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But members of Princeton Alliance Church in Plainsboro, New Jersey, say they thought of the 32-year-old father of two as a hero long before he and others on United Flight 93 confronted hijackers on the Boeing 757 on September 11.

The flight was the only one that did not hit a target. Instead, it crashed in rural Pennsylvania.

Vice President Dick Cheney said Beamer and the others kept the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history from having an even greater impact in the nation's capital.

"What they did was to foil, I think, the attack on Washington," he said on NBC's Meet the Press. "Without question, the attack would've been much worse if it hadn't been for the courageous actions of those individuals on United 93."

On board Beamer called a GTE Airfone operator about the hijacking, recited the Lord's Prayer, and said, "Let's roll." Beamer and the others, investigators believe, then somehow interfered with the terrorists' plans and kept the jet from hitting a target presumed to be in Washington.

"To the world they were ordinary [but] they figured out how to do extraordinary things. … to overcome the worst adversity I could ever imagine," Beamer's wife, Lisa, told Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America. Lisa Beamer, also 32, is expecting the couple's third child in January. Lisa Beamer says faith and family were always her husband's priorities.

The Beamers, who met as students at Wheaton College in Illinois, have been members of Princeton Alliance for about six years, says John Edgar Caterson, senior associate pastor. They both have been youth sponsors, Todd Beamer taught a high school Sunday school class, and Lisa Beamer is on the church's governing board.

Caterson, a member of a tight-knit small group that included the Beamers, says Todd Beamer was one of his best friends.

"He's one of the few people that I just look up to," Caterson says. "Both of them are rock steady in the faith and grounded in the Word."

Caterson says Beamer spoke constantly of his family, and encouraged him to take special care of his own. Beamer introduced Caterson to his wife and helped organize and fund the limousine and hotel stay for the couple's honeymoon.

Caterson and another minister had recently preached a series of sermons on each line of the Lord's Prayer. They were comforted that their friend said the prayer as he faced his final moments.

While enjoying success as a sales account manager at Oracle Corporation, Beamer scheduled his business trips so he could be home on Sundays. "He was a Promise Keeper before there were Promise Keepers," Caterson says. "His heart's calling was 'First to my God, then to my family.'"

Brian Mumau, another member of the Beamers' small group, recalled that Beamer carried two cell phones and was always talking to people, catching up with them and remembering their prayer requests. Beamer, a 1991 graduate of Wheaton, left a message of encouragement on Mumau's answering machine from the airport just before he boarded Flight 93.

Caterson and Mumau both cited Beamer's quick mind and ability to absorb information and summarize it rapidly.

This summer, Becky Langone watched the Beamer children—David, 3, and Andrew 1—for several hours a week so Lisa could run errands. Langone says Todd would make an effort to spend time with the boys during the day.

"A lot of days, he'd come in when we'd be eating lunch, just to see the boys," she says. Langone, a freshman at Middlesex City College, said the most difficult moments for her come when she remembers a smiling "Drewbie" peeking around the door of his father's home office, or the joy on David's face when he and his dad played baseball.

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September (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45