On Flight 93...

By now, unless you eschew most forms of media, you are probably aware that the movie Flight 93 opens today. Chances are that you have already formed an opinion about the movie, or more directly, about the release of a movie that rehashes the events…and more importantly the emotions of 9/11. There have been a line up of folks that have come out in support and have come out…if not against, then at least questioning a studio’s motives.

I will admit, before this week I did have some idea that this movie was releasing soon, but had not really thought too much about my feelings towards it. That is not surprising. I’m an emotional procrastinator. I don’t think about how I will or should feel about something until the moment before the “event”. I think it is safe to say that I’m not against emotions…I can, from time to time, be quite emotional. A well-cooked slab of some sort of meat makes me quite joyful and even a bit weepy. Not putting the puck into a wide-open net can make me quite vitriolic. Overall though, I like my Delayed Emotional Response policy even when it sometimes bites me in the glutemous regions.

I will not be going to see Flight 93. That was really a forgone conclusion since I haven’t been to a theater in nigh on a year now. Even though I see an unhealthy amount of movies in a year, they are almost solely on the small screen. The arrival of an infant daughter precludes most forms of going out, and theater attendance has evaporated. However, what I mean is, even if given the chance to, I don’t think I would see it at this time. I’m not sure I’ll even rent it when it comes out…

…and it’s not because I think the movie is too soon, or that I have a problem with a movie studio making a movie about 9/11 that will ultimately profit the company. I’ve done some research. I know that the director, Paul Greengrass, received the unanimous consent of the families of Flight 93 victims to make the movie. That makes this their collaborative effort…it makes it their story. I also know that 10% of the profit will go to the memorial fund for the victims. In addition, I like that none of the actors seem to have done this for a big payday. In fact, most of the folks apparently aren’t really actors…or at least not A list folks. I would have a huge problem if Brad Pitt or another very popular actor had done the film and made their usual salary. Not to disparage Mr. Pitt, I’m just using him as an example. I’d still like to see the studio do more with the profit than just 10%, but if the families thought that was fair, I’m not going to be overly picky.

By all accounts, Flight 93 appears to be a major success too. Critics or giving it huge praise. I’m not sure how you really “criticize” this movie, especially as an American. I suppose if the actors had really been poor…like a made for TV movie, that one might pile on criticism. However, I do tend to believe what I’m hearing that Flight 93 is very well made and does honor to those involved…especially because it avoids the political. Frankly, I find that astounding in and of itself. No, that was not a jab at Hollywood. That is a statement that the director stuck to facts, let the audience decide (as they probably already have) who the fault lies with, and simply tells a story of brave folks in a really, really @&$%# day.

I will not see this movie because it is too soon for me. Remember that Delayed Emotional Response policy I spoke of earlier? Well, that comes into play for me in a big way when talking about 9/11. As many of you know, had the plane that struck the Pentagon been about 25 to 50 feet to the left of where it actually impacted, I would definitely not be here. I’ve meant to write down my experiences on 9/11 for a long time now. I think most people in this country have had that same thought, or have actually done it. I haven’t, and I think I haven’t because of my delayed emotional response. Over the past five years, it has increasingly dawned on me how lucky I was/am.

I don’t know why God makes the decisions He makes. You may not believe He exists, so I’ll state it another way. I don’t know why I got so damn lucky when hundreds of other folks were not. I do know that a series of fortuitous events/facts saved my two months married wife from receiving really bad news. Rapping my head around that has been a five-year experience so far, and I’m still not quite there. As my marriage has progressed and I’ve become a father, I think the realization of the things I could have missed set in. And, I think ultimately why I never wrote down my thoughts or feelings about that day is because they were so different than what most of the country was feeling…and I felt a little guilty about that.

