#58: Remembering September 11th, 2001

20 years ago, the world changed forever

The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 by Garrett M. Graff

Commander Frank Culbertson, astronaut, NASA (the only American not on planet earth on September 11, 2001): One of the most startling effects was that within about two orbits, all the contrails normally crisscrossing the United States had disappeared because they had grounded all the airplanes and there was nobody else flying in U.S. airspace except for one airplane that was leaving a contrail from the central U.S. toward Washington. That was Air Force One heading back to D.C. with President Bush.

I decided earlier this year to kick off a new annual tradition of reading a book about the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a way to never forget the events of that day. After reading my friend Jeremy’s review, I knew I needed to begin with Garrett Graff’s 2019 oral history.

How it is structured

The book started as an article in 2016 that chronicled the journey of Air Force One, the “only plane in the sky,” once all other commercial and private aircraft were grounded. Mr. Graff gathered first-person accounts of the press secretaries, reporters, advisers, secret service agents, and others who were with President Bush on September 11th. In the three years following the publishing of the article, Graff gathered more stories and accounts of those in New York, at the Pentagon, in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere.

The structure of the book matches the article where any single narrative is broken up and pieced back together with several others. Short paragraphs, sometimes only one to two sentences in length, are woven together to create multiple, simultaneous vantage points. It is chaotic, perhaps intentionally so, and takes some getting used to. I found it highly effective, especially as an audiobook with a cast of 45 voices.

How it impacted me

This book transported me. Information I had a passing knowledge of took on new meaning when it was presented as lived experiences. For example…

Certain people in the South Tower were told not to evacuate after the first plane hit. The panic and confusion caused by inaction were almost unbearable to read.

Pasquale Buzzelli was in the North Tower, 22nd-floor stairway when the building collapsed. He survived.

Genelle Guzman was rescued from the rubble after 27 hours.

Lt. Col. Ted Anderson and Staff Sgt. Christopher Braman entered and re-entered the burning Pentagon building to rescue people. They eventually had to be restrained by firefighters.

A mother of two with terminal cancer lost her firefighter husband in the attacks and then died 8 weeks later.

Part of me did not want to go there. It is harrowing and sad to hear what it was like in vivid detail. But I can’t help consider that even now, 20 years later, there are survivors and family members of the fallen who relive the day. It will always be with them. By letting their stories in, I found tragedy and loss, but also hope and heroism. It was a journey worth taking.

However you choose to remember, I hope you hold your loved ones close.

Kyle