This bill would authorize the issuance of the nation's highest civilian honor to 40 individuals: seven named crew members manning Flight 93, which crashed in Shanksville, PA, along with 30 named passengers---as well as "3 additional heroes whose families have requested that their names be withheld," who were also aboard the doomed aircraft.
On September 20, 2001, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) introduced an identically worded bill in the House of Representatives, H.R.2916, naming the same 37 passengers and crew, along with the "3 additional heroes whose families have requested that their names be withheld."
This was the first time in history that a law was proposed honoring individuals whose families wished them to remain anonymous.
In a September 30, 2001, San Francisco Chronicle article, Best friends among heroes on Flight 93, by Jaxon Van Derbeken, an explanation was offered for two of the three "additional heroes":
As America seeks to honor the heroes of United Airlines Flight 93, it would be easy to overlook two elderly sisters-in-law and best friends from Bayonne, N.J.
After all, since their families at first sought to grieve in private, their names are not on any official accounting of the doomed flight's passengers or on public lists of proposed honorees for the Congressional Gold Medal.
But in their quiet lives and good deeds, Patricia Cushing, 69, and Jane Folger, 73, embody what is good and heroic about America.The Chronicle article goes on to say
After the plane went down, United asked the families whether they wanted the women's names made public. They didn't want to at the time, and never got around to telling the airline once they felt more comfortable with the idea.
"We felt whoever had to know, knew," Pegeen Cushing said.
As a result, Cushing and Folger are among the three unnamed "additional heroes" listed in a Senate bill proposing that Flight 93 passengers and crew be given the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress' "highest expression of national appreciation for distinguished achievements and contributions.
Not that the families have been overlooked. This past week, they were among those invited to a lunch and reception at the White House with President Bush and the White House staff.Apparently, the third unnamed hero was to go unheralded for some additional days. It was ultimately revealed to be Jean Hoadley Peterson, 55, of Spring Lake, N.J. She and her husband, Donald Arthur Peterson, 66, were the only married couple to be found on board the ill-fated Flight 93. However, Donald Peterson was listed on both the Sept. 19, Senate Bill, and the Sept. 20 House Bill, positioned as victim number xxvi.
What possible privacy issue would separate in death and honor this devoted and devout couple who were traveling together to attend a family reunion in Yosemite National Park? Who was the family member who would "have requested that [one] name[...] be withheld," and what about the sentiments of the rest of the extended step-family?
Since the Chronicle article establishes that some Flight 93 victim's family members were invited to a reception at the White House sometime during the week of September 23-28, even though the names of their qualifying victim's had not yet been publicly revealed, it is important to understand at what point Jean Peterson's name was released in the media as being a victim of Flight 93.
Despite a great deal of falsification of the online record, we are able to place the public "outing" of Jean Peterson's name towards the very end of October, by comparing archived pages of one web site, www.september11victims.com, which came as close to being an "official" victim's list as 9/11 would ever know. Its Home Page names as its "Partner" the White House Commission on the National Moment of Remembrance, which had been "formally established by an act of Congress." The Department of State "uses this site as a source of information." Indeed, in one of only a half-dozen such referrals, the U.S. State Department web page links back to www.september11victims.
The CNN victim page, United Airlines Flight 93, is useless for any purpose beyond pretend. It states "United Airlines Flight 93, from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco, California, crashed in rural southwest Pennsylvania, with 45 people on board," although in archive.org's first web crawl on Sept. 17, 2001, it lists just 34 names of crew members and passengers, and in 306 subsequent web captures, lasting until April 27, 2011, it never once updated the page.
The earliest verifiable record of a Flight 93 victim list is from the Associated Press at 09:51 p.m. EDT, on Sept. 11, when it consists of a single name:
United Airlines Flight 93: A Boeing 757 en route from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco. The plane was carrying 38 passengers, two pilots and five flight attendants. It crashed southeast of Pittsburgh around 10 a.m.
CREW:The next verifiable list is the Associated Press's 11am Update: Attack Victims List, from Sept. 12, found posted at CBS KPIX5-TV, although not captured by a web crawl until 22:20:10, on Sept. 18. Under a sketchy authority, it has grown to eight names:
- Cee Cee Lyles, Fort Myers, Fla., flight attendant.
Partial lists of those killed in Tuesday's terrorist attacks, according to family members, friends, co-workers and law enforcement.By the end of that same day, the Associated Press issued a list with 32 names. The addition of one more name, Toshiya Kuge, can be deduced from the first web crawl of the CNN list to Sept. 17. The list is then static through the Dec. 10th update at www.september11victims.
United Airlines Flight 93, Newark, N.J., to San Francisco, crashed in rural southwest Pennsylvania
CREW:
- Sandy Bradshaw, 38, Greensboro, N.C., flight attendant
- Jason Dahl, Colorado, pilot
- Leroy Homer, Marlton, N.J., crew member
- CeeCee Lyles, Fort Myers, Fla., flight attendant
PASSENGERS:
- Mark Bingham, 31, San Francisco
- Thomas E. Burnett Jr., 38, senior vice president and chief operating officer, Thoratec Corp.
