Todd Beamer

Todd Morgan Beamer (November 24, 1968 – September 11, 2001) was an American passenger aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which was hijacked and crashed as part of the September 11 attacks in 2001. He, along with Mark Bingham, Tom Burnett, Jeremy Glick, and several other passengers, attempted to regain control of the aircraft from the hijackers. During the struggle, the Boeing 757 lost control and crashed into a field in Stonycreek Township near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing everyone on board, but saving the hijackers' intended target and potential additional victims.

Biography Todd Morgan Beamer was born on November 24, 1968, in Flint, Michigan, to David Beamer, an IBM sales representative, and Peggy Jackson Beamer, a muralist, the middle child of three and only son. Beamer and his two sisters, Melissa and Michele, were raised "with a strong biblical value system and work ethic". The family relocated to Poughkeepsie, New York, and then to Wheaton, Illinois, a suburb west of Chicago, where David worked at Amdahl, a computer technology company. where he excelled in the same sports. He was elected class vice president in his junior year. After David was promoted to vice president of Amdahl's California headquarters, the family moved, and Beamer spent his senior year at Los Gatos High School, southwest of San Jose, California.

While at Wheaton College, he met Lisa Brosious, his future wife, during a senior seminar class.

Beamer and Lisa taught Sunday school at Princeton Alliance Church for six years, and worked in youth ministry. with their two sons.

Following this, the passengers and flight crew decided to act. They were joined by other passengers, including Lou Nacke, Rich Guadagno, Alan Beaven, Honor Elizabeth Wainio, Linda Gronlund, and William Cashman, along with flight attendants Sandra Bradshaw and CeeCee Lyles, in discussing their options and voting on a course of action, ultimately deciding to storm the cockpit and take over the plane. into an empty field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at , killing everyone on board. The plane was 20 minutes of flying time away from its suspected target, the White House or the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. According to Vice President Dick Cheney, President George W. Bush had given an order to shoot the plane down had it continued its path to Washington. In an address to a joint session of Congress and the American people on September 20, 2001, which Lisa Beamer attended, President Bush praised the courage of United 93's passengers, naming Beamer in particular, whom he called "an exceptional man."

In a November 8 address from the World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia, Bush would invoke Beamer's last-heard words, saying in his speech, "Some of our greatest moments have been acts of courage for which no one could have been prepared. But we have our marching orders. My fellow Americans, let's roll!"

A nonprofit foundation was founded in October 2001 to counsel traumatized children of 9/11 victims and survivors.

The Cranbury, New Jersey, post office was dedicated to Beamer on May 4, 2002, as a result of an Act of Congress authored by Congressman Rush D. Holt, Jr. The bill was signed into law by President George W. Bush.

In 2003, Wheaton College honored Beamer, an alumnus, by opening the Todd M. Beamer Center, which encompasses Anderson Commons, Coray Alumni Gym and the Student Center located on the lower level.

In February 2010, the city of Fresno, California, dedicated Todd Beamer Park.

Beamer's name appears on the third panel at the Flight 93 National Memorial, seen here with the visitor center in the background. The Flight 93 National Memorial located at the crash site in Stonycreek Township includes a concrete and glass visitor center, and a white marble Wall of Namescompleted in 2011

At the National 9/11 Memorial, Beamer and the other passengers and crew of Flight 93 are memorialized at the South Pool, on Panel S-68. An Oracle business card bearing Beamer's name and his two-tone Rolex Oyster Perpetual Datejust "Turn-o-Graph" wristwatch, both of which were found damaged at the crash site, are on display inside the memorial museum.

On September 10, 2013, Wheaton Academy honored Beamer by unveiling a plaque dedicated to him on the grounds of the Academy, next to a plaque of a former student who was killed in Afghanistan.

In popular culture In the 2005 television film The Flight That Fought Back, which depicts the passenger uprising inside the hijacked United Airlines 93, Todd Beamer is portrayed by Bryan Friday. Beamer is portrayed by Brennan Elliott in the 2006 television film Flight 93. He is portrayed by David Alan Basche in the 2006 feature film United 93. Beamer is featured in two panels within The Amazing Spider-Man (Volume 2) issue #36 (December, 2001), in which he ends his phone call with Lisa Jefferson before storming the cockpit. In the book, which is written by J. Michael Straczynski and drawn by John Romita, Jr., Spider-Man refers to the passengers of Flight 93 as "Ordinary men. Ordinary women. Refusing to surrender." The Neil Young song "Let's Roll", written in the aftermath of the attacks, is a tribute to Beamer sung from his perspective.