JARED CHRISTOPHER MONTI 1975 – 2006 American Superhero
Citation
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Sergeant First Class Monti distinguished himself at the cost of his life while serving as a team leader with the Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 3d Squadron, 71st Cavalry Regiment in Nuristan Province, Afghanistan on 21 June 2006. On that day, Sergeant First Class Monti was leading a mission to gather intelligence and to direct fires against the enemy in support of a squadron-size interdiction mission. While at an observation position on top of a mountain ridge, Sergeant First Class Monti’s sixteen-man patrol came under attack by a superior force consisting of as many as 50 enemy fighters. On the verge of being overrun, Sergeant First Class Monti directed his patrol to set up a hasty defensive position behind a collection of rocks. He then began to call for indirect fire from a nearby support base; accurately bringing the rounds upon the enemy who had closed to within 50 meters of his position. While still calling for fire, Sergeant First Class Monti personally engaged the enemy with his rifle and a grenade, successfully disrupting an attempt to flank the patrol. Sergeant First Class Monti then realized that one of his Soldiers was lying wounded and exposed in the open ground between the advancing enemy and the patrol’s position. With complete disregard for his own safety, Sergeant First Class Monti moved from behind the cover of the rocks into the face of withering enemy fire. After closing within meters of his wounded Soldier, the heavy volume of fire forced Sergeant First Class Monti to seek cover. Sergeant First Class Monti then gathered himself and rose again to maneuver through a barrage of enemy fire to save his wounded Soldier. Again, Sergeant First Class Monti was driven back by relentless enemy fire. Unwilling to leave his Soldier wounded and exposed, Sergeant First Class Monti made another attempt to move across open terrain and through the enemy fire to the aide of his wounded Soldier. On his third attempt, Sergeant First Class Monti was mortally wounded, sacrificing his own life in an effort to save his Soldier. Sergeant First Class Monti’s acts of heroism inspired the patrol to fight off the larger enemy force. Sergeant First Class Monti’s immeasurable courage and uncommon valor were in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself, 3d Squadron 71st Cavalry Regiment, the 3d Brigade Combat Team, the 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), and the United States Army.
Sergeant First Class Jared Christopher Monti – United States Army
Jared Christopher Monti was born in Abington, Massachusetts, on September 20, 1975, to Paul, a school teacher, and Janet Monti. He grew up in Raynham, Massachusetts and graduated from Bridgewater-Raynham Regional High School in 1994.
After enlisting in the Army in March 1993, he completed basic training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. and was one of the first soldiers to undergo forward observer training with the 82nd Airborne. Monti, a fire support specialist, served as a staff sergeant with the 3rd Squadron, 71st Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division.
TODD MORGAN BEAMER 1968 – 2001 American Superhero
Todd Morgan Beamer (24 Nov. 1968-11 Sept. 2001), passenger aboard United Airlines Flight 93, was born in Flushing, Michigan, a small town northwest of Flint, the son of David Beamer, a sales representative for IBM, and Peggy Jackson Beamer, a muralist. Todd and his two sisters, Melissa and Michele, were raised “with a strong biblical value system and work ethic” (Let’s Roll, p. 16). The family relocated to Poughkeepsie, New York, and then to Glen Ellyn, Illinois, a suburb west of Chicago, where David worked at Amdahl, a computer technology company.
Todd attended Wheaton Christian Grammar School, where he played baseball, basketball, and soccer. Todd moved on to Wheaton Christian High School, becoming class vice president in his junior year. He spent his senior year at Los Gatos High School, just south of San Jose, California, when his father was promoted to vice president of Amdahl’s California headquarters. Beamer attended Fresno State University, where he majored in physical therapy and participated in the school’s baseball program, but injuries suffered in an automobile accident ended his hopes of playing on Fresno’s Division I baseball team.
Beamer transferred to Wheaton College, one of the nation’s leading Christian liberal arts schools, where he first majored in medicine before settling on business. At Wheaton, Beamer played baseball and as a senior became captain of the basketball team. After graduating, Beamer worked for Wilson Sporting Goods and studied nights, earning an M.B.A. from Chicago’s DePaul University in June 1993. He married Lisa Brosious on 14 May 1994 in Peekskill, New York. The couple had three children.
