Remembering Betty Ann Ong.
She grew up in San Francisco’s Chinatown, the youngest of four, the kid who used to watch planes take off at SFO and later made flying her life.
Friends called her Bee.
She collected Beanie Babies, visited seniors in Boston on her days off, and picked up extra trips so she could afford a vacation with her sister.
On September 11, 2001, that extra trip put her on American Airlines Flight 11.
She was not supposed to be on that plane.
From the rear galley she picked up an Airfone and became the first person to tell the ground what was happening: the cockpit would not answer, people had been stabbed, the cabin was filling with something that made it hard to breathe.
“I think we’re getting hijacked,” she said.
Then she stayed on the line for 23 minutes.
She gave seat numbers.
She answered questions.
Near the end she asked them to pray.
That call was the first confirmed warning that the country was under attack.
It helped controllers begin clearing the sky.
The 9/11 Commission later called her a hero.
A recreation center in her old neighborhood now carries her name.
She was 45.
She was doing her job until the last second.
Today is a good day to say her name.
Todd Beamer was the passenger on United Airlines Flight 93 who rallied fellow passengers to fight back against the 9/11 hijackers with the phrase "Let's roll" and stopped it from reaching Washington, DC.
This is his daughter, Morgan, who was born 4 months after his death and went on to play women's soccer at his alma mater, Wheaton College.
Imagine how proud he would be. 🇺🇸 #neverforget
I reread this every year.
I cry like a baby every year.
Todd Beamer died a father, husband, and hero.
Todd: Hello… Operator… listen to me. I can’t speak very loud. This is an emergency. I’m a passenger on a United flight to San Francisco. Our plane has been hijacked.
Lisa: I understand. Can they see you?
Todd: No. There are three that we know of. They have knives — razor knives, like box cutters. Someone announced from the cockpit there was a bomb. It sounded fake.
Lisa: Your name?Todd: Todd Beamer. United Flight 93.Todd: They killed one passenger in first class. They forced most of us back. Fourteen of us here. Five flight attendants. The guy with the bomb ordered us to sit on the floor.
Lisa: Are you okay?
Todd: We’re going down… wait. No. We’re leveling off. We changed directions. We’re flying east again.
Todd: A guy named Jeremy called his wife. She told him two planes hit the World Trade Center. Lisa, is that true?
Lisa: I have to tell you the truth. It’s very bad. Both towers are gone. A third plane hit the Pentagon. Our country is under attack. I’m afraid your plane may be part of their plan.
Todd: Oh God. Lisa, will you do something for me? Call my wife and my kids. Promise me you’ll call.
Lisa: I promise.
Todd: Our home number is… You have the same name as my wife. Lisa. We’ve been married ten years. She’s pregnant with our third child. Tell her I love her. I’ll always love her. We have two boys — David, he’s 3, and Andrew, he’s 1. Tell them their daddy loves them and he is so proud of them. The baby is due January 12th. I saw an ultrasound. We still don’t know if it’s a girl or a boy.
Lisa: I’ll tell them. I promise, Todd.(Lisa patches in the FBI.)
Agent: Todd, your plane is on a course for Washington. Best guess is the White House or the Capitol.
Todd: I understand. I’ll be back.
Todd: Everyone knows this isn’t a normal hijacking. We have decided we will not be pawns in their plot.
Lisa: What are you going to do?
Todd: Four of us are going to rush the one with the bomb. Then the cockpit. A stewardess is getting boiling water. We’ll take them out.
Todd: Would you pray with me?They pray the Lord’s Prayer. Then: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.
Todd: God help me. Jesus help me.Are you guys ready? Let’s Roll.
Among the 2,977 people killed on September 11, 2001, the youngest was Christine Lee Hanson, two and a half years old.
Those who knew her remembered a child who liked to help her parents, Sue and Peter, in the garden and who talked to the flowers, the vegetables, and the trees. When her grandmother Eunice Hanson broke a foot and wore a cast, Christine led her to a chair, said she would help, ran upstairs, and came back with a bandage that she stuck on the plaster.
Christine was on United Flight 175 with her mother and father when the aircraft struck the South Tower.
Twenty-five years later the official count is still read aloud, and her name is in it.
🇮🇹 Italian authorities are scrutinizing Muslim Brotherhood-linked networks, particularly around Milan and Turin. An investigation says the Egyptian branch of the Brotherhood is particularly active between the two cities and has a significant support base.
Investigators described the Italian Islamic Alliance in Sesto San Giovanni as part of a Muslim Brotherhood mutual-support network and identified another local organization, Young Muslims of Italy, as close to the same movement. It also links Brotherhood-associated figures to fundraising and pro-Palestinian mobilization.
