I’m a bit like Ed Gilgore, who writes today…:
Most years I don’t get too involved in 9/11 reminiscences. It’s not like any American old enough to be aware of what was happening that day is going to forget it. Some ideologues want us all to get hysterical each 9/11, but they are the ones whose memories are impaired, forgetting the horrendous mistakes made in the name of retaliation for the attacks.
But nevertheless, it’s almost insane NOT to say something.
As I often do on this day, I watch (and/or listen to) MSNBC, which shows “At It Happened” — basically what happened on NBC on Tuesday September 11, 2001, starting with the Today show. The first 3 hours are, as you can well imagine, very riveting. What always strikes me is the vast amount of confusion and misinformation. Once it was clear that we were under attack, we just had no idea how bad it was going to get. So you get reports (which turn out to be false) about a car bomb at the Capitol, and a bomb at Stuyvesant Elementary School in Manhattan. And you can just here the fear in the voices of the broadcasters, even Tom Brokaw at times.
Here’s something you didn’t know about 9/11: it made the whales happier for a few days.
Here’s something you might not have known: A young woman, two weeks out of Air Force flight school, had the unpleasant task of being a kamikaze pilot:
Late in the morning of the Tuesday that changed everything, Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney was on a runway at Andrews Air Force Base and ready to fly. She had her hand on the throttle of an F-16 and she had her orders: Bring down United Airlines Flight 93. The day’s fourth hijacked airliner seemed to be hurtling toward Washington. Penney, one of the first two combat pilots in the air that morning, was told to stop it.
The one thing she didn’t have as she roared into the crystalline sky was live ammunition. Or missiles. Or anything at all to throw at a hostile aircraft.
Except her own plane. So that was the plan.
Because the surprise attacks were unfolding, in that innocent age, faster than they could arm war planes, Penney and her commanding officer went up to fly their jets straight into a Boeing 757.
“We wouldn’t be shooting it down. We’d be ramming the aircraft,” Penney recalls of her charge that day. “I would essentially be a kamikaze pilot.”
Here’s some kids at the NY Stock Exchange getting ready to ring the opening bell. They were born on 9/11/01. I am old.
UPDATE: One thing is for sure…. we’re still a little antsy this day, even 14 years later:
BREAKING: Shots Reportedly Fired At Union Station In Washington, D.C. http://t.co/nDIpikZSi5 pic.twitter.com/gLqvyOOkjU
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) September 11, 2015
#Breaking White House on lockdown: Reports
— News This Second (@NewsThisSecond) September 11, 2015
[LATE UPDATE: Man stapped woman at Union Station McDonald’s and a security guard shot the man – a domestic dispute. WH locked down probably as precaution. Like I say: jittery]
UPDATE: Former Bush WH secretary is posting a series of as-it-happened 14 years ago Tweets from his perspective with Bush. Interesting stuff. Some examples:
He called the VP, who had been evacuated to a bunker below the WH. “Sounds like a minor war going on here. I heard about the Pentagon.” — Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) September 11, 2015
AF One took off like a rocket. Years later, the pilot, Col. Mark Tillman, told me he was told there was a sniper at the end of the runway. — Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) September 11, 2015
At around 10:20, I heard the President say two things that send a chill down my spine. — Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) September 11, 2015
He authorized the military to shoot down commercial planes if necessary. — Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) September 11, 2015
Bush also put the military on DEFCON 3, the highest alert status since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. — Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) September 11, 2015
Aboard the most secure place on the planet, the President’s plane, the pilot was worried there might be an inside job to down the plane. — Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) September 11, 2015
Like so many other reports on 9/11, the threat to AF One turned out to be false. But we didn’t know it at the time. — Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) September 11, 2015