I hit the floor. My body lying on the familiar carpet of my studio apartment. I pushed myself up, keeping my back flat and my chest tight. Mimicked the movement fifty times in a row. No stopping. No sweating. I stood up, turned around and faced my bathroom door. I looked up at the top hinge and grabbed it. I held myself there while I bent my knees slightly so my feet wouldn’t hit the floor. I pulled up my entire body until my chest hit the hinge. I repeated this twenty times. No stopping. No sweating.
I walked over to my bathroom sink and hunched over just enough to support myself with my hands on the sinks’ edge. I looked myself in the mirror. Short black hair. Stubble that came in full, no patches. Light brown eyes that could tell my entire story in seconds, but only to the right person. A small, thin scar I received from an Iraqi soldier running down the bottom of my jaw and stopping just short of my chin. I was in the United States Army for fifteen years. I became a Green Beret shortly after the Gulf War.
I glanced back over to my clock, “4:36AM.” I had to leave in twenty-four minutes. I quickly jumped in the shower. It was a hot shower with a cold rinse at the end. When I got out of the shower, I put on my nice jeans, boots and I tucked in a snug fitting flannel and put on my belt. I grabbed my bag I packed a week prior and headed out the door to the Boston International Airport.

The air was cool and crisp that early September day. I arrived at the airport two and a half hours before the plane was scheduled to depart. I went to check in at the front desk and all went smoothly. I checked my bag and went to the security line. When I got to the front of the line I handed the security guard my ID. He glanced at it for a moment, “Thank you for your service,” he said while saluting me. “You’re clear to proceed forward,” he told me as he removed his hand from his brow. 
After I made my way through the line, I found my gate and sat down next to a woman and her child. Her child was roughly two years old, she looked up at me and I smiled back. She started to giggle, which in return only made me laugh as well.
“She seems to really like you,” her mother said to me in a calm, soothing voice.
Before I could respond, something put me on edge. I couldn’t tell what it was until I turned around. I generally wasn’t one to judge someone based off of one’s appearance, but there was something about these people behind me. They were together as a group, but they were trying not to seem as though they were. They all sat in different locations, but would occasionally make eye contact. I could see something in one of the men’s eyes, something dark, almost evil. I looked a bit closer, this thing in his eyes was even worse than I thought. It was pure hatred, it was revenge.
I was on edge. There was no fixing my mind set. After fifteen years of service, there’s no changing how you think about your surroundings. All the scenarios running through my mind. I tried to calm myself. It became painfully clear that clearing my mind was not going to happen.
I looked back to the woman seated beside me. “She’s a cute kid,” I said trying to ignore my delayed response.
“Are you headed to L.A. as well?” her voice sounded as sweet and innocent as before.
“Yes I am. I’m heading out to visit my mother. I haven’t seen her in a few months, figured it was time, you know?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name, I’m Samantha,” her voice not failing to be just as sweet as before.
“Luke,” I replied simply. I never did have a way with words. Samantha glanced down at my carry-on bag. It was the smaller bag I received from the Army. It read “L. Alexander” she looked puzzled for a moment. Then I said to her “U.S. Army, fifteen years, green beret and seven tours.” She looked at me differently now. The friendly gaze she once looked at me with was now absent. She didn’t appear hostile, but more concerned than anything. The silence became deafening. Samantha’s daughter started to cry, breaking the flat air.
Samantha picked up her daughter. “My… Dad was in the Army some time ago and… didn’t make it home.” She was calm, yet slightly rushed all while sounding apologetic.
“The same happened to me when I was in high school. One day a few men came and knocked on my door. They gave us the news calmly, but it still hurt worse than any bullet I’ve ever taken.” I replied, trying to keep myself engaged in the conversation to distract my mind.
“Why would you serve when you knew the chances of hurting your family?”
“It was the only way I knew how to help people.” I picked up my bag and headed to my flight, leaving the conversation where it was.