Italian authorities also targeted a network led by Mohammad Hannoun, president of the Association of Palestinians in Italy and founder of ABSPP, a Genoa-based Muslim Brotherhood-linked charity that publicly raises money for humanitarian aid to Palestinians. Prosecutors accuse Hannoun and associates of using charities to funnel more than €7 million to Hamas and Hamas-linked organizations, while presenting the fundraising as humanitarian aid. Nine people were arrested and more than €8 million in assets were seized.
Matteo Salvini’s League is now preparing measures targeting foreign funding of religious organizations, mosques, associations and imams, amid concerns over Brotherhood financing.
With its two HQs in London and Istanbul, as well as its state sponsors in Doha, Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood has been spreading Islamism and violence across the West, Africa, and the Middle East.
They are considered the largest and best-organized Islamist group in the world.
The Muslim Brotherhood is banned in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and several other Arab and Middle Eastern countries.
Welles Crowther was 24 years old.
An equities trader working on the 104th floor of the South Tower. A young guy with a career ahead of him, who was also a volunteer firefighter.
On September 11th, after the plane hit, he covered his nose and mouth with a red bandana and went to help.
He found a stairway. Guided injured people through the smoke. Carried a badly wounded woman on his back.
Then he went back upstairs.
That’s the part I keep coming back to. He had helped people find a way down, and he turned around to reach the people still waiting for help.
I try to imagine that decision. The noise, the smoke, the fear. I can’t honestly say I know what I would have done.
Welles kept going back.
He died when the South Tower collapsed.
The people he helped didn’t know his name. They remembered the man in the red bandana. Later, they would learn who he was.
I think about how young 24 really is. How much life he should have had left. And about the people who got to go home to their families because he was there.
When we say “never forget,” these are the stories we need to keep telling.
His name was Welles Crowther.
He was 24. And he deserves to be remembered.
Please share so we don't forget this hero.
@Syl1972FP@DAVIDPARENZO Oltretutto, mistifichi la realtà: questo tragico conflitto è iniziato proprio con il massacro e il rapimento di civili e bambini innocenti da parte di Hamas il 7 ottobre.
@Syl1972FP@DAVIDPARENZO Spacciare l'antisemitismo per dissenso politico è un trucco logoro che non inganna nessuno...
Associare automaticamente una festa religiosa alle dinamiche di un conflitto dimostra solo quanto sia profondo il tuo odio razziale, non la tua analisi geopolitica.
Every time Charles Wolf goes to the 9/11 memorial he kisses the name of his Wife Katherine Wolf who worked on the 97th floor of the North Tower.
He last saw her at 8:06 a.m."If someone looks at me when I kiss her name, I say, ‘It’s my wife.’That’s when everything changes,” says Wolf.
Show me Gal celebrating the death of children. You can't.
You only conflate her being an Israeli Jew who supports the survival of her country and her family against your blood libel.
You then take images of her celebrating Jewish culture to pair with your charge, as if it were ever about Palestinians.
A mom shared this clip with me. It stems from her daughter's 8th grade lesson. Apparently, what the Jews experienced during the Holocaust is akin to what Muslims are experiencing in the United States post 9/11. You read that correctly.
UT Austin: a Jewish student was targeted with this vile antisemitic message at The Callaway House (student housing).
Days later, a mezuzah was ripped down on the same floor.
Now Hasan Piker is coming to campus. His presence will only pour gasoline onto an existing fire.
Germany’s federal prosecutor just revealed in an indictment that Hamas were DAYS away from carrying out terrorist attacks in Berlin and Vienna last October. Their targets included Jewish community centres. Don’t ever tell me Hamas aren’t active in Europe. It’s a LIE.
Perhaps we can make this photo go viral again. This is Officer Chris Amoroso of the NYNJ Port Authority Police. This photo is from September 11, 2001, with the towers behind him. After saving this pregnant woman Chris decided to go back in for his 5th time. Despite having a wife and baby at home, despite being only 29 years old, Chris and 59 other Police Officers and 343 Firefighters never made it back out. You can curse us out, spit, defund and disrespect us, but when you call we will be there. Thats what makes us different. Im not looking for responses especially political ones. Just remember Chris and share his story. No sports number on his chest, no large contract no anthem to kneel to, just a real hero. #NeverForget
Twenty-five years ago, in the days after 9/11, Iranians filled Tehran's squares with candles for the American dead, watched by the same security forces that still oppress them today.
While global news networks were broadcasting shocking footage of celebrations in the Middle East region, the people of Iran stood as a profound, solitary exception of human empathy for Americans. The regime chanted death. Our people offered light. Iranians and Americans have never been enemies. We share one common enemy: the Islamic fanaticism that murdered the 2,977, and that has held my country hostage for 47 years. We also share a fundamental common value: liberty. Liberty is the cornerstone on which America is built and what Iranians are fighting for today.
Gaza TODAY: "Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, October 7 will return..."
The people of Gaza keep choosing hate and violence, and then go begging for the world to pay their bills and feed their children.