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To Die Like A Man!

Hugh Thomas in his definitive history, "The Spanish Civil War" tells of the siege of the Alcazar, Spain's West Point. Amazingly, a working telephone line still existed between the Communist army and the fortress.

The military academy commander was startled to hear the enemy commander on the telephone. "We have your twelve year old son here and I have a pistol to his head. Surrender the Alcazar now or I will shoot him dead."

The father spoke without hesitation. "Put him on the line." It was done.

"Is that you, son?"

"Yes, father."

"Die like a man!"

And he did, the echo of the pistol shot reverberating through the telephone.

Which brings us to Tom Burnett of Pleasanton, California. He was on United Airlines Flight 93 and must have figured out that the aircraft on which he was travelling was to be used as a flying bomb against America. News of the horror of the World Trade Center may well have reached the trapped passengers by way of cell phones or radios. A fellow passenger already lay dead of stab wounds.

Tom Burnett, according to Fr. Frank Colacicco, managed to reach his wife by cell phone. "We are all going to die but three of us .are going to do something. I love you, honey!"

"We are going to do something!" We don't know what happened next but we do know the result. Tom and the two other heroes somehow disrupted things in that deadly cockpit so that instead of crashing into Camp David or The White House the hijacked Boeing 757 slammed into a grassy field. The only casualties were those on the plane.

Tom and his two fellow passengers, one of whom was 32 year old Jeremy Glick, perhaps joined by others in a wild fracas, fought to their last breath to save the lives of who knows how many on the ground. Let us be the first to suggest to Tom's hometown of Pleasanton, California, that it name a school or some other civic building after Tom and that Jeremy's home town do likewise.

Let their epitaph be "They died like men so others might live!"

TRIBUTE TO THE UNITED STATES

America: The Good Neighbor.

Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator. What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record:

"This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.

When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped.

The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans.

I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American Planes?

Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon-not once, but several times-and safely home again.

You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.

When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.

I can name you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake. Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those."

Stand proud, America!

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A world mourns

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September 13, 2001 1:35 PM