In the air on 9/11 - gives you chills still

[Glenn E. Meyer]

https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...excerpt-228001

Read esp. the interviews with the pilots who were going after Flight 93. Talk about the right stuff.

[UniSol]

So cliche', but seems like yesterday, and the world was a different place. I was 21 and just back from a 3 month rotation in SE Asia, sitting in the jump shack at airborne school...truly a different time. The phrase "back in those days, a 55" TV was really big..." made me stop and think how long ago that really was.

Also, reading through the Flight 93 transcripts I was amazed again at the foresight and decisiveness of those guys.....it angers me that 9/11 has become a cliche or even a punchline for so many.

[farscott]

This is dedication to duty:

Lt. Col. Marc Sasseville, F-16 pilot, U.S. Air Force: As we’re going out to the jets, Lucky and I had a quick conversation about what it is that we were going to do and how we were basically going to do the unthinkable if we had to.

Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney, F-16 pilot, D.C. Air National Guard: We would be ramming the aircraft. We didn’t have [missiles] on board to shoot the airplane down. As we were putting on our flight gear in the life support shop, Sass looked at me and said, “I’ll ram the cockpit.” I made the decision I would take the tail off the aircraft.

Lt. Col. Marc Sasseville: We didn’t have a whole lot of options.

[JohnO]

I remember that morning so clearly. The day before I was in New Jersey at the baptism of my brother's first child. I drove back to CT and everyone in my car marveled at the beautiful NYC skyline as we drove past Manhattan. Little did we know it was soon to change forever.

The morning of 9/11 I was feeding my infant son, sitting in the sofa watching of all things the Today Show on NBC. Matt Lauer was talking with an author when he pressed on his earpiece and said, "what's that? are we going to that now?" I knew something was up. I switched over to CNN and watched history unfold. Then the frantic phone calls ensued. My brother was scheduled to be in the South Tower that morning for a meeting. My wife's brother worked across from the Pentagon. There were rumors about Chicago and my wife's other brother was in Chicago.

Fortunately all were fine and my brother's meeting was postponed. All the hospitals in CT went on high alert expecting mass casualties and unfortunately that didn't happen because so few were only injured. Death ruled the day.

[RoyGBiv]

I was in SJC, my pregnant wife and young child in RDU, many of my work colleagues in the UK and Hong Kong. I remember stepping out of the shower, still oblivious, and turning on the TV just in time to see the second tower fall. Just then my phone rings, my people in the UK wanting to know what was going on. "Both of the Twin Towers are gone", I said. "I just watched the second one fall, live on TV". I spent the morning answering my phone in the middle of meetings, trying to confirm that friends and family working in the financial district were safe. Thankfully they were still on their way to work when the first plane struck the tower.

After 4-5 days (?), when it became clear that there would be a logjam getting out of the Bay area, I hopped in my rental car to start the drive home. All the car rental companies were waving any 1-way charges. Mine would have been a doozy. I remember a convoy of rental cars doing 110 across the California desert, the nose of my Toyota pushed in by the wind, hoping the hood latch would hold up. My wife managed to find me a flight out of ABQ the next morning, so, after 16 hours of driving I crashed for 5 hours at an airport hotel and flew the rest of the way home. I remember how quiet it was in the airport and on the flight. A lot of "There but for the grace of God go us" hanging in the air.

[Chance]

Pre-ordered the book. Not looking forward to reading it, however.

The NORAD Tapes are one of the most fascinating things I've ever read / heard and it drives me insane that Vanity Fair didn't maintain the audio. I've even tried reaching out to them about it and I can't get through their "Contact Us" nonsense.

[farscott]

Pre-ordered the book. Not looking forward to reading it, however.

The NORAD Tapes are one of the most fascinating things I've ever read / heard and it drives me insane that Vanity Fair didn't maintain the audio. I've even tried reaching out to them about it and I can't get through their "Contact Us" nonsense.

Thanks for the link to the VF article. That article is a great demonstration of the fog of war and made me remember all of the confusion on that day.

We lived in metro Atlanta on 9/11, and there was an alert about a hijacked plane over the city. Of course, that was false, but we did not know that at the time. There was a ton of confusion at every level of American society. When I left work that day, I topped off my fuel tank and headed to the grocery store. I figured if we were at war there was no guarantee food and fuel were going to be available tomorrow. I still remember getting gas that day and grabbing some deli meat from Publix. The cellular networks were useless and I did not text at that time (had a Nokia phone), so I called family members from the landline at home.

[TGS]

My sister, a teacher, stayed late at the school to be with the kids who's parents didn't come home that day.

They had to be with someone until the grandparents or siblings came, even if it was a teacher in a classroom until 8pm.

[blues]

I spent part of the day trying to convince the higher ups at my outfit that coming up with a plan for our agents to proactively protect the port of Miami and the airport took precedence over the audit of the evidence room scheduled for the following week. (I didn't prevail.)

[entropy]

Never Forget.