“Let’s roll!” – Todd Beamer, September 11, 2001

The images seen and the emotions felt by Americans on September 11th are still largely involuntary and they may always remain that way.  But how we construct meaning and purpose of this anniversary is up to us.

Today, I will read many of these poignant profiles of the victims of that day.  They are from a New York Times project initiated soon after the attacks entitled “Profiles of Grief.”

I also urge anyone so inclined to read the account of what happened on United Flight #93.  The only one of the four planes highjacked and used as weapons against the United States that failed to reach its target–believed to be either the U.S. Capitol or the White House–Flight #93 instead crashed in a remote field about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

Its crash there was the result of the bravery of its passengers, who had learned about the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in phone calls from the plane.  Knowing that they were doomed, they stormed the cockpit in a successful effort to prevent their plane from causing even greater catastrophe.  Their heroic action is reflected in the final words of passenger Todd Beamer, who was heard by Verizon operator Lisa Jefferson encouraging others just before charging the terrorists, “Are you ready guys?  Let’s roll!”

(pictured; investigators at crash site of United Flight 93 near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, September 12, 2001; photo by Tim Shaffer)