Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11: A gripping biography of triumph over tragedy

by Mitchell Zuckoff

Strangers on a plane minutes earlier, the men and women aboard United Flight 93 called upon their survival instincts and discovered a warrior spirit that some might not have known they possessed. They boarded the flight as airline employees and everyday travelers, bound for home or business meetings or vacations or memorial services, but they emerged from a chrysalis of terror as a fighting band of brothers and sisters. They were at a distinct disadvantage, but they had numbers, they had one another, they had people on the ground who loved them, and they had a collective will that their captors had foolishly underestimated. If they went down, it would be on their terms. Their flight wouldn’t follow the catastrophic model they’d heard about in New York and outside Washington, D.C. Whatever the cost, the hijackers wouldn’t decide their destination. Several minutes before ten, Todd Beamer pulled away from the phone. Lisa Jefferson heard him ask, “Are you guys ready?” Lisa didn’t hear the reply. But next she heard three words, a command that set in motion men and women who’d become their own cavalry: “Okay. Let’s roll.”