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Among the Heroes: United Flight 93 and the Passengers and Crew Who Fought Back

On the evening of September 14, as the sun set over the flag-draped county courthouse in Somerset, Pennsylvania, fifteen hundred mourners gathered together as Governor Tom Ridge presided over a memorial to the passengers and crew of United Flight 93. In the hushed twilight, amid the toiling of bells, a candle was lit for each victim, and the flames were used to light smaller candles held by townspeople attending the service.
The hijackers had failed in their mission, Ridge said. They had not destroyed our spirit. They had rekindled it. By fighting back against the terrorists, the passengers and crew had undoubtedly saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. "They sacrificed themselves for others -- the ultimate sacrifice. What appears to be a charred, smolerdering hole in the ground," said the governor, "is truly and really a monument to heroism."
Of the four horrific hijackings on September 11, Flight 93, which crashed into a field outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, resonates as one of epic resistance. A number of passengers phoned relatives and others on the ground to tell them of the hijacking and what they planned to do about it. Their battle to take back the plane brought consolation to countless confused and grief-stricken Americans. At a time when the United States appeared defenseless against an unfamiliar foe, the gallant passengers and crew of Flight 93 provided for many Americans a measure of victory in the midst of unthinkable defeat. Together, they seemingly accomplished what all the security guards and soldiers, military pilots and government officials, could not -- they thwarted the terrorists, sacrificing their own lives so that others might live.
The culmination of hundreds of interviews and months of investigation, Among the Heroes is the definitive story of the courageous men and women aboard Flight 93, and of the day that forever changed the way Americans view the world and themselves.

[...]
Most gulls don't bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight - how to get from shore to food and back again. For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight. More than anything else. Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly.

This kind of thinking, he found, is not the way to make one's self popular with other birds. Even his parents were dismayed as Jonathan spent whole days alone, making hundreds of low-level glides, experimenting.

He didn't know why, for instance, but when he flew at altitudes less than half his wingspan above the water, he could stay in the air longer, with less effort. His glides ended not with the usual feet-down splash into the sea, but with a long flat wake as he touched the surface with his feet tightly streamlined against his body. When he began sliding in to feet-up landings on the beach, then pacing the length of his slide in the sand, his parents were very much dismayed indeed.

"Why, Jon, why?" his mother asked. "Why is it so hard to be like the rest of the flock, Jon? Why can't you leave low flying to the pelicans, the alhatross? Why don't you eat? Son, you're bone and feathers!"

"I don't mind being bone and feathers mom. I just want to know what I can do in the air and what I can't, that's all. I just want to know."
[...]



Richard Bach. Jonathan Livingston Seagull

I went out yesterday to take pictures of the sunset and ended up meeting this fantastic creature – he flew above me a couple times, it was magical! :^) ~ And yes, I’m so proud of this shot! :^))


“Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.”
~ John Milton quotes

“We sometimes encounter perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.”
~ Fydor Dostoevsky

“Give love and unconditional acceptance to those you encounter, and notice what happens.”
~ Wayne Dyer quotes

“In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another... being. We should all be thankful for those... who rekindle the inner spirit.”
~ Albert Schweitzer quotes

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

From man's earliest expressions on the magic of flying to the chilling last words of some of aviation's giants, here's an utterly unique collection of 1,000 of the most memorable thoughts on flight down through the ages. Concisely capturing flying's special allure and excitement as well as its humor and tragedy, this power-packed anthology of quotations by Leonardo da Vinci, Lindbergh, Armstrong, Yeager, and hundreds of others amply illustrates why, as aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal rhapsodized, "To fly is everything." (19981010)