Remembering 9/11 — The Unusual Courage of Todd Beamer
Why an ordinary man on United Flight 93 became an extraordinary hero to so many with two simple words and a courageous final act…
2001 always seemed so far away.
When I was a little kid, I had a black shirt with tiny neon yellow children on it holding up the numbers 2–0–0–1. It represented the year I would graduate from high school. Then in the late ‘80s, it might has well have read 3001. It was impossibly far into the future, a real life space odyssey away.
It turns out 2001 was a pretty big year, for me and for a lot of us, and for a lot of reasons.
I lost my brother in 2001.
No, not on 9/11. I lost him eight months earlier in a car wreck. His name was Nathan. One minute, we were celebrating with him over Christmas dinner. He had finished his service in the Navy and just made the Dean’s List in his first semester at college, and he and his wife were expecting their first child.
The next minute, he was gone.
You don’t expect to lose a brother when you’re a senior in high school. I suppose you never really expect to lose a brother.
