It was a so-so '80's Brat Pack film that suffers from quite a bit of Hollywood anti-war and pro-commie preaching, but Red Dawn seems somewhat like an appropriate analogy.

If you haven't ever seen it, the Soviets and Cubans decide to invade the U.S. A group of teens from a small upper-midwestern town, run away to save themselves. They then turn into a group of guerillas determined to avenge the loss of family and friends.

Slowly, as the movie progresses, they get killed off. To honor each fallen fighter, they'd write their names on a huge rock.

The movie ends with Lea Thompson and some dude, crossing a mountain range (the Rockies?) into American controlled territory. They were the only two to survive. The last scene, is Lea Thompson narrating, as the scene shows the rock, with a plaque and American flag flying. She reads the inscription on the plaque at Partisan Rock:

In the early days of World War III, guerrillas, mostly children placed the names of their lost upon this rock.They fought here alone and gave up their lives 'So that this nation shall not perish from the earth.'"

Set aside the liberal pro-commie tripe under the surface for a moment. Ignore the fact that they fought for vengence and not to save the Republic. Just forget all that, and take the movie and it's tribute to it's heroes at face value. That simple type of a monument, is exactly what the heroes of Flight 93 deserve.

I too watched The Flight That Fought Back and I was struck, by something that actually ties back to the enscription on the fictional Partisan Rock in Red Dawn.

Since right after it became apparent what happened on Flight 93, I've felt that a large portion of the Gettysburg Address also applied to the other field in Pennsylvania that was hallowed 138 years later.

So as I watched The Flight That Fought Back, and there's Tom Burnett's wife relating how he had been reading about Gettysburg, and was so moved by the courage of the soldiers. How when they knew that they faced certain death, the continued marching onward. As they went, they tacked messages to their family, friends and loved ones to the trees.

Then it hits me....here were the heros of Flight 93. It became apparent to them that they faced certain death. Yet, they moved forward with their plan to fight back. Voting unanimously to proceed. They called and spoke with, or left messages for family, friends and loved ones. They acted and thus they consecrated that other field in Pennsylvania, just like their predecessors 138 years before.

FTR, one more time, here is the text of Lincoln's address:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."