Todd and Lisa moved to Plainsboro, New Jersey, where Todd went to work as a field marketing representative for Oracle Corporation, a computer software company. Months later, he was promoted to account manager. Todd and Lisa formed a tight circle of friends through the Princeton Alliance Church and worked in youth ministry. At that time, Todd wrote a list of what he wanted to accomplish in his life, which included “controlling my destiny and environment” by “flying below the radar screen” in order to “arrive at the road’s end with satisfaction” (Let’s Roll, pp. 100-102). In 2000 the Beamers moved into their dream house, in Cranbury, New Jersey. In June 2001 the couple learned that their third child was due in January of the following year. That September they celebrated with a week in Rome with other Oracle families. They returned home mid-afternoon on 10 September 2001.
An Early Flight
Todd Beamer awakened at 5:45 the next morning. He was scheduled to take an early flight out of Newark to make a 1:00 P.M. meeting with representatives of the Sony Corporation in San Francisco. United Flight 93 was scheduled to depart at 8:00 A.M., but the Boeing 757 didn’t take off until forty-two minutes later because of runway traffic delays. There were seven crew members, five flight attendants, and thirty-seven passengers on the plane, including four Middle Eastern men. Just six minutes later, American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower. On the clear day the smoke could be seen from the cockpit of Flight 93. Fifteen minutes later, at 9:03 A.M., as United Flight 175 blasted into the South Tower, Beamer’s flight was climbing to cruising altitude, heading west over New Jersey and into Pennsylvania.
At 9:25 A.M., Flight 93 was above eastern Ohio, and its pilot questioned Cleveland controllers about an alert that had been flashed on his cockpit computer screen to “beware of cockpit intrusion.” Three minutes later, Cleveland controllers could hear screams over the cockpit’s open mike. Moments later, hijackers, led by twenty-seven-year-old Ziad Samir Jarrah, a Lebanese man with a pilot’s license, took over the plane’s controls, disengaged the autopilot, and told passengers in heavily accented English, “Keep remaining sitting. We have a bomb board” (Vulliamy, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/dec/02/september11.terrorism1). Beamer and the other passengers were herded into the back of the plane. Several made phone calls. Passengers were told by loved ones that two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center. At 9:45 A.M., FBI agents listened in as Beamer told the GTE Airfone supervisor Lisa Jefferson that hijackers had taken over his plane. Two had knives, and one appeared to have a bomb strapped around his waist. The curtain between first class and second class had been drawn. Beamer could see two people on the floor; a flight attendant had told him they were dead.
“Let’s Roll”
At first Beamer had thought to call his wife but didn’t want to worry her. He asked Jefferson if she knew what the hijackers wanted. She didn’t. “We’re going down! We’re going down!” Beamer exclaimed over the phone (Alderson and Bisset, “The Extraordinary Last Calls of Flight UA93″). The hijackers were veering the plane sharply south. Along with the passengers Tom Burnett, Jeremy Glick, Mark Bingham, Lou Nacke, Rich Guadagno, Alan Beaven, Honor Elizabeth Wainio, Linda Gronlund, and William Cashman and the flight attendants Sandra Bradshaw and Cee Cee Ross-Lyles, Beamer plotted what to do. A vote was taken. Passengers planned to storm the cockpit and take over the plane. Beamer said the Lord’s Prayer over the phone with Jefferson and told her, “If I don’t make it, please call my family and let them know how much I love them.” Jefferson could hear muffled voices and Beamer’s voice clearly answering, “Are you ready? Okay. Let’s roll!” (Breslau, “The Final Moments of Flight 93″).
When the voice data recorder aboard Flight 93 was recovered and published in the 9/11 Commission Report, it revealed pounding and crashing sounds against the cockpit door and shouts and screams in English. “Let’s get them!” a passenger cries. A hijacker shouts, “Allah akbar!” (God is great). Jarrah repeatedly pitched the plane to knock passengers off their feet. But voices in English are heard shouting, “In the cockpit. If we don’t, we’ll die.” At 10:02 A.M., a hijacker orders, “Pull it down! Pull it down!” The 9/11 Commission later reported that the control wheel of Flight 93 was turned hard to the right. The airplane rolled on its back and plowed into an empty field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 580 miles an hour. The plane was was twenty minutes’ flying time from its suspected target, the White House or the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. Vice President Dick Cheney told reporters that he had no doubt the passengers on Flight 93 had helped prevent an attack on Washington. Cheney acknowledged that President George W. Bush had given the order to fire on Flight 93 if it had continued its flight path to Washington.
