorists so that MORE American lives could be saved by sacrificing themselves and all those other 44 passengers and crew. They stopped the terrorist from reaching their target.

These are those five men, the very FIRST heroic, combatant, civilian responders against terrorist attacks on the U.S.:

Even though I do not like annual 9/11 remembrances, I know that because of what Cicero taught us over 2,000 years ago, I must endure its pain, its hurt, its deep sadness for so many Americans so that we avoid it in the future as best we can.

Here’s to those many, many heroes of firefighters that went up when everyone was running down and away… and to those men on United Flight 93 who stopped more carnage of innocent lives.