My experience on 9/11 was one of horrified exuberance. I know that may sound insane, or even completely wrong to you, so allow me to explain. I’ll start at the beginning. I had arrived in office at about the time I normally do that day. My usual routine was to see if there was anything “hot” that had come in the after I had left the day before, or that had come in early that morning. Usually there wasn’t and this day was no different. Once I’d established that a light workday appeared to be on the horizon, I settled into getting a quality and, of course, healthy breakfast….Mt Dew and Pop Tarts. I am truly a physical specimen magnificent to behold. While I ate this essence of good dietry, I started to surf the web.

My first sites are typically movie news. I don’t know why, this was even pre-Netflix. I guess I just like to get the light stuff out of the way early. Besides, for some reason, CNN was just not loading for me that morning. WashingtonPost.com was also slow for some reason. I can’t even remember what movie I was interested in at the time, but once I had received the latest low down, I tried CNN and the WP again. No dice on CNN, but the Post came up…sort of. All I got was a headline that read “Plane Hits World Trade Center”. I commented to my boss, a Lt Col who sits next to me about it. We wondered, how could a Cessna not see these two giant buildings in New York. Maybe it was some sort of deranged protest. It had happened at the White House once. We had no idea, and the thought that it was a jetliner never crossed our minds.

Still, we went into the Colonel’s office to check out the footage since it was obvious this news was what was slowing down all the news websites. When we turned on the TV, I think it was already set to NBC or something. I just remember seeing the plane hit the World Trade Center, and the announcer saying that this was a visual of the second plane hitting the other building. We had literally just turned on the TV set, so our eyes hadn’t even seen that there was already a burning hole in the first building.

I think you know what happened then. It was a lot like what happened in your personal experience. The room was silent on the realization that this was no accident…and certainly no Cessna. Questions bubbled in my brain as it did yours. Were there people in that plane? How many people where in those buildings…or on those floors? Can those buildings possible stay standing? But there was also a significant difference that I don’t think a lot of people had. War had been declared before our eyes, and I was standing in probably the one building besides the White House and Capitol where that realization would impact the most. And what I sensed from those around me, especially those in uniform was not panic, or anger…it wasn’t even fear. It was determination. Not wild, emotion driven determination either. It was the realization that something was happening that could directly affect some of the personnel in the room first hand, and they were determined to do their duty.

Before I go further, I don’t want to give the impression that the office I support as a contractor is a war fighting office. We are responsible for two programs: Arms Control and Counterproliferation (think Counter-WMD). Most of the officers I work with are former satellite or nuclear missile officers, although we did have a few bomber pilots/co-pilots/navigator types. Basically, folks who would have first hand knowledge of nuclear weapons in the Air Force. Since most of the treaties affecting the Air Force deal with the reduction of nuclear missiles, that makes sense. So you can see that a declaration of war, such as 9/11, would not directly impact our office in a policy way. It did end up impacting Counterproliferation though.

We watched footage of the attack for a few minutes. It then dawned on me that I might want to call my parents to see if they were aware of what was going on. My wife was in the middle of teaching class, so I could not reach her…and I figured that word had spread by that point. I called my Mom and ended up waking her up, so she was totally unaware. I waited as she turned on the TV. She was stunned, as was the normal response that day. I don’t remember much else about our conversation, but I do remember her telling me to get out of the Pentagon. I also remember my response: “Mom, they aren’t going to attack the Pentagon”. I believed that too. It was stunning that “they” could get a hold of two airliners…but I was sure it was impossible that they would have hijacked more.

Flight 77 hit the Pentagon roughly five to ten minutes later. I had just left the Col’s office again after watching a little bit of footage. I was looking back at him saying something when the building shook. I couldn’t see his window, but I could see the reflection on the wall and hit had gone completely orange for a couple of seconds. I turned to look over at my desk, which did have a window. The blinds were drawn, but I could tell the fire was flickering outside my window and dust or smoke started to come through the cracks at the bottom.

At the time my office was divided into two actual offices. I sat in the “main office” that held the Colonel, his deputy, the MSgt that basically ran the office logistically, and my direct boss a Lt Col who was in charge of the budget. I supported him directly. The rest of the office that handled policy was directly across the hall from us. It sat about 20 or 30 Air Force officers and contractors.

