Sounds strange to ever say “my favorite thing about the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001 was…”, but amidst all the horrors of that day, watching how otherwise ordinary people acted heroically in defense of their fellow man that day will forever inspire me.
Unlike Hollywood actors, professional athletes or politicians, their names may not be known to the world, so I want to randomly pick out and highlight just one: Welles Crowther, a 24 year old equities trader who was just one of 17 survivors at or above the impacted area when the first plane hit between the 77th and 85th floors. Managing his way down from his office on the 105th floor, he encountered a badly burned woman among a group of survivors in the zone of the hit. Rather than rushing to his own safety, he loaded her up and carried her on his back down 17 flights of stairs away from immediate danger, while directing others to safety. But it didn’t stop there. He wrapped a red bandana around his face for protection from the smoke and climbed back up to the 78th floor, finding another group of survivors. When all was said and done, an ordinary guy who had simply planned, like any other day, on going to his daily job in his office was credited with saving eighteen people, refusing to leave the burning building and still there assisting firefighters when the tower collapsed and the “Man With the Red Bandana” was killed.
I’m struck by his age: Twenty-four, just a couple years older than my college-age kid Luis. Just a regular person like you or me, until suddenly and unexpectedly, in a matter of seconds, thrown into a terrifying situation, instantly reaching within to find the strength to do something heroic, putting his own safety last and others first.
So many of the unsung heroes of September 11, 2001 were young people much like him, with whole lives still waiting to be lived. For example, those guys on United Flight 93 who counter-attacked the hijackers were YOUNG guys: Todd Beamer, Mark Bingham, Jeremy Glick, Tom Burnett…. they and many of the other passengers who helped them were mostly their early to mid-thirties when they made a decision that saved countless lives while losing their own.
Young or old, and from every background, those brave firefighters and first-responders who entered the 2nd burning tower AFTER watching the first building collapse, knowing they would likely never come out alive, had families and loved ones they had planned to return to that night. Yet they went.
From flight attendants who somehow managed to keep their calm knowing they were likely just minutes from death, to office workers like Welles Crowther who in the midst of the chaos put other lives before their own, to the Franciscan friar who raced into the burning tower to pray over the dead and dying before the blast of the debris killed him: Human beings came through that day, overcoming evil with good in a way that inspires ordinary people like me to want to do the same. I only pray (literally) that I could ever muster up a tiny fraction of the courage displayed by of any single one of these heroes.
It’s so easy to think people are jerks. And sure, some are. But look around you, whether you’re reading this while sitting on a plane, in an office, relaxing at home or walking down the street. Someone around you….some otherwise ordinary person…. just might become a hero in a matter of seconds. Just maybe it’ll be you.