We confuse victimhood with heroism all too often.
We do know that some passengers and some crew acted bravely on at least one flight, but we also know that 4 cockpits were surrendered to the hijackers and that 3 planeloads of crew and passengers went to their doom like obedient sheep…perhaps they would have acted up and fought if they had known more, but never had a chance to show they were heroes or cowards..
Debra Burlingame – these 33 men and women should be remembered for their bravery, dedication to duty, and shared humanity as they faced what they knew to be the last moments of their lives.
Burlingame, bless her, is wrong. Much of the crew went out cooperating to the fullest with the hijackers from the unfortunate mindset that crew were told the safest thing to do was cooperate in hijackings. Most remained clueless that they were in the last minutes of their lives, and we only know that on Flight 93 that some of the crew (and passengers) had the bravery at the end to confront the outnumbered enemy combatants.
The “heroes” of 9/11 are for the most part like the “hero-victims” of cancer, the Space Shuttle Columbia, the London tube bombings, the Madrid train bombings. Most were just victims, any fighting back, “heroically battling chemotherapy”, or “hero rescue” was instinctual or a reflection of training.
We wish to rebel against them just being victims, we seek to invest their lives with greater meaning, especially the victims families. We even try to invest all people belonging to certain jobs they take as heroes just from wearing the uniform of a nurse, a firefighter, an Army grunt, or the suit of a teacher or “crusading lawyer and DA”. And challenging the “heroism” claimed is discouraged because it is seen as disrespectful.
Lets be honest. There is a big difference between soldiers knowingly going out in harms way acknowledging their HUMVEE could be blown up at any moment by a IED or RPG, and a Flight crew wondering until the last instants when the hijackers were going to set the plane down at JFK airport and start negotiating. Or choosing an exceedingly dangerous job like wood logging essential for society instead of being a firefighting “hero” who chooses a job with less fatalities, statistically, than serving in the equally vital for society jobs of being garbagemen or state highway roadcrew.
