How 9/11 shaped America

0:00WBUR Podcasts, Boston. This is on point. I'm Magna Chakrabardi. I got home at probably about 8.30 in the morning. And then my neighbor called me and said, put the TV on, America is under attack. The TV was on, tuned to CNN. And what I saw was the first burning tower. And I sat down in the bed, my mouth pretty much open. And then the plane hit the second tower. I remember my teacher rolling in the TV cart for us to watch the news. And unfortunately, when she did so, we also witnessed the individuals who were jumping from the table. We didn't understand why.

1:02I said, guys, the world, as we know it, has just changed. Everything is going to change. And the looks on those middle schoolers faces, you know, 12, 13, 14 years old. They were so innocent. I don't know that they understood the words that I was saying. And quite frankly, I don't know that I understood the words that I was saying. And I remember thinking he was exaggerating, how could we be under attack? It seemed impossible. I was thinking, what does he mean? We are under attack. And that planes hit the World Trade Center in Pentagon. How can planes hit a building? It was unbelievable. It was horrific. It was scary. And I just remember everything shutting down. Nobody really knew what to do, where to go, where was safe, who was next. One of our dear neighbors, Mary, driving herself to work, just pulled up to the curb and rolled down her window, just said,

2:02how can this be happening in our country? How? And of course, neither of us had an answer. What struck me was it was such a beautiful day. The test big bay was calm. The sky was blue and clear. And I just wept. I remember watching the news with my one year old in my hand, in my arms, and knowing that everything had changed at that point. And nothing would be the same. On point listeners from around the country, remembering September 11, 2001. Well, Garrett Graff joins us now. Garrett, welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me. I should say that Garrett has spent years reporting on 9-11. He is an award-winning journalist historian and author who covers politics, technology, and national security. And he's author of the only plane in the sky, an oral history of 9-11,

3:03which has just been revised and expanded for this 25th anniversary. Garrett, what's your most powerful memory, your most powerful memory of that day? I remember as so many of the voices you just heard from, the surprise and the confusion of that day. And I have a lot of sort of individual memories of not understanding how the towers fell, not understanding who this Osama bin Laden person and this al-Qaeda person that everyone on TV seemed so sure was the force behind the attacks, a person and a group that I had never heard of. I was a college student at the time. And to me though, the part of the day and a couple of your collars that just referenced it here, a couple of those voices, that I keep coming back to is the 17 minutes at the start of the day.

4:05The time between 846, the first crash, and 903, the second crash. Because we're at this moment where 40% of the country is too young to remember the 9-11 attacks. And the story that they hear, the history textbook version of 9-11, says the attacks began at 846. And that's factually true. But that's not the way that America experienced those first 17 minutes of the attack, that from the sort of lowest ground level, you know, of the commuters in Manhattan, all the way up to the President of the United States, those first 17 minutes are this jumble of hearing that a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center, seeing the television video of one of the towers smoking and having this jumble of sort of bewildering thoughts.

5:08Oh, it was probably a small plane. Oh, maybe the pilot had a heart attack. Maybe there was a mechanical problem. Maybe it was an navigation error. And you see in those 17 minutes just how innocent America actually was that morning. Because almost no one immediately thinks we're under attack. And you see everyone, you know, see the news, be befuddled, have that jumble of reactions, and then go on about their day. Because for those 17 minutes, September 11, 2001 is not yet 9-11. And there's this incredibly haunting quote in my book, one that has sort of haunted me for, you know, almost the 10 years since I first came across it, from Peter Johansson, who is one of the New York waterways commuter ferry captains that morning. And he talks about how from his ferry, he and all of his passengers saw that first crash coming across New York Harbor from New Jersey.

6:15And in a few minutes, they pull into Wall Street terminal, and at the base of Lower Manhattan, at the tip there. And there is paper and debris fluttering down around them from that crash and that fire. And every single person on the ferry gets off and walks into Lower Manhattan. There's not a single person on the ferry who's like, you know, the days vibes just seem off. I think I'll turn around and go home and work from New Jersey. That even in that moment of seeing that first crash in Lower Manhattan, people were like, well, you know, it's Tuesday. I've still got to get to work. I've still got to, you know, make that 9 o'clock call. I've got to get my coffee. I've got to, you know, get the day underway. Yeah. And of course, why would they have thought any differently, right? There was the, as you write, it's the end of one American, the beginning of another. So let's stay in that 17-minute window, Garrett, for a moment, because I actually just want to kind of stay in there in terms of your experience and mine,

7:24because I will fully admit I'm quite surprised by how, how powerfully this anniversary is really landing with me. I was 25 in 2001. And my memory of the day I was at home. I was a grad student and just had like a little tiny television with rabbit ears. And like many people, you just heard. And by the way, those on-point listeners, we just asked them to share your memories of 9-11. That's all. And as you pointed out, what is remarkable is almost everyone zeroed in on that those first two planes in New York. Because of course, the Pentagon was also attacked and a plane went down in Pennsylvania. But without having to ask specifics, those are the moments that people, that live in people's hearts and minds. And for me, I remember exactly what everyone else said.

