8/31/2023 0 Comments Todd beamer 93![]() Six months before the attack, at 51, she gave birth to triplet boys - Harrison, Garrett and Bryce - as a surrogate for her younger brother and his wife. ![]() He was her only child.Īnother part of her life, however, was mostly private. In interviews and documentaries and at 9/11 memorials, the Los Gatos mother became a familiar face over the last two decades, preserving the memory of her son, a 31-year-old public relations executive and former Cal Berkeley rugby player whose courage helped a bewildered, grieving nation believe all was not lost. Bingham was a victim of Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania on September 11. Alice Hoagland and her son, Mark Bingham share a hug during Christmas day, 1999. She died in her sleep nearly a year ago, at age 71, but in unexpected and little-known ways the story endures. On Friday, we might all take a moment to reflect on the loss and lessons of 9/11 and what ordinary days may bring.LOS GATOS - Twenty years later, Alice Hoagland isn’t here any longer to tell the story of her son, Mark Bingham - of how he and fellow passengers on Flight 93 tried to wrestle the hijacked plane back from terrorists and perished when it crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside. World events set in motion that day continue to unfold. “There are a lot of people that are very concerned that it has slipped away from the American consciousness, and people are not remembering the impact of that day and how it changed the lives of people around the world,” he said. He is concerned that the passage of time not erase the memory of 9/11. “I haven’t had the courage,” he told The Times. Colantonio said he has not visited the World Trade Center Museum and Memorial. Colantonio describes what he saw between the time the first plane struck and the second plane arrived.Ī sentence from his story appears on the wall at the entry to the room that memorializes the 2,754 people that died that day: “While we still looked up, a man jumped from the building to the ground … At that instant, the towering glass and metal mass of billowing smoke became human.” He returned to the peace of Chappaquiddick.Īn excerpt from the 15,000-word essay he wrote and submitted to the World Trade Center Museum and Memorial appears on the facing page. Colantonio followed his doctor’s orders to go to a quiet place and write down everything he had witnessed. I relived the past few minutes hoping for a clue: an explosion, a bomb, maybe a missile crackle of gunfire the World Trade Center aflame and smoking missilized debris perforating the skin of 200 Liberty and the adjoining Airwalk. The cause of the instantaneous and enormous destruction was inconceivable. “As a speed-reader absorbs a chapter a second, I surveyed surrounding buildings, roadways, and intersections. His reaction - disbelief - was shared by millions of Americans across the country who stared at TV screens, unable to make sense of the images they were seeing live and unfiltered. He walked outside and looked up to see the World Trade Center ablaze. That morning he was in the World Financial Center when the building’s fire marshal instructed everyone to leave the building. He survived with its haunting images seared into his consciousness. Colantonio, in the shadow of the towers one block away, was one of the thousands of people to witness the attack firsthand. For better and for worse, 9/11 transformed the United States and the world. Those diabolical attacks continue to reverberate through our politics and culture.
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