Behind the News
published in The Sun Sept. 15, 2001
By Roy Ockert Jr.
To find the most good from the horrible events of last Tuesday, as surely we must, imagination may be our best tool.
Since Tuesday, of course, we’ve seen many inspiring and heart-warming things — people in heroic efforts to save the lives of others at the risk of their own, the tireless efforts of thousands of rescue workers, the determination of survivors to carry on despite wrenching personal losses.
But there are many stories that we’ll never hear because the people who could tell them are gone. Most of us have good imaginations, though, and with a few facts and our own faith in humanity, we can piece together stories that assure us those people did not die in vain.
I can easily imagine, for example, that American Airlines flight attendant Sara Low of Batesville, who was aboard the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center, was a true heroine who died helping others.
That I believe because she and my younger daughter, Lori, played together as children and because Pat and I know her parents well enough to be certain they raised a fine young lady who would have done whatever she could, even if she knew she was about to die.
I know that an American Airlines flight attendant called the company operations center before the plane crashed to report what was going on. Even though that caller hasn’t been identified publicly, I choose to believe for now that it was Sara. I can imagine that she made the call at great personal risk because the attendant who did reported that other attendants had already been stabbed by the hijackers.
I have no personal knowledge about anyone aboard the other three airliners involved in Tuesday’s attack, but I’m sure there were true heroes on United Airlines flight 93, which crashed near Pittsburgh. Even if the flight voice recorder is found intact, we’ll probably never know who or how because there is no one left to tell the story.
Nevertheless, some passengers were able to call loved ones while the hijacking was in progress and learned about the other planes being used as terrible weapons against humanity. And at least one caller said some of them were about to take action.
I imagine that, since they had time and knew what was happening, some of them — maybe even many — then attacked the hijackers. I suspect the pilot and co-pilot were already dead so the passengers and surviving crew must have known they weren’t going to survive. Instead they made certain the hijackers couldn’t claim the lives of thousands more at the White House or Capitol or wherever they were headed.
I do not believe the Pentagon was the primary target for the hijackers of American Airlines flight 77 from Washington’s Dulles Airport. I imagine instead it was headed for the White House, and I’d rather believe that a pilot or co-pilot or some other crew member under attack fought the hijackers so hard that they changed their plans and hit the first available target.
Whether that cost lives or saved lives can’t be known, but it was not what the killers really wanted — to humiliate the symbol of our federal government and perhaps even kill the president.
Because there are thousands of people still missing in the rubble of the World Trade Center, I imagine there are hundreds of stories of heroism that we’ll never hear. They were witnessed by many people who were buried by the falling buildings.
But in my mind I can see pictures of firefighters, policemen and just plain citizens who were there trying to help people to safety — somebody in a wheelchair, an old woman, a frail man, a child, someone else already badly injured. Those already in the building when the attack began perhaps could have made it to safety, but they stayed to help.
The uniformed rescuers were on duty. They had been dispatched to the scene. It was their job to help. It was not their job to die in the process, and they must have known there was a terrible risk. Those of us watching on television could see that. They went in anyway.
Every one died a hero’s death — to know that doesn’t take much imagination.
The author is editor of The Jonesboro Sun.