Crystal Morning - sobering video

This moving commemoration of 9/11 was posted and linked on Powerlineblog.com yesterday (Link to Powerline article). The Powerline writeup was:

Evan Coyne Maloney has put together a seven-minute 9/11 video memorial edited from footage shot by eyewitness David Vogler. The video tells the story of September 11, 2001 through fire and ambulance radio calls, the 911 call of a trapped World Trade Center worker, and the lens of local resident who saw an explosion while walking to work.

Emergency services radio and phone calls were taken from publicly released tapes originally recorded on 11 September 2001.

The "Melissa" speaking on the phone with an unidentified 911 operator was Melissa C. Doi. The recording of her phone call was originally released during the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui.

All footage in Crystal Morning was shot on the 11th, 12th and 30th of September 2001 by David Vogler.

The audio and video used in the film is not arranged in exact chronological order.

The video of the World Trade Center rubble that appears during the post-collapse "mayday" radio calls was not shot on the same day the calls were recorded. The radio calls occurred on 11 September 2001, while the footage was recorded on 30 September 2001.

* To all the innocents killed on September 11th, 2001, * To all the people who died while trying to save others, * To all the people who comforted those who knew they were facing the final moments of their lives, * To everyone who lost someone dear, * To New York City, * To the men and women working to defeat those who attacked us and those who desire to, * To the two towers whose beauty I did not appreciate until after they were gone, and * To the hope that this mad world might one day rise above the mentality that caused September 11th.

For those of you who have not seen this video…do it. It is a painful reminder of the horror of 911. As an editor myself I have to say this is a wonderful work of video (albeit that the subject matter is so horrendous) that raised the hair on my arms in an adrenalin rush of anger. I found my fists clenching at the anguish of watching someone at the top of one of the towers trying to get someone’s attention and knowing that this person was doomed to die. Until today, I had never heard the recordings of the firemen trapped in the rubble of the towers after the collapse, and I was grief stricken when I did hear them crying out for help in pain and anguish. The second I heard the man in a panic stricken voice stating that he is trapped in the fire truck under the rubble and he says “save me” I involuntary gasped at the horror of it. Too many of us have truly forgotten the chaos, bloodshed, and overall exclamation of dread of that day, and this video truly sums it up for us…once again…even if we don’t want to see it.

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