Mark Bingham: From Cal to Flight 93

Honoring a hero of 9/11

By Matthew Vasquez
From the September 2006 Print Edition

This September 11 will mark the fifth anniversary of the death of Mark Bingham, a UC Berkeley grad and member of its world-famous rugby team. Bingham was one of the passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 that morning and is believed to be one of the men who charged into the cockpit of the hijacked plane, causing it to crash into an empty field in Pennsylvania instead of its intended target, Capitol Hill.

In a sense Mark had been preparing for that day his entire life. His life combined a determined, insurmountable will with physical strength. Those who knew Mark remember him as adventurous and spirited.
 On markbingham.org, a Web site dedicated to remembering and honoring the Cal graduate, friend Joseph Salama recalls his first football game at Cal, in which Mark attempted to tackle the rival schools’ mascot. At the 1993 Big Game, Mark did successfully tackle the Stanfurd Tree. While at Cal, Mark joined the fraternity Chi Psi, and later became its president. 

It was during these college years that Mark revealed to his mom and his friends that he was gay. His mother, Alice Hoglan, said in an interview with the Baltimore Sun in December of 1991, “It’s not news any mother would welcome. It was some weeks before I could get my arms around it.” 

After Mark graduated from Cal in 1993 he began work for Alexander Communications, a public relations firm, and later took a job with 3Com, a manufacturer of computer networking products. In 1999 he started his own company, the Bingham Group, a PR firm specializing in the high-tech market. 

In December 1993, Mark met Paul Holm at a Christmas party. Paul would become Mark’s companion for the next six years. Holm writes on markbingham.org, “We were very much in love and as close to soul mates as I think either of us got.” Throughout their relationship, the two would travel to many locations around the globe. Holm and Mark stayed good friends for the rest of Mark’s life.

Even after his college sporting career, rugby remained an important part of Mark’s life. He was one of the founding members of the San Francisco Fog Rugby Football Club, a rugby team founded in October 2000. In an e-mail to the team after learning that the S.F. Fog had been accepted as a permanent member of the Northern California Rugby Football Union Mark wrote, “I finally felt accepted as a gay man and a rugby player. My two irreconcilable worlds came together.”

By 2001, things were changing quickly for Mark. Mark had begun living part time in New York, and had started an office there. In the summer of 2001, his firm, which until that point had been doing well, began to lose clientele. This however did not stop Mark from living life. In January 2002, Peer-Olaf Richter told The Advocate that Mark was checking in from Hawaii, Las Vegas, Monaco, or Pamplona, Spain, while others worried about the decrease in business that summer.

On September 10, 2001, Mark spent the evening with Matt Hall in Matt’s New Jersey home. The next day he woke up late, and Matt rushed him to Newark International so that he could catch his plane back to San Francisco. Mark barely made his flight, and the rest is history.  Those that knew Mark have no doubt that he was one of the heroes that charged the cockpit of that flight once he realized the intentions of the hijackers. For them, it is enough proof for them that he was on the flight. 

“I cannot say that I love [America] more or as well as Mark Bingham did, or the other heroes on United Flight 93 who gave their lives to prevent our enemies from inflicting an even greater injury on our country,” said Senator John McCain in a eulogy to Mark Bingham, who had supported his 2000 presidential bid. “It has been my fate to witness great courage and sacrifice for America’s sake, but none greater than the selfless sacrifice of Mark Bingham and those good men who grasped the gravity of the moment, understood the threat, and decided to fight back at the cost of their lives.”

“He had achieved things in 31 years that many people never achieve in a much longer lifetime,” writes Holm on markbingham.org. “Mark loved to root for his teams — especially his beloved Golden Bears and Miami Dolphins. Mark never wore red.”

Mark was a man, a hero, and a golden bear. As the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks approaches, remember Mark and those who lost their lives that day: not for their tragic deaths, but for the lives they lived and the people they were.

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