Flight attendan(t)

Here are the words of Sandy Berry, an American Airlines flight attendant : After Sept. 9, 2001 I was supposed to go to Paris the following Friday. I did not go. The company did not make you go.

I finally went back 10 days later. But I was scared. Flying home from my Chicago base, a Middle Eastern-looking guy sat beside me. I felt bad for how everyone stared at him, but I was twitchy, too. When he turned off my reading light, I raised my pen like a knife and said, "That's my light! Leave it alone!" That's when I realized I had to do something.

Suddenly we flight attendants were the last line of defense, because that cockpit is never opening again. But we didn't get extra training, not even plastic handcuffs and tape, until later.

So in January 2002 I called a martial arts school in Moon. My fellow flight attendant and friend Dot Sawyer and I took a self-defense class, then started taking tang soo do. We loved it.

By that April, I'd learned enough that I could go back to work. I had some control again. It was gnarly, but I have stuck with martial arts, and after four years, this July, I received my first-degree black belt. Me, who only thought of belts as fashionable. Now there's no doubt in my mind that I can defend myself and take someone down.

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