Daughter Of 9/11 Hero Honors Father Through Helping Others

LYNWOOD (CBSLA.com) — Thursday marks the 13th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the daughter of one of the heroes who perished aboard United Airlines Flight 93 says she hopes to help change the lives of others the way her father did.

Halley Burnett, whose father Tom Bunett was one of the heroes on Flight 93, remembers when he called her mother from the plane moments before it crashed into a Pennsylvania field that day 13 years ago.

She was 5.

"I don't know how else to describe it, besides wailing," Halley recalled. "And (my mother) starts screaming 'No!' into the phone."

Tom had told Halley's mother he and other passengers planned to prevent the hijacked plane from causing destruction on the ground, sayingz; "We're going to do something."

Those are now words Halley lives by.

When Habitat For Humanity called Halley to help promote their latest project, she never hesitated to accept.

"It's nice knowing I'm giving back in a way that I can," Halley said. "Not just sit back and watch, we're going to go out and serve, go out and help. We're going to do something."

Halley also credits that motto with helping her to be accepted to Pepperdine University, where her father once attended school.

"It's such a great feeling knowing I actually accomplished what I told my dad I would do and knowing that he's proud of me," Halley said.

Halley plans to attend a 9/11 service Thursday at Pepperdine University.

She says that rather than pitying her, she wants people to learn from her father, as she did, and take action for what's right.