Danny Lewin, American Badass [Y-not]

This morning as we grieve for the men, women, and children murdered 13 years ago, it's worth remembering that the cowards who killed them are losers.

They cannot build.

They cannot achieve.

They cannot love.

I am not afraid of cowards. Are you?

So here's a story of an American badass, Danny Lewin:

Just before 8 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 took off from Boston’s Logan Airport. Bound nonstop for Los Angeles, the flight was just one of more than 40,000 scheduled to crisscross the country that day. The plane was partially full—81 passengers, nine crewmembers, and two pilots. Many of its passengers were traveling for work on the daily scheduled flight, including 31-year-old Internet entrepreneur Danny Lewin.

The plane headed due west and held on course for 16 minutes until it passed Worcester, Mass.* Then, instead of taking a southerly turn, it swung to the north and failed to climb to its assigned cruising altitude. Around this time, a bloody hijacking began onboard. Five terrorists, all of them wielding box cutters and knives, commandeered the plane and steered it into New York airspace. At 8:46 a.m., the Boeing 767 slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

Flight 11 was the first of four planes to be hijacked the day of the attacks, killing everyone on board and hundreds more when it caused the collapse of the North Tower. But before any of the horror unfolded that day, a little-known act of heroism is likely to have taken place on Flight 11 when Lewin—an Israeli-American who served in one of the most elite counterterrorism units of the Israel Defense Force (IDF)—rose from his seat and engaged in a struggle with one of the terrorists to try to thwart the hijacking. During the struggle Lewin was killed, making him the very first victim of the 9/11 attacks.

Read the whole thing at Slate.

Mr. Lewin was a badass because he fought, but he was also a badass because he lived. He accomplished more in his short life than all of Al Qaeda and IS(IS) and Hamas combined.

I think ALL of the innocents who died that day are also bad asses because they lived. And, unlike their Islamic murderers, their lives had value and meaning.

Commit yourselves to being American badasses.

posted by Open Blogger at 10:55 AM

| Access Comments