Here is the story of Flight 93 retold:
http://www.post-gazette.com/.../20011028flt93mainstoryp7.aspAs most of you know, there was a lot of life and death decisions on Flight 93, which crashed 3 years ago today. One question which I might bring to the forum is this: Were the terrorists and the passengers who chose to give their lives worshipping the same God?
Obviously, as a Christian, I would say that No, they were not.
The night before boarding Flight 93, in their hotel rooms, Jarrah would have opened a list of instructions, kept in a notebook that apparently was written by his old friend Atta.
It instructed them to bathe, wear cologne, shave excess hair from their bodies and check the knives they carried.
"You must make your knife sharp and you must not discomfort your animal during the slaughter," it read.
"Completely forget something called 'this life.' The time for play is over and the serious time is upon us."
At some point -- the best estimation is about 40 minutes into the flight west -- at least three of the hijackers stood up and put red bandanas around their heads. Two of them forced their way into the cockpit. One took the loudspeaker microphone, unaware it could also be heard by air traffic controllers, and announced that someone had a bomb onboard and the flight was returning to the airport. He told them he was the pilot, but spoke with an accent....It was 9:45 a.m.
Somewhere outside Cleveland, United Flight 93 had made a sharp turn and began flying east, toward Washington, D.C.Sometime shortly before 10 a.m., Tom Burnett called home one last time.
"A group of us is going to do something," he told Deena.
"I told him, 'No, Tom, just sit down and don't draw attention to yourself,' " she said.
"Deena," he told her, "If they're going to crash the plane into the ground, we have to do something. We can't wait for the authorities. We have to do something now."..."They're doing it! They're doing it! They're doing it!" she said. Lorne Lyles heard a scream. Then his wife said something he couldn't understand. Then the line went dead.
One thing that I have thought about when talking to some of you who are not as "spiritual" as myself and Mike is the fact that fundamentalist mindsets are never the most stable. I will admit that this includes zealous Christians as well. But what of these passengers? They faced death as bravely as their killers. They were forced to confront the life and death issues of their faith. They acted selflessly to save lives...for they knew that the plane would probably target something in Washington D.C. Perhaps they thought that they would be victorious and not die.
I don't know if I would have been able to be as courageous as they were.
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