Americans of all ages likely remember where they were when they learned of the 9/11 attacks.
Alice Hoagland was woken by a series of phone calls while staying at her brother’s.
“I heard the phone ring around 6:30 in the morning and thought, I hope somebody gets that. It stopped, then there was another series of rings. I heard a family friend answer it and pad down the hall and knock on my brother’s door, and I heard his wife Cathy bound out of bed. I thought, something’s up. I came out in my pajamas and I heard her say, ‘We love you too, Mark. Let me get your mom.’ And she said, ‘Alice, come talk to Mark, he’s been hijacked.’ I certainly wasn’t ready for that.”
What followed has gone down in history as one of the first fights against terrorism as the passengers onboard United Flight 93, led in part by Hoagland’s son, Mark Bingham, sought to overtake terrorists who planned to crash the plane in Washington, D.C. The effort ended in a crash in Western Pennsylvania that killed all on board but saved an untold number of lives.
Amid the stories of heroism that emerged from that day, Bingham’s became a rallying point for the LGBT community.
When media calls started coming in to Hoagland, she was faced with a choice: whether to tell the world her son was gay.
“He wasn’t fully out to everyone in his large circle of friends on 9/11,” Hoagland said. “But that afternoon, the San Francisco Chronicle called me and said, ‘We’re doing a story about Mark, we understand he was on the crew of guys who resisted the terrorists, but we heard he was gay. Was he gay?’ Here they are calling his mom and asking this. I had to swallow hard because I didn’t know if Mark wanted me to tell the world, but I knew it was a great thing for them to know, so I said, ‘Yes, he’s gay.’”
Bingham, 31, was a 6-foot-4 rugby player, hardly fitting the gay stereotype, Hoagland said. Bingham found his affinity for rugby in high school in California, where Hoagland raised him as a single mother.
“He came home one afternoon and said, ‘Mom, I found a sport I want to play,’ and I waited, and he said, ‘Rugby,’ and I think my life flashed before me,” Hoagland said. “My idea of rugby was a bunch of crazed, heavy dudes going at each other fullblast without pads and just lots of pain.”
She warmed to the sport after seeing how Bingham benefitted from the teamwork. He continued rugby in college, at the University of California.
It was during his time at UCal that Bingham came out to his mother.
“It was the afternoon of Aug. 27, 1991. We had a great mother-son day and we were driving back to Berkeley,” Hoagland said. “And he started squirming in his seat; we had such a wonderful day, I didn’t know what was going on. And he said, ‘Mom, I’ve got to tell you something that I promised myself I’d tell you before the sun went down today.’ And the sun was literally straight ahead of us ready to hit the western horizon. He launched into this big discussion of his life up to that point and how wonderful it’d been and in the middle he said two words — ‘I’m gay’ — and then there was another big flood of words. I guess he was trying to subliminally cover that in the middle of the conversation.”
Hoagland didn’t react well at first.
“He invited himself down the next couple days and I was at that stage where I was just crying all the time about it and wasn’t very receptive. I kept telling him, ‘If you keep telling people you’re gay everybody will know.’ It was totally nuts. Now I look back on it and, oh brother, how silly,” Hoagland said. “But he was patient with me. He knew I’d come around; Mark came of age and pulled me along with him. And now I’m so grateful for having a son who had enough confidence and love for me to tell me this.”
Bingham went on to launch his own public-relations business.
On 9/11, he was on his way home to San Francisco after a trip to New York City.
When he called his mom from the Airphone, he identified himself by his full first and last name — which 9/11 conspiracy theorists latched onto but what Hoagland said was a result of nerves.
“He said, ‘Mom, this is Mark Bingham. I just want to tell you I love you and I’m on a flight from Newark and there’s three guys on board’ — it turned out to be four — ‘who took over the plane.’ And he said, ‘You believe me Mom, don’t you?’ So I said, ‘Yeah, Mark, I believe you.’”
Bingham then became distracted, as though he was talking to other passengers, she said, and the phone lost connection.
Hoagland, then a United flight attendant who has since retired, called her crew desk and the FBI. After learning about the series of attacks that day, Hoagland called her son back on his cell phone and left him two voicemails informing him that the plane was going to be used as a weapon and that he needed to try to overtake the terrorists.
“He didn’t need to hear this from his mother,” Hoagland said.
Fellow passenger Jeremy Glick told his wife during a phone call while onboard that he and three other guys who were around his height — 6-foot-3 — were formulating a plan to storm the cockpit. While it can’t be ascertained exactly who the four were who led that effort, it has been largely assumed that Glick was joined by Bingham, Todd Beamer and Tom Burnett.
Hoagland said she had hoped for the best until she saw news footage of the crash site near Shanksville and knew intuitively that it was her son’s flight.
Hoagland said she has taken solace from the example Bingham set as a gay man.
“He was able to show people that a gay man can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with three straight guys. Nobody was asking who was gay or straight at that point. They just put a plan together and made a run on the cockpit,” she said. “He became what he said the world needed: a role model for young, gay people. He’s a guy who’s gay and who’s strong and willing to finish a fight that somebody else started. I want to tell bigots and people who misunderstand the LGBT community, ‘Look at the life of Mark Bingham and see that the LGBT community is a force to be reckoned with.’”
Hoagland has become an active LGBT ally, telling her son’s story to everyone from PFLAG members to talk-show hosts.
She is an ardent supporter of the gay-rugby sphere, even electing to skip an invite to the 2006 Cannes Film Festival for the screening of “United 93” because she was attending the Mark Bingham Cup, an international LGBT rugby tournament.
“Mark’s rugby friends started it and they’ve been doing it since 2002 and I’ve been to every Cup. I had to tell Cannes, ‘I can’t go because I’m going to play rugby!’ It’s a wonderful time.”
Bingham’s rugby roots are central to “The Rugby Player,” a documentary fusing Bingham’s own photos and video with interviews, highlighting the unique bond between Bingham and Hoagland.
Hoagland said the film keeps Bingham’s memory alive, and at an opportune time.
“This community is at the threshhold of a marvelous new age and I wish Mark was here for this because he brought me to this place,” she said. “When I think about how ungracious and confused I was when Mark came out, I have to laugh at myself. It’s a real pleasure speaking to the gay community and speaking for the gay community. He wasn’t completely out when he died, but his mom finished the job for him. In many ways, Mark taught me how to live my life. From the moment he was conceived until present day, I’m still all about my son.”
Alice Hoagland will be in Philadelphia for the screening of the film at QFest, 5 p.m. July 20 at Ritz East, 125 S. Second St.