Texas Border Business
Texas Border Business
Heroes do not always know they are heroes.
Sometimes they are simply ordinary people confronted with an extraordinary moment and forced to decide what they are willing to do for someone else.
As Texas Border Business continues The Enduring Spirit of September 11, marking 25 years since the attacks of September 11, 2001, today’s remembrance turns to the civilians whose courage became part of that day’s lasting legacy.
They went to work that morning expecting an ordinary Tuesday.
They were office employees, airline passengers, flight crews, coworkers, managers and visitors. They had families waiting for them, appointments on their calendars and plans for later that day.
None expected history to demand anything from them.
Yet when crisis came, ordinary people helped one another.
Some guided coworkers toward safety. Others assisted people who could not move quickly on their own. Strangers became companions. People who had never met before suddenly depended upon one another.
And aboard United Airlines Flight 93, passengers and crew members faced an almost unimaginable realization.
Through telephone calls, they learned that other hijacked aircraft had already been used in attacks. Faced with that knowledge, passengers and crew made the decision to resist their hijackers.
Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Everyone aboard was killed, but the passengers’ and crew’s resistance prevented the aircraft from reaching its intended target in Washington, according to the National Park Service.
Their actions became one of the most powerful examples of civilian courage associated with September 11.
But courage that day was not confined to a single aircraft or location.
It could be found in people helping coworkers descend stairways, in strangers supporting the injured and in individuals who remained with others rather than abandoning them.
These actions matter 25 years later because they challenge our conventional understanding of heroism.
We often associate courage with people who have been trained to confront danger—firefighters, police officers, military personnel and emergency responders. Their courage deserves America’s enduring respect.
September 11 also demonstrated something else.
An ordinary person can be called upon at an extraordinary moment.
There may be no preparation. There may be no uniform, specialized equipment or certainty about what comes next.
There is only a choice.
Help someone or walk away.
Stand together or stand alone.
Act despite fear or allow fear to decide.
Thousands of individual decisions made on September 11 will never be completely known. Some acts of kindness and courage disappeared with the people who witnessed them.
But the lesson remains.
Twenty-five years later, when America remembers the heroes of September 11, we should remember that heroism belonged not only to those who carried badges and wore uniforms.
It also belonged to passengers, coworkers and strangers.
Ordinary Americans.
People who discovered, at the moment it mattered most, just how extraordinary they could be.
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