The MSgt had been across the hall watching the footage there. Seconds after the building was hit, he busted into the main office door and told everyone to get out. That was a foregone conclusion, but still, he was our security manager. I remember my first three steps being all jelly legs as the realization that something…a bomb, a helicopter (the helicopter pad was on that side of the Pentagon at the time) or another plane had just hit us. One thing was for sure, it was no accident and now we were pretty much all thinking that anything could happen that day.

At the end of the hall we took a left to go towards the outer ring, the E Ring. We were on the D Ring on the top floor (floor 5) and coming down the 5th corridor I believe. Smoke and dust had really started do come in. I vaguely recollect and Marine officer directing people towards the staircase down to the ground floor. At that point, I still didn’t realize that our side of the building had been hit, or even how bad it was. But when we got down to the ground floor, a number of Pentagon Police officers were directing us not to go out the set of doors that were right there, but to go into the center of the building and work our way to the Metro, South or North Parking exits. Along with two other guys from my office, we actually listened to that instruction and went towards the center of the building. The rest of my office basically said “screw that noise, those doors look perfectly fine to me” and exited the building…and saw the impact site, the detritus of what little of the plane remained and made a bee line for Ft. Myer a couple of miles away. The somewhat amusing ending to their story is that they ended up going to the Officer’s Club and succeeding in getting the bar open. I could relate, a drink wouldn’t have been a bad thing at that moment.

Separated, I made my way to the Metro exit. There was a glut of folks there trying to get out. Later, I would really recognize the total difference between the attack in NY and the attack on the Pentagon. There was almost no panic at the Pentagon. It was insane how orderly we exited the building through one set of double doors. Behind me folks were talking about the work they needed to get done once they were allowed back in. That is not a sad commentary on how driven folks are in DC…it is an amazing statement about the resilience exhibited. They new, as well as I did, that suddenly much of what they were doing would matter…not in the abstract, but in the present. It was the realization that not only had war been declared, but that this building, the one that had been hit, was not out of commission and would play prominently in a future response.

The rest of the day I basically made my way, over three hours, to a pay phone where I called a friend. He had been in contact with both my wife and my family and quickly relayed the message back to them that I was alright. This was a real blonde moment for me. No offense to blondes of course. I don’t know if it was shock or what, but I was definitely aware of what was going on around me, and oddly, there was no place that I’d rather be. It never occurred to me that my family was going insane with worry, or that my wife was probably slightly interested in my well being. I remember distinctly being told to walk away further and further from the building because another plane, Flight 93 it turned out, was unaccounted for and heading our way. I remember F-16s flying overhead, including one that “buzzed” the Pentagon. I’m not sure why he did, but I like to think that was his way of telling us “I’m on it.” I remember some kid walking onto a now dead stopped I-395 that goes right by the Pentagon and waving a huge American flag.

Finally, I remember getting to that same friends house with my wife and watching what had happened over the entire day. I never saw the towers fall down. The panic and total chaos, although not unseen around the Pentagon, was nothing like that. In a lot of ways, I think 9/11 was more terrible for the folks that could only sit there and watch it unfold, and especially for those who had loved ones unaccounted for.

I could not have been more proud of my country than that day, in that area. A lot went so entirely wrong not just to get us in that situation, but in the handling of our response. Our response to the crisis that day was so disjointed, mostly because we had never dealt with it. I believe the movie Flight 93 shows some of that…not as indictment, but just as a fact. But here at the Pentagon, if it was chaos, it was inspiring, determined and effective chaos. It shows exactly why we have one of the best, if not the best military in the world. It showed that while I may disagree with some of the leadership, both civilian and military, there is no place I’d rather work.

But years away from that day, I don't really want to revisit it...not yet. Flight 93 shows exactly how strong we can actually be as a people. It shows folks that really did save the country from further death and destruction by their own sacrifice. I truly hope that the movie can do it justice as I hear that it has. While I can't bring myself to see it, I do believe in the idea of people remembering that day, and that there was some really beautiful things that happened, even in the midst of terror and chaos.