First to Fight

In the American lexicon, the United States Marine Corps has been termed the "first to fight". That has held true generally in America's wars, but in the war that began on September 11, 2001, the individual who literally was the first to understand the nature of the threat and the first to resist it has received scant attention. His name was Daniel Lewin. He was the co-founder of Akamai Technologies, and a dual US-Israeli citizen who had been an Israeli Special Forces member in their elite Sayeret Matkal. Before the first plane hit the first tower, Lewin rose to fight back, but not knowing the number of hijackers and not having any help from the passengers who had already been cowed into submission by their soon-to-be murderers, Lewin was overwhelmed and had his throat cut with the sketchy reports available from the plane about to be turned into a missile that his head was nearly severed. There was no way that the other passengers could have predicted the monstrous fate that had been planned for them, so it is no slight on them that they did not rise as one to stave off the coming carnage, but do we not all wish that they had?