Sept. 11, 2001: United Flight 93 flew in a tragic turquoise sky with 40 souls aboard. The passengers did not know each other when they boarded the plane to San Francisco.

The captain and crew did not know they were destined to turn dust to dust. First Officer LeRoy Homer Jr. is an unsung hero in American history, as are all those on that wayward journey.

After the twin towers fell in New York, and the Pentagon took a palpable hit, Americans aboard United Flight 93 saved the remains of the day.

Knowing full well their doomed fate on the hijacked plane, they saved the Capitol.

They saved the Capitol by storming the cockpit and wresting the controls away, causing the plane to smash to smithereens in a lonely Pennsylvania farm field. I've seen that field. There's nothing left.

The plane flew 20 minutes away from Washington. The Capitol dome was clear country miles away.

Unfortunately, Charlie Kirk was murdered on Sept. 10 on a Utah college campus. This shocking event conflated with the mourning of the nearly 3,000 lost on Sept. 11, 2001.

That was a harbinger of a twisted and dark century, after the peace and prosperity of the '90s.

Kirk, who peddled in saying things that could not be uttered in public a few winks ago, insulted some of the most accomplished Black women in words that will not be repeated here. Why did he, a college dropout, feel free to say that?

Freedom of speech is the easy reason (or excuse) when we've become a society of darkness, insults and even hate on the internet. People say ugly things online they would not say in person.

Some echo the president's latest rage chorus: "radical left."

Kirk, 31, built a movement that captured grievances among his kind, and he delivered the vote of younger, white men for Donald Trump in 2024. He held up his "conservative" Christian values to emulate.

Yes, he had a large following; yes, he engaged in dialogue with opponents; yes, it's a loss that his life was taken. But Kirk was no hero for helping to sever society into us and them with his invective.

The convergence of these events shows that we, the United States, are reacting in exactly the wrong way — again. The whole world was on our side, sympathy and flowers pouring in, after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

And what did George W. Bush do? The rookie and his cabinet launched two wars of aggression, both lost after many years, in Afghanistan and Iraq. We lost the goodwill of our allies and friends for that. And we lost (mostly) civilians in the ashes.

Now, the same thing is happening, though the orders of magnitude are much lower.

Kirk's death is being used as a cudgel by Trump, when he could have invited the nation to grieve and come to a clearing of reconciliation in our violent and angry public square.

Kirk is already made a martyr, but on the horizon is a government loyalty test and surveillance led by Trump's courtiers. What did you say or post when you heard?

We finally cleansed McCarthyism; can Kirkism be far behind? Even with clear charisma and debating skill, he does not represent the notable American character of open optimism and progress. He was driving history backward.

Back to United Flight 93. Because their plane left late, those aboard knew about the plot and why the plane turned around over Ohio. They had a chance to speak to their families and say goodbye. There were four hijackers, as opposed to five each on the other planes.

With no training, no uniform, nothing but courage under pressure, the crew and passengers saved us countrymen and women from the worst fate.

In lower Manhattan, civilians showed amazing grace, helping each other down the tower staircases, sharing the same plight. New Yorkers brought out the best in each other.

Aboard United Flight 93, Todd Beamer asked Lisa Jefferson, a telephone supervisor, what was happening.

She told the truth.

He asked her to pray together before their revolt: "The Lord is my shepherd/I shall not want. ... I shall fear no evil/for you are with me."

That's heroism.

The author may be reached at JamieStiehm.com. To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, please visit creators.com.

Photo credit: Ged Mullen-Buick at Unsplash