- Lauren Grandcolas of Marin County, Calif.
- Christine Snyder, 32, Kailua, Hawaii
| Associated Press List -Flight 93 Datable to 9-12-01 [32 names] CREW Jason Dahl Leroy Homer Lorraine Bay Sandra Bradshaw Wanda Green CeeCee Lyles Deborah Welsh Passengers: - Christian Adams - Todd Beamer - Alan Beaven - Mark Bingham, 31, San Francisco - Deora Bodley - Marion Britton - Thomas E. Burnett Jr., 38, Thoratec - William Cashman - Georgine Corrigan - Joseph Deluca - Patrick Driscoll - Edward Felt - Colleen Fraser - Andrew Garcia - Jeremy Glick - Lauren Grandcolas, - Donald Greene - Linda Gronlund - Richard Guadagno - Waleska Martinez - Nicole Miller - Mark Rothenberg - Christine Snyder, 32, Kailua, Hawaii - John Talignani - Honor Wainio | www.september11victims
OCTOBER 7, 2001 1 snapshot 06:15:44 [33 names] CREW Jason Dahl Leroy Homer Lorraine Bay Sandra Bradshaw Wanda Green CeeCee Lyles Deborah Welsh PASSENGERS Christian Adams Todd Beamer Alan Beaven Mark Bingham Deora Bodley Marion Britton Thomas E. Burnett Jr. William Cashman Georgine Corrigan Joseph Deluca Patrick Driscoll Edward Felt Colleen Fraser Andrew Garcia Jeremy Glick Lauren Grandcolas Donald F. Green Linda Gronlund Richard Guadagno Toshiya Kuge Waleska Martinez Nicole Miller Mark Rothenberg Christine Snyder John Talignani Honor Wainio |
It is not until the Dec. 10, 2001 web crawl, that the names of Hilda Marcin, Louis J. Nacke, Jean Hoadley Peterson, and Donald Arthur Peterson appear on the Flight 93 victim's list. But in a bit of baffling perversity worthy of Karen Hughes, Thomas E. Burnett Jr. and Waleska Martinez Rivera have had their names duplicated, after first being altered, augmented, inverted, or in one case, nonsensically alphabetized.
Then, it is on the Feb. 1, web page update and archive crawl, that the names of Patricia Cushing, Jane C. Folger and Olga Kristin Gould White first appear.
The orthodox list of Flight 93 victims had been firmly set by October 28, 2001, when the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published "Flight 93: Forty lives, one destiny," with breezy biographical sketches for each. Why it took seven weeks to gestate is the journalistic question.
Problems in setting a discrete list such as this would have nothing to do with the confusion and upheaval surrounding the other thousands of victims. A total of 44 people aboard a trans-continental Boeing 757 jetliner is itself an absurd proposition, with five stewardesses serving 37 customers---four of them being Arabs in First Class.
The main problem with these victim's lists was they were assembled, not by virtue of the four airplane manifests, but "according to family members, friends, co-workers and law enforcement," as an un-self-conscious AP puts it.
The first October 7, 2001 web crawl of www.september11victims.com had this to say about the list's assembly:
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks officials across the country are working to piece together lists of victims. While the official number of those missing and dead will inevitably rise over the next few weeks, authorities from American Airlines, United Airlines, the Department of Defense, the New York City Medical Examiners Office and the New York City Fire Department, have released partial lists.But by the second capture, on December 11, 2001, final authority has been vested in the Associated Press!
Included are victims for whom AP has confirmed the death with named local or federal government officials, the person's family, a named spokesman for the person's employer or a named funeral home official. In the case of confirmation by family members, victims are included when the family member is definitive that the person is dead or that the family considers the person dead.Since American and United Airlines have admitted to issuing only partial lists of their passenger fatalities based on some families' desire for privacy, they've incorporated enough plausible deniability to excuse away any drastic discrepancies, like a universally reported figure of 45 individuals being aboard Flight 93 when it went down, disappearing into quicksand, which tally transmogrified into the figure of 44, with the FBI reporting that "one person had bought two tickets," without providing further explanation. Manifests, however, are based on boarding passes, not sales. And who was likely to buy two tickets, and only use one, but a husband traveling with, or without his wife?
The Sept. 28 San Francisco Chronicle article can be seen as back-stopping an explanation for the absence of two names on the congressional bills of the 19th & 20th. No attempt at rationalization was made in regards to Jean Peterson, because there is no possible logic behind the omission of her name from the Congressional actions which bore her husband's name---other than she was an identity "still in play." Not quite settled as to whether she could stand being a victim, instead of a surviving family member. She had to trade off either her husband, or her three daughters from a previous marriage, along with her blood grandchildren.
What was the reception at the White House with President Bush but a bucking up of the troop's morale?
Finding our way amid such autocracy can be daunting. A list posted by the Chicago Tribune, dated September 15, 2001, at 9:57 p.m. CDT, says it's comprised of the
Latest Confirmed Casualties and Missing Persons in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.
The following is a list of confirmed dead as of Monday.