Courage Lauded
In an address to a joint session of Congress and the American people on 20 September 2001, with Lisa Beamer present, President Bush declared that freedom was at war with fear and praised “the courage of passengers, who rushed terrorists to save others on the ground–passengers like an exceptional man named Todd Beamer.” In an 8 November address from the World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia, Bush repeated Beamer’s now famous words, saying, “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!”
When she gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Morgan Kay Beamer, on 11 January 2002, Lisa Beamer was known nationally as the widow of an American hero. She cowrote a best-selling book on her life with Todd Beamer and the aftermath of his death with Ken Abraham, titled Let’s Roll! Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage (2002). The book’s royalties went to establish the nonprofit Todd M. Beamer Foundation, to counsel children who have experienced trauma. A post office in Cranbury, New Jersey; a neighborhood park in Fresno; a high school in Federal Way, Washington; and a student center at Wheaton College were named in Beamer’s honor. And for years afterward, movies, T-shirts, television shows, and speeches remembered Beamer’s words as an affirmation of American grit and determination in the face of daunting challenge.
[via: American National Biography]
WILLIAM LOREN MCGONAGLE 1925 – 1999 American Superhero
Citation
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Sailing in international waters, the Liberty was attacked without warning by jet fighter aircraft and motor torpedo boats which inflicted many casualties among the crew and caused extreme damage to the ship. Although severely wounded during the first air attack, Capt. McGonagle remained at his battle station on the badly damaged bridge and, with full knowledge of the seriousness of his wounds, subordinated his own welfare to the safety and survival of his command. Steadfastly refusing any treatment which would take him away from his post, he calmly continued to exercise firm command of his ship. Despite continuous exposure to fire, he maneuvered his ship, directed its defense, supervised the control of flooding and fire, and saw to the care of the casualties. Capt. McGonagle’s extraordinary valor under these conditions inspired the surviving members of the Liberty’s crew, many of them seriously wounded, to heroic efforts to overcome the battle damage and keep the ship afloat. Subsequent to the attack, although in great pain and weak from the loss of blood, Captain McGonagle remained at his battle station and continued to command his ship for more than 17 hours. It was only after rendezvous with a U.S. destroyer that he relinquished personal control of the Liberty and permitted himself to be removed from the bridge. Even then, he refused much needed medical attention until convinced that the seriously wounded among his crew had been treated. Capt. McGonagle’s superb professionalism, courageous fighting spirit, and valiant leadership saved his ship and many lives. His actions sustain and enhance the finest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service. (Captain McGonagle earned the Medal of Honor for actions that took place in international waters in the Eastern Mediterranean rather than in Vietnam.)
Captain William L. McGonagle, USN, 1925-1999
William Loren McGonagle was born in Wichita, Kansas, on 19 November 1925 and attended secondary school and college in California. He was active in the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps and was commissioned in the rank of Ensign upon graduation from the University of Southern California in June 1947. After service in the destroyer Frank Knox and minesweeper Partridge during 1947-50, he served in the minesweeper Kite during the extensive Korean War minesweeping operations that earned her a Presidential Unit Citation. From 1951 to 1966, he was assigned to various positions ashore and afloat, including command of the fleet tug Mataco in 1957-58 and the salvage ship Reclaimer in 1961-63.
In April 1966, Commander McGonagle became Commanding Officer of the technical research ship Liberty, taking her on a number of communications and electronic emissions monitoring missions during the next year. On 8 June 1967, while carrying out her important function off the Sinai Peninsula during the war between Israel and Egypt, Liberty was attacked and severely damaged by Israeli aircraft and motor torpedo boats. For his heroism on that occasion, Commander McGonagle was awarded the Medal of Honor and his ship received the Presidential Unit Citation.
After promotion to the rank of Captain in October 1967, McGonagle commanded the new ammunition ship Kilauea and led the NROTC Unit at the University of Oklahoma. He retired from active duty in 1974. Captain William L. McGonagle died at Palm Springs, California, on 3 March 1999.
[via: navy.mil]