Profiles in courage on Sept. 11: Ordinary people do fight terror

WASHINGTON -- Near the climax of the new Sept. 11 movie ''United 93," after four hijackers have taken control of the plane, passengers and flight attendants huddle in the rear of the cabin, trying to decide what to do.

The hijackers don't seem to be flying the plane to a nearby airport, as the passengers had whispered among themselves. Phone calls to relatives reveal that two earlier flights had plowed into the World Trade Center, and another into the Pentagon.

One of the hijackers is trying to keep the passengers at bay by strapping himself with explosives, but the dynamite doesn't look real: Could dynamite have made it through the scanners at Newark Airport?

The group wants to take action, but what are the most useful weapons -- a drink cart? A flashlight? A canister of oxygen? And what's the quickest way to subdue the two nervous hijackers in the passenger cabin?

The passengers and flight attendants never really find out, but they push their way forward anyway, forcing the hijackers to ditch the plane, and averting an attack on the US Capitol.

The movie does more than establish the unvarnished heroism of the passengers and crew, who lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001. It shows that in certain kinds of attacks, the best defense is neither the police nor the military, but the actions of ordinary people thrust into extraordinary situations.

Indeed, it's hard to sit through ''United 93" without being reminded of the other time passengers thwarted an attack on a jetliner, and saved their own lives in the process: the attempted shoe-bombing of American Airlines Flight 63, on Dec. 22, 2001.

But since both United 93 and American 63 represent legendary triumphs of action over terror, it's surprising that the government isn't doing more to teach people what to do when confronted by terrorists on their own plane, train, subway station, or office building.

Civil defense has been an important part of most wars, both as a source of protection -- think of the World War II fishermen, keeping their eyes out for submarines -- and of psychological reassurance that attacks can be repelled, and that even bombings can be survived.

In the Cold War, civil defense reached some odd extremes. In the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis, White House aides were given stickers to put on their cars so they could be waved ahead of traffic leaving Washington in a nuclear attack.

''Is this a joke?" a Kennedy aide, Lawrence O'Brien, asked the person handing out the stickers, according to the book ''President Kennedy" by Richard Reeves.

Perhaps because so much of the Cold War civil defense planning seemed useless or weirdly ironic, in a ''Dr. Strangelove" way, there has been no equivalent effort to engage citizenry in the war on terrorism.

But as United 93 and American 63 have demonstrated, there are more opportunities for average people to fight back in the war on terrorism than during the Cold War. Terrorism sometimes strikes at rather small groups of individuals, such as through kidnappings or hijackings. And even in a case of attempted mass destruction, such as the much-feared explosion of a nuclear ''dirty bomb," individuals might have a good chance of sussing out a suspicious truck or package.

Already, military officers and war reporters receive training in how to conduct themselves in a kidnapping -- how to figure out what psychological weapons might be at their disposal, and to know when to cooperate and when to flee or fight. The courses are common enough that versions could be taught in schools, clubs, churches, or other places.

But while the Department of Homeland Security has made efforts to help communities get ready for possible attacks -- including the creation of nearly 2,000 local Citizens Corps Councils -- they have focused mostly on FEMA-style preparedness; the Citizen Corps website offers advice on how to create a ''three-day disaster supply kit," but not what to do if confronted by a hijacker, a kidnapper, or a suspected terrorist.

Homeland Security officials did not return messages asking for further information on civil defense programs. But giving people a sense of when and how to fight back might do more than just prepare them for the unlikely chance that they'll be aboard another United 93. It could rob the terrorists of their best weapon: the fear that nothing can stop them.

Peter S. Canellos is the Globe's Washington bureau chief. National Perspective is his weekly analysis of events in the capital and beyond.