I remember that day so well.
I was living with a friend of mine at the time. He IM'ed me when the first tower was hit. I ran to a south facing conference room and watched. People began gathering watching the smoke. We all saw the 2nd plane hit and explode. No one spoke for at least a minute. The movie captures that moment perfectly.
I went back to my office, I am a computer tech, and found woman waiting for my assistance with an MS Office problem...she had not heard. I told her it would have to wait. I called my then girlfriend (now wife) to tell her I was ok. They pulled TV into a conference room where we watched the towers fall.
I left my office after the 2nd tower fell with no way to get off Manhattan (bridges, tunnels, trains all closed). I walked down toward Penn Station. I got lunch in Al's Deli on 7th ave, they were giving things away.
I listened to the radio on my walkman where they were interviewing people who had gotten out of the towers. Firemen, office workers, maintainence people etc...I have never seen or heard so many grown men crying. Living through something like that forces your to deal with your own mortality, I supposed.
After a while I wandered back outside and saw the dust cloud over lower Manhattan. It was 50 stories high and reminded me of driving into a low lying area during a dense fog. It was impeneterable. People were in this stunned daze, it was surreal.
The mood brightened considerable when the F16's were flying overhead. We all figured it was ok at that point.
Eventually they reopened Penn. I was the first person on the first train out of Manhattan. I spent the whole ride looking backward at the cloud. I will never forget it.
Steve Dunleavy had a column in the next day's New York Post (a right leaning daily newspaper). It was titled "JUST KILL THE BASTARDS". I cut it out and put it up at the entrance to my office. I have never agreed with a written sentiment more.
Sorry for going on and on...the movie just brought me back to that place today.
I watched the towers fall from Center St. I had worked in and around those buildings as a field tech. for 18yrs. I knew people murdered that day. Dunleavy was right. Kill the Bastards!
If nothing else, perhaps this movie will jog people's memories of what happened on that day (9-11-01)and restore America's resolve because hey, we are in a real war.
thanks for sharing those personal remarks about 9-11. I wish we all had that "Kill the Bastards" mentality.
I was in Maine on 9-11 and ended up driving home to Atlanta across NYC with the smoke still going and right past the Pentagon, the day after 9-11.
Every bridge from Maine to Atlanta had people with flags standing on it. And south of the Pentagon, at dusk, there were hundreds of cars pulled over to the shoulder, out of their cars with lit candles.
It still brings shivers to think of it.
What about the smell? Every once in a while, it still comes back and my bowels drop.
I was driving back from a training conference, and it was soooo quiet. (aside from the price of gas being $2.25. LOL) Anyway, I look, and heard the sound of a plane flying overhead. This was strange, since all air traffic was grounded.
Turns out that it was the plane, being escorted, with the Secretary of State onboard. He was flying back from South America.