Todd's Echo

"Are you guys ready? Let's roll." Todd Beamer, passenger aboard Flight 93, over Pennsylvania. September 11, 2001.
"Spencer, go!" Alek Skarlatos, Oregon National Guardsman, to US Air Force member Spencer Stone, on board a train bound for Paris, August 21, 2015.

A terrorist boards a train, armed with an assault rifle, a handgun and almost a thousand rounds of ammunition. Shooting starts. Three friends - Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler - along with British citizen Chris Norman, rush the gunman.

Rush the gunman. Who does that? Said Norman "I could sit down and die, or stand up and die. I decided to stand up." Deprived of his firearms, the suspect attacks Stone with a box cutter, apparently the weapon of choice for assholes. Stone and his team beat him unconscious. Then, before seeking aid himself, Stone assists a gravely wounded passenger.

The sound of personal (and professional) hobby horses being galloped has taken on a life all it's own. There is no reason to indulge any of them.

Four men demonstrated courage and honor in the highest traditions of... Human beings. Regardless of where they live, who trained them or how they came by the temperament they put into play, they were the right people, in the right place at the right time. Perhaps hundreds owe their lives to them. Stone emerged from a hospital today, bandaged, with a gentle smile. "Big, strong guys," his mom said of him and his friend Alek.


Sadler's father commented "My son left a young man on a trip with his friends. He'll come home a national hero in France. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around that."

Take all the time you need, sir. Your son and his friends, with the help of Brit Norman, did it right.