I walked quickly, but calmly. Trying to avoid being noticed while still getting to my gate as soon as I could manage. I showed my boarding pass to the lady at the gate and got on my flight. I sat down in my seat, I was right next to the side emergency door. In front of me, Samantha and her daughter. About three rows back and across the aisle, one of the men that was giving me chills up my spine.
I studied my ticket, trying to clear my mind. “Boston to Las Angeles seat J37, September 11, 2001.” I read the smooth plastic like piece of paper thirteen times. I shook my head, laid back and shut my eyes.
The intercom let out a tranquil tone then the pilot began to speak. I missed most of it because even at this point, most of my attention was on the man behind me. “We have been cleared for take-off and will be beginning our ascend momentarily, so buckle up and enjoy the ride,” this was all I got from the pilots message.
The next twenty minutes passed in the blink of an eye, but somehow still felt like an eternity. Samantha’s daughter was staring at me from over her shoulder. This time I didn’t smile. She didn’t either. We looked at each other for a few moments, then the peace was broken with the yelling of several men followed by the screams of other passengers. The men I had been on edge about were standing in the aisle, four of whom were holding box cutters to the flight attendants’ throats. The last of the five men was yelling commands. Then he said the passengers, “We have some planes! Nobody move, nobody gets hurt. Don’t move or you will endanger yourself and the plane!” he shout this in fluent English. He was angry.
Samantha’s daughter began to cry. One of the men walked up the aisle to tell Samantha to shut the child up. He was shoving a gun in her face, which was not helping the situation with her daughter. I made a hasteful decision to do something.
I jumped up out of my seat and grabbed the gun, twisting it in the perfect way to make him lose his grip on it. I used the forced gathered from my hold to slam the gun in his face. I spun the two of us around and had my right bicep around his throat and my hand coming down his back pulling his right arm up his back. The slightest movement from him and his arm would be broken. I pulled the gun up to his head. By now all of the four other men were looking and yelling at me.
“Let him go or we shoot the flight attendant!” the man yelled. Before I could think to do anything, the man behind him holding another flight attendant pulled the trigger to his gun. The bullet passing through the head of the woman in his arms. As the bullet exited her head it brought out with it a splash of blood before going into the leg of another passenger. There were two guns on the plane. And I was holding one of them.
I didn’t think, I reacted. I lifted the gun away from the man in my grip and pulled the trigger. The bullet was a perfect shot to the man with the gun. It hit him in the head, just slightly above his left eye. Before I could get another shot off, the man in my grip tried to retaliate. As he spun around, I pulled up on his arm, completely dislocating it from his shoulder socket. As he faced me his arm was limp and looked rather pathetic.
I didn’t think, I reacted. The man was only a couple of steps in front of me. I grabbed him by the back of his neck and through his head down while bringing my knee up to meet him. His head hit with such force that it almost hurt my knee. That’s all he took, he was laying in the middle of the aisle, completely unconscious. I looked up, another man picked up the gun that the other recently dropped. I raised my gun. Time seemed to slow. My hands were viciously shaking. The trigger still cold in my hand. I squeezed the handle of the gun, releasing the bullet from its steel chamber. It hit the man with the gun. But not where I was aiming, which scared me a little. The bullet hit him in the throat, causing him to collapse in place, dropping the gun.
Samantha’s daughter was crying even louder at this point. I became distracted with the thoughts of what could happen to her on this plane. What could happen to anyone on this plane. What could happen to Samantha. As I came back into reality, one of the last two men grabbed the gun. The other charged me with his box cutter in hand. He was already in my face before I could react. He tried to tackle me to the ground while going for the gun in my left hand. The gun went off, I heard more screams from the passengers as the air started to blast out of the small hole now in the fuselage of the plane.
As the man tried to bring me to the ground, I redirected him enough so I didn’t go down with him. As he fell to the ground his box cutter cut a woman sitting in an aisle seat from her collar bone to her waist line. As he was laying there I tried to get a shot off into him I was struck with the most unbelievable pain I hadn’t felt since the Gulf. The man behind me shot a bullet into my side. The man on the floor of the aisle was clipped by my bullet just enough in the head for me to be sure he was getting up.
I got all the way up to my feet, turned around and pulled the trigger. The gun clicked. I popped out the magazine, empty. I had a quick though, why would a terrorist group only carry four bullets in their gun? I looked at the last man standing. He looked back. Pointed his gun at me. Pulled the trigger. Jammed. His gun couldn’t fire.
I didn’t think, I reacted. I lunged forward pistol whipping him in his temple. I staggered to the front of the plane, where the flight attendants keep all of their supplies. I grabbed four of the zip tie cuffs they had. I handed the cuffs the largest man I saw in the front row and pointed to the men laying in the aisle. I picked up the phone to the flight deck and told the pilots what happened. It was a short call. They heard everything and were already heading to the nearest airport.

I don’t remember too much after that. I remember landing and the paramedics took me and another two passengers one with a bullet in his leg, the other cut from her collar bone to her waist line. As the paramedics were finishing up my bandage on my side. I saw Samantha. Her face was terrified. Her daughter still crying louder than anything I would’ve thought possible from something that size.
Samantha’s eyes met mine. Her face almost seemed relived at the sight of me. She was only in my sight for a few moments before camera crews flooded to the back of the ambulance where I was sitting.
At that point I blacked out. I was still sitting up, but my mind was somewhere else, somewhere it hadn’t been in almost twenty years. I was thinking about everything that lead to this event. If I hadn’t joined the Army, I wouldn’t have had the training to do what I had just done. If I hadn’t paid just as I did, I wouldn’t have gotten on that plane. Had my mother not moved to Las Angeles, I wouldn’t have needed this flight. Had the other man’s gun not jammed, I’d be dead. And so would have been everyone on that flight. What if I hadn’t been on that flight? This was the most impossible coincidence I could I have ever thought of.
Maybe, just maybe there’s something bigger here. Maybe all of this was part of some larger plan. Surely a bullet in my side and a couple of people injured and the flight attendant’s life was a small price to pay for what could have happened this September day. It’s not up to me for I am not the corrector.