Saturday marked a very significant anniversary in my life and the life of this country. It marked 20 years since the terrorist attack destroying the Twin Towers in New York City, crashing into the Pentagon in Washington, DC and the thwarted United Flight 93 that was intended for another DC target. My Saturday went on as normal, but Saturday night I sat down to watch an excellent series that National Geographic produced called 9/11: One Day in America. This was a collection of stories told by the survivors of that day. These were the rescuers or the people who were the rescued or amazingly escaped death because of some random thing or place they were in the building right when things were happening. These weren't the stories of the people who were supposed to be there, and for some reason were not that day. These were the people who lived through it. To say the series was intense would be a vast understatement. I cried A LOT watching these people tell their stories. There was also quite a bit of footage I had never seen before. It begins as a normal day. If you recall, it was gorgeous weather that day, not a cloud in the sky. A fire company is called to investigate a gas leak. Someone is documenting the fireman checking the manhole covers in the street. It is business as usual, and then you hear this roar of a jet engine like a fighter pilot is coming through. North Tower of the World Trade Center is in the distance from where they are checking the gas leak, and you see the jet fly right into the building like a rocket. Even after all these years, it absolutely took my breath away when I saw it on the TV screen. I think the fact that it was coming from the perspective of the normal everyday job of a firefighter on the street, expecting nothing, I felt the shock and disbelief with them. It was like watching the day unfold in real time. Many of the stories, even though these people survived, were sad as they talked of their friends, co-workers, strangers even. A battalion chief whose brother was also on the fire department and was dispatched to the South Tower when it was hit. His words were that he watched his brother walk away, and that was the last time he saw him. Firefighters who spoke about how as they began the climb up the 100's of flights to get people out shook each other's hands and shared how they were honored to work with each other because they knew that they may be walking to their death. The mother of one of the men on United Flight 93 who called to talk to his family, knowing that he would not survive this flight and choosing to ruin the terrorist's plans. Story after story of what it was like to go through that day. As I watched Episode after Episode, there are 6, I only made it through 5 until I had to take an emotional break, I kept thinking, - How did these people make it through? How did they handle seeing what they're seeing? I must have said, "I can't imagine!" 50 times. One particularly haunting part was footage of the firefighters at a command post on the bottom floor of the North Tower (the first one hit) they are talking with each other to strategize how to get up to the people who need to be rescued, and you hear a large crash coming from outside. Something has fallen to the ground, and then about 30 seconds later you hear the same sound, and you realize that the sound you hear are bodies hitting the ground as they are jumping from the floors high above realizing their choices are burning alive or falling to the ground stories below. This was a war zone with no time to prepare, no military strategy meetings, no reconnaissance. They just had to act on their gut with a situation that no one had dealt with before. As I watched interview after interview I was moved as over and over again I heard these men and women talk about their "job." They went into those buildings to save people because that is what their job was. Without a thought they did what they had to do. Total strangers stayed with people who were injured. Random people that fate dealt a terrible hand placing them on a plane together that was doomed that day banded together to do what they could to say "not today" to the terrorists on their flight and forced the plane to crash. There was one moment in the series, and it was a piece of footage that had been taken from a reporter on the scene. He is passing a fireman by a firetruck who is taking a small rest after rescue efforts, and you can tell the reporter is trying for a hero angle, and the fireman answers with what almost seems like irritation, "It's my job!" As if to say, I am not a hero, this is what I do. I will try my best to save as many people as I can. This is who I am. Was the series hard to watch? ABSOLUTELY! But there was also hope. Hope that we can be that America again, the America that cares about other people, that puts other's needs before our own. Almost 3000 people died that day, and if they can see the country we have become in the 20 years that have passed, I hope they can forgive us. I pray that we try to become who we were.
