Todd Beamer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Todd Morgan Beamer (November 24, 1968 – September 11, 2001) was a passenger aboard United Airlines Flight 93 and a victim of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Beamer attended Los Gatos High School, Wheaton Academy, DePaul University, California State University, Fresno and Wheaton College. In September 2001, he was an account manager for Oracle and resided in Cranbury, New Jersey, with his wife, Lisa Beamer, and two sons, David and Drew. His daughter, Morgan Kay, was born January 9, 2002, four months after Beamer's death.

After United 93 was hijacked, Beamer and other passengers communicated with people on the ground via in-plane and cell phones, and learned that the World Trade Center had been attacked using hijacked airplanes. Beamer tried to place a credit card call through a phone located on the back of a plane seat but was routed to a customer-service representative instead, who passed him on to GTE supervisor Lisa Jefferson. Beamer reported that one passenger was killed and, later, that a flight attendant had told him the pilot and co-pilot had been forced from the cockpit and may have been wounded. He was also on the phone when the plane made its turn in a southeasterly direction, a move that had him briefly panicking. Later, he told the operator that some of the plane's passengers were planning to "jump on" the hijackers. According to Jefferson, Beamer's last audible words were "Are you guys ready? Let's roll."^[1]

Beamer's phrase "Let's roll" was widely cited and later became a battle cry for those fighting Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.^[2]

At least three facilities have been named for Beamer: a post office in Cranbury, New Jersey, Todd Beamer High School in Federal Way, Washington, and the Todd M. Beamer Student Center at Wheaton College.

Beamer was posthumously awarded with the Arthur Ashe Courage Award in 2002.

[edit] References