United 93

I wasn’t sure I wanted to see this film.  In fact, until this morning, I was against it.  

The review I read this morning changed my mind.  Sure, there’s all the talk about the passengers of Flight 93 as heroes (they were), but what brought me to this film this afternoon was the notion that it should stand not just as a tribute film, but as a reminder of how life has changed since before 9/11.

I spotted two right away – the cavalier approach to airport security, with cursory searches of passengers entering the security area, and the hot meals being served in flight.

Much was made in the press stories about this film that the passengers of United 93 were the first to realize that everything had changed.  I’m not entirely sure that’s true.  By the time they were presented with their final array of choices, the World Trade Center had already been attacked, and both towers were on fire.  It’s more accurate to say that United 93 was the site on which Americans first fought back.

I learned of the terrorist action at around the same time they did, when I got a phone call from the woman I was dating at the time.  She often called during her commutes when the traffic was slow, but this morning, her voice was a mix of shock and anger.  “Someone bombed the World Trade Center,” she said.  Not, “Good morning,” but, “Someone bombed the World Trade Center.”

I had been sound asleep, and it took me a few minutes to process what she’d said.  I could hear the car radio in the background, and she’d listen for a moment and relay the sketchy misinformation to me.  “No one knows who, but they used airplanes.  Both towers are on fire.”

At that point, I remember throwing off the covers and stomping out to the living room and turning on CNN.  

I was stunned by what I saw.  Instead of the burning towers of the World Trade Center I expected, I was looking at the stone edifice of a shorter building.  Seconds later, a banner appeared at the bottom which read, “The Pentagon.”

Oh, fuck, I said.  Oh, fuck.  I gotta go, Sharon, we’re at war.

The guards at the gate to the base where I worked wore body armor and carried firearms.  I’d never seen them carrying shotguns before.  As the off-going duty section leader, I raced back to the security office, where everyone not monitoring traffic through the gate was riveted to Fox News.  

None of us knew it yet, but United 93 had already torn a hole a 115 feet deep in a Pennsylvania field.  

My relief showed up, and together we made what decisions we could about security, which weren’t many.  We made sure our students went to their classrooms.  And we waited.

Just before 0800 or so, Regional Security called and directed us to lock the base down.  Gates on the incoming side were to be closed, no further incoming traffic was allowed, for any reason.  All students and non-essential personnel were to be sent home.  

My boss had been Command Duty Officer the night before, and she arrived just as they were sliding home the bolt on the gates.  She was sent home.  Because she was still responsible for the command, she called my cellular phone, and though I would normally have been considered non-essential, I became her arms and legs inside the fence.  At least, that was the plan.  There wasn’t much for either of us to do but vent our frustration and calm each other’s fears.

I called my older daughter and found her home sick from school.  She’d been watching the television, totally bewildered.  I told her not to worry about me, that I was okay, and that I loved her.  In retrospect, I might as well have just shouted I’m scared shitless!!!! into the phone, because I don’t think she was worried until that moment.

None of us knew that morning, of course, the extent of the changes in our lives.  We simply sat, dazed, and watched as the inexorable moment washed over us.

The next morning, my cubicle mate and I sent e-mails to every ship in the Pacific Fleet: “Need a Tomahawk chief?”  Several ships did.

On the 15th, my cube mate and I met separately with our department head to sign our annual fitness reports.  He’d gone in first, and apparently spoken of our intent to find ships to go to so that we could do our part in the war, whenever we hit back.  

Then it was my turn.  Before I could say more than a few words, the department head slid my fitness report across the conference table in his office and said, “Chief, I just have one question: if you both go, who can do your job while you’re gone?”

“I don’t know, sir,” I answered.

“Neither do I, Chief.  You’re staying right here.”

Shit.  

That afternoon, I suggested that we double the number of training exercises we ran, and for the next eight months, I worked twelve hours a day preparing ships to go to war, an effort for which I received two medals, one as an active duty sailor and the other as a civilian.

Someday, I may travel to Shanksville, Pennsylvania and bury those medals in the field alongside the passengers of United 93.

*     *     *

As I waited for the film to begin, I wondered about my fellow moviegoers; how many of them had anguishing personal stories to tell about that day?  How many could claim some connection to the events depicted in the film?

For me, there are two more connections.  

One of them is fairly direct: a friend was a United flight attendant at the time who did a schedule swap that got her out of flying aboard Flight 93 that day.  It was purest luck; 93 was one of her regular flights.

The other was a strong sense of personal responsibility for the events of 9/11.  I cannot explain many of my reasons for feeling this way, but for years after the attacks, I believed them to be well-founded.  The release of the 9/11 Commission Report has largely changed those feelings in ways I have yet to fully explore.  

There has been a great deal of debate over whether enough time has passed for us to confront the events of 9/11 through the arts.  I do not believe more time should pass; I’m sorry Leroy Neiman didn’t set up his easel and do one of his speedily rendered impressionist paintings while the towers were still standing.

It doesn’t take much observation to conclude that we Americans have become even more decadent, more complacent than we were when Osama bin Laden ordered the 9/11 attacks.  Go stand at any major intersection for twenty minutes and count the number of people holding cellular phones to their faces while driving.  

It’s long past time.  

We should have been reciting the names of the United 93 passengers who fought back every day.  (We’ve got time, after all, now that we can’t say the Pledge of Allegiance.)  (LeRoy Homer, CeeCee Lyles, Sandra Bradshaw, Todd Beamer, Mark Bingham, Tom Burnett, Andrew Garcia, Jeremy Glick, and Richard Guadagno are believed to be the key players in the counterattack on the cockpit.)

It is definitely long past time for heartfelt remembrance.

I keep the flag presented to me at my retirement on the book shelf in my living room.  It is in a triangular display case, the only formal display of career memorabilia I’ve allowed myself.  The flag was flown on September 11th, 2002, over the ship which hosted my retirement ceremony, one of two such flags flown that day.  The other was given to a shipmate who was so badly burned in the attack on the Pentagon that a year later he was still wearing artificial skin on much of his body.

Long past time, indeed.

*     *     *

Now, the movie does contain a few deviations from the official account.  

First Officer LeRoy Homer is shown to be the first man killed by the terrorists, and the pilot is also shown being stabbed to death, both during the initial struggle for control of the cockpit.  The transcript of the cockpit voice recorder shows that one of the terrorists had a problem in the cockpit and asked one of his comrades to bring the pilot back to the cockpit to help.  Clearly, he’d have had no reason to do so if both pilots had been killed in his line of sight.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, the film shows the passengers gaining access to the cockpit and the crash as a result of their struggling for control of the plane.  Again, the CVR transcript proves this was not the case.  While the passengers were futilely bashing at the door with a service cart, the two terrorists in the cockpit considered turning off the oxygen to the passenger compartment, then argued about whether or not to fly the plane into the ground to prevent the passengers from regaining control of the flight.  In the end, the two terrorists rolled the plane inverted and pulled as hard as they could for the ground.

Neither of these discrepancies detract from the essence of the film, which perfectly captures the sense of shock, confusion, and powerlessness we all felt that day.  

Go see it.