August 27, 2011, tribute is being paid to the flight attendants who were murdered on 9/11. I chose flight attendants because I was determined to pay tribute to almost single category or demographic affected by 9/11. The one issue that stuck with me after reports began being published about that day of slaughter, is the fact that many of the flight attendants were females, and the story that some had their throats slashed by the misogynists who attacked them.

I am glad that I was not remiss in paying tribute to flight attendants. The writer, Charlie Leocha, of this Consumer Traveler article is quite passionate about the “unsung heroes of 9//11.” He certainly gave me something to think about. We do take flight attendants for granted, almost like ATM machines, where we put in our cards (pay the fare, in this case), take our seats and expect service. Airlines have made drastic changes to the point where flying really is no longer a pleasure. By the time one gets through the security measures before boarding the plane, one is in no mood to be pleasant. Gone are the days when the choice was between chicken or beef, for the carnivores among us. The intention of the merchants of death was to turn us into chickens, afraid of our own clucks. These merchants learned a lesson about fortitude, especially by the time they got to Flight 93.

I wholeheartedly agree with the following statements of Mr. Leocha:

Once again, flight attendants found themselves on the front line of a war whose battles are constantly shifting but ever exposing them to danger.

Airline flight attendants are the unsung heroes and frontline foot soldiers in this country’s “war on terrorism.” Though experts cannot predict when there will be another terrorist attack, they can all agree that one will come. New plans are certainly being tested to attack our transportation systems.

The stress on our airline systems has increased and will only get worse. And yet flight attendants continue to report to work every day, ready to do what they can to keep us safe. I hope the traveling public does not take them for granted.

I am glad that I did come across this article because it provided much information of which I was unaware. For example:

Flight attendants were the most consistent source of information on 9/11 when, at the risk of their lives, they phoned airline operations personnel to let them know about the hijackings; they even provided seat numbers and descriptions of the hijackers. Flight attendants were most certainly involved with the in-cabin attack on the terrorists aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in the fields of Pennsylvania instead of into a building on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Baggage screeners earn between $25,000 and $38,000 a year. TSA supervisors earn $44,400 to $68,800 a year. Federal air marshals make between $36,000 and $84,000 a year. These workers receive all the standard government perks of medical care, vacations and insurance. Meanwhile, flight attendants, the airlines’ real frontline troops, receive starting salaries of $18,000 a year, or less, and don’t have a prayer of seeing $30,000 for at least three years. Vacation time in those years is meager, while time “on reserve” (waiting around in case another flight attendant is sick or gets stuck in traffic) seems to be endless.

The following statement is not hyperbole:

Today’s flight attendants face what amounts to nonstop battle stress from an unidentified, furtive and unpredictable enemy.

I would not be a flight attendant, even if the salary increased to that of a TSA supervisor.

National Geographic also provides information on the flights, flight attendants and the perpetrators. It is refreshing to see that the description of the killers has not been chlorinated by political correctness:

On the early morning of September 11, 19 men associated with the Islamist extremist group al Qaeda under the direction of Osama bin Laden boarded four flights intending to hijack the planes and use them as weapons to destroy major American landmarks.

Summed up in one paragraph is the ending of the lives of almost 3,000 human beings:

Two other flight attendants made calls from the coach cabin to report the hijacking to American Airlines officials on the ground. One, Betty Ann Ong, stayed on the phone for approximately 25 minutes, calmly reporting from the plane to an American Airlines reservation office in North Carolina. The other, Madeline Amy Sweeney, reached the flight services office in Boston and provided information to help identify the hijackers. As the flight crew worked to keep passengers calm, the plane turned south, descending rapidly. After 45 minutes in the air, Flight 11 approached Manhattan, flying south along the Hudson River. At 8:46, the plane crashed into 1 World Trade Center, the north tower, instantly killing everyone on board and hundreds in the building.

How can we ever forget, “move along – there is nothing to see here”? How can we forget Betty Ann Ong, flight attendant on Flight 11, bound for Los Angeles? How can we forget this flight attendant about whom words such as “duty, courage, selflessness, love, calm and lucid,” were used?

Should we forget Madeline "Amy" Sweeney, whose “grace under pressure,” and information “gave the F.B.I. a head start on the investigation” of the killers? How did Mr. Sweeney tell their two children, Jack and Anna, that their mom was not coming home, after being up in the clouds, doing her job, as usual? This “amazing, amazing woman,” who always saw a “silver lining,” died slamming into a 110 story building, not from the beach or the slopes, that she loved.

Surely, we cannot forget all of the flight crews listed at FlightAttendants.org? I look at the smiling profiles and I am not smiling. As I watch pictures of what were once human beings and now reduced to rubble, parts of bodies, I still experience twinges of anger. Flight 77 which crashed into the Pentagon, even had a husband and wife, Kenneth and Jennifer Lewis, both flight attendants on the same flight. The consolation is that they died together.

Singer Vince Gill composed and sings Go Rest High On That Mountain in tribute to his brother. I find it very appropriate for those who made their living, flight attendants and pilots, traveling in the skies, making travel comfortable, normally safe and routinely quick, for the rest of us. They were shot down from the skies, plunged to their deaths, by vile killers who should not have even inhabited the same planet, never mind the same plane, as these servants of the traveling public. But, I hope that they, who served us, are resting high on that mountain.

God bless America.