List compiled from sources including Pentagon websites, New York Coroner's Office, and Times wire services, by Times [the Los Angeles Times, its sister publication?] researchers Cary Schneider and Kent Coloma and Times staff writer Myrna Oliver.It contains the names of Donald A. Peterson, 66, and Jean Hoadley Peterson, 55, of Spring Lake, N.J. But we can know this list is a fraud, not the least because it contains a line-item victim name---Ken Caryl Ranch, Colorado---which in actuality is a real estate development past the "Dakota Hogback cut, located just west of E-470." This is either high-level code, or more baffle-them-with-bullshit Karen Hughes nonsense.
Rather, that same Chicago Tribune Company has another page, in the same format and font, dated September 18, 2001, called THE VICTIMS, Additional listing of attack victims, made up of "Tribune staff reports,"
Here is a list of those identified in the past two days as killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to family members, friends, co-workers and law enforcement.However, these three names appeared on the Sept. 15 list of 39 names (that would be counting Ken C.,) which no matter how you cut it, is one day over the due date. This page appears to be the legitimate effort of duplicitous newsmen, as versus the deeply fraudulent and co-conspiratorial effort dated Sept. 15. The actionable agenda on that list can only be the inserted names of the Petersons, but it now flies in the face of all that is good, and decent, and just in the world! Like Congressional resolutions honoring fake heroes!
United Airlines Flight 93, Newark, N.J., to San Francisco, crashed in Pennsylvania
PASSENGERS:
Kristin Gould
Hilda Marcin, 79, Budd Lake, N.J., retired teacher's aide
Louis J. Nacke, 42, New Hope, Pa., distribution center director, Kaybee Toys
The Chicago Tribune also did brief bios of the Flight 93 victims, which are found reposted in the myriad of victim hagiography blogs and web sites, but I'll be damned if I could find a date for any of them. Somebody find me a hardcopy.
As to that other latecomer, "Olga Kristin Gould White," Google returns about 12,900 results; but under her alternate name spelling, "Kristin Osterholm White Gould," Google returns about 15,800 results, so White Gold is winning.
But now we come to a real conundrum, or sticky wicket, if you will. On Sept. 12, at 01:03PM, EST, United Airlines first sent out a press release, which is indicated in the copy available online, they also updated with additional family information on the 13th, 14th, 15th, 17th and 18th of September, (but which was only spotted at archive.org on Nov. 28, 2003,) In it, United officially releases the names of 29 of the 37 passengers said to have been aboard Flight 93 at its take-off and crash landing. Amongst the names not known publicly until the end of October are those of Kristin Gould, Hilda Marcin, Louis J. Nacke, along with a single and solitary Donald Peterson---sans spouse---as well as Jane C. Folger's name.
But she is on record in the Sept. 30, 2001, San Francisco Chronicle article as being a member of one of the "families [which] at first sought to grieve in private," so that "their names are not on any official accounting of the doomed flight's passengers or on public lists," at least through the end of September. It is this matter of "family privacy" which United claims was its motivation for handling information as they did, but here they carelessly disclose an identity, which subsequently declared itself as having previously been desirous of privacy.
It may be symptomatic of an organizational discipline running through the main-stream media that even with this inadvertent disclosure, no newspaper or television station picked up on it. What it really means, I should think, is that all these oleaginous corporate tools and suck-ups, guided by a government of goonies, are just full of shit. Cheap shit; as they paste lie upon lie in an endless vortex of deception and deceit. There aren't just a few issues that call into question the broader 9/11 story, or the incredible Flight 93 story in particular, but an endless multitude of stupid and clumsy mistakes; the shameful and half-hearted efforts of dense ideologues, that has turned everything into a crumbling house of cards, destined to Apocalyptic ruination
September 11, 2001, Associated Press, Partial list of Tuesday's hijacking victims, 09:51 p.m. EDT,
September 19, 2001, CNN, Senate considers medals for Flight 93 victims,
September 19, 2001, ThePoliticalGuide, Senate Bill Number: S 1434--Introduced.
September 20, 2001, The Library of Congress / Thomas, H.R.2916 -- Honoring the Passengers and Crew of United Flight 93 Act,
October 28, 2001, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Flight 93: Forty lives, one destiny, by Dennis B. Roddy, Cindi Lash, Steve Levin and Jonathan D. Silver,
Summer/Fall 2001 Victim Policy Pipeline, Congress Responds Quickly to Victims of September 11 Terrorist Attacks,
September 12, 2002, GPO.gov, S. 2924, Read the second time and placed on the calendar,
January 26, 2005, CNN, House votes to limit congressional gold medal awards, by Ted Barrett,
April 9, 2008, USA Today, Medals mulled for 9/11's Flight 93 victims, By Oren Dorell,
April 11, 2008, [Somerset County] Daily American, Flight 93 familities still hopeful Congress will award passengers, by Vicki Rock,
December 16, 2011, casey.senate.gov, Senate Passes Legislation to Honor Victims of 9/11 Introduced by Sens. Casey and Toomey,
Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives, Congressional Gold Medal Recipients(1776 to Present)
Wikipedia, List of Congressional Gold Medal recipients
