SEN McCORMICK: The heroic passengers of Flight 93 showed America how to stand united

Twenty-five years ago today, 40 men and women showed uncommon courage on Flight 93.Today, we honor their sacrifice and their example on a field of honor forever in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.On the morning of 9/11, I was in a skyscraper in Pittsburgh as the attacks unfolded.

We knew another plane had been hijacked somewhere over Pennsylvania, but we did not know where it was or where it was headed.Then came the news from Shanksville — and, later, the story of what its passengers and crew had done.Less than an hour after United Flight 93 left Newark, four al-Qaeda terrorists seized the plane and forced the passengers and crew to the rear of the aircraft.

Flight 93 was different from the other hijacked planes that morning because a ground delay gave its passengers time to learn of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.When the plane turned toward Washington, they knew that Flight 93 had become another weapon of terror.9/11 IS BECOMING HISTORY.

MY GENERATION MUST MAKE SURE AMERICA NEVER FORGETSThrough calls to loved ones and people on the ground, they learned what had happened in New York and at the Pentagon.They understood that the hijackers did not intend for them to survive — and that countless more innocent lives were at stake.C.S.

Lewis wrote that courage is "the form of every virtue at the testing point." For the ordinary Americans aboard Flight 93, that testing point came without warning — and within minutes they responded in an extraordinary, distinctly American way.They took a vote and made a plan.At 9:57 a.m., Todd Beamer, an account manager for Oracle, uttered the now-famous words, "Let’s roll," and they charged the cockpit and the knife-wielding jihadis.

For six minutes, they fought to retake the plane.At 10:03, the plane flipped upside down and plowed into a farmer’s field near Shanksville.

Their sacrifice denied the terrorists their target.Twenty-five years later, their example offers lessons not only about who we were then...