8:24I was sitting in my living room watching my little TV. And I was old enough to realize that something major had happened. I didn't know what it was. But I was cognitively old enough to say, okay, this is probably a big event. But then as folks have been saying, I also just remember looking out the window and thinking, what a beautiful day. Everyone says that. And there's a specific reason for that, which is there was a unique meteorological phenomenon on that morning called severe clear. And there was this large set of thunderstorms that come through the northeast on the evening of September 10th. And what they did was they sort of washed out, you know, the humidity, the clouds, and the next morning, the sky was literally as visible as it can be.

9:28A aviators call it a clear and a million day that effectively visibility is unlimited. And that in some ways made the day so much more confusing for people. And coming back to that sense of innocence, that sense of befuddlement, FBI director Robert Mueller was actually, he had just started his second week on the job. He started as FBI director on September 4th, 2001. He was at FBI headquarters in Washington. And he was sitting literally in the briefing on al-Qaeda. The FBI was walking him through the major cases that the FBI had underway. Of course, you know, Osama bin Laden had actually been on the FBI's 10 most wanted list at that moment since June 1999, more than two years before the September 11th attacks. And Mueller's briefing is interrupted by news that will play in a sit the World Trade Center.

10:29And Mueller looks out the window and says, how could a plane have hit the World Trade Center on such a clear day? It seems so wildly incongruous with the beauty of that morning. So you were a college student? Yes. And coming back to that television moment that you were talking about, you know, I remember hearing about the attacks and breakfast. You know, it's a very boring memory, but I could still tell you, you know, 25 years later, I could walk into that dining hall and tell you exactly where I was sitting, everyone that I was with. And I went back to my room and watched it on TV for a little while, and then I ran down to the college paper. I was a reporter on the college paper. You know, this was 2001. We didn't have the instant access that everyone has. And so I arrived at some point after the first tower collapsed and had not heard that, not seen that.

11:34And I remember walking into the newsroom that morning and just seeing the one tower and not being able to wrap my head around what TV angle I was looking at, that one of the towers was being totally blocked by the other one. Well, you make a really good point, Garrett, because I only was alerted to what was happening when someone, a friend of mine from London called. She just called me and said, turn on your TV. And I was like, why? So the immediacy that we have come to expect with thinking that we know exactly what's going on was not there at all, completely different world. And it's a world in which I think that's one of the reasons why it's hard to remember just not only how much we didn't know, but how long that confusion, as you said, really lasted. So we'll come back with more. This is on point. There is something powerful about the sound of the human voice.

12:36Beautifully produced audio has the unique power to connect and inspire. Tell your organization's story with a custom podcast from CitySpace Productions, the Creative Studio from WBUR's Business Partnership Team. Become a thought leader. We're a Cretan New Talent. Reach new audiences. Whatever your goal, we can help. Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org slash creative studio. It's Ben Brock Johnson, director of digital audio at WBUR. You've probably been following our consistent coverage of the Lindsey Clancy case, along with people around the country and around the world. Well, if you want to hear even more from WBUR's own veteran reporter Deborah Becker, who has been covering the story for three years, we're putting deep dive podcast episodes and analysis about the Clancy case in a podcast feed. You can listen by searching beyond all repair wherever you get your podcasts.

13:36We're going to be playing lots of tape of voices from that day. It'll be familiar to some of you and for others. This will be the first time you've ever heard it. It's all very intense. I just want to let you guys know that. So the first voice we're going to hear today is of Betty Ann Ong. She was an American Airlines flight attendant who was on board. American Airlines flight 11. Now flight 11 took off from Boston and was headed to Los Angeles. And at 8.46 a.m., it ended up because it had been hijacked crashing into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. But just before that, Betty was the first person to alert authorities that hijackings weren't taking place. And here is a clip of a call she made from flight 11 to the American Airlines Operations Center. The concept is not answering somebody's tab and business class. And I think there's me that we can't breathe. I don't know. I think we're getting hijacked.

14:39Garrett, what do you think? Yeah, this is a moment where again, you get a glimpse of just how innocent the country was that morning because for those first three hijacked flights, the two that crashed into the World Trade Center and then the third that crashes into the Pentagon at 9.37 that morning. There is very little sense that these planes are going to be used as missiles that just wasn't in the frame of reference that people had. You know, a lot of people had experience with airplane hijackings in the 70s, 80s and 90s. There was a time actually in American life where they were very common. And they sort of all had roughly the same arc to them of someone would try to hijack a plane and fly to Cuba to flee to Cuba or try to hold the passengers at ransom on the ground for a period of time.

15:45And so all of the aviation community was basically trained at that point to cooperate with a hijacking. You know, don't escalate things, don't put passengers, lives at risk, don't put the cruise life at risk. And the one flight that is different that day ends up being United Airlines Flight 93, the fourth and final plane hijacked that morning. And that's because it takes off from Newark Airport outside New York City. And like anyone who has ever flown through any New York City airport, Flight 93 has exactly the same problem as everyone else. It gets delayed taking off. And so it takes off about 40 minutes laid. And so the telephone calls back and forth from that plane, the passengers and crew are able to learn about what has happened at the World Trade Center, what has happened at the Pentagon. And they realize that their plane is a missile. And that they have the opportunity, unlike the passengers on the other three planes, to take action.

16:56And that their fate is already sealed, but that they have the opportunity, one hopes, well they hoped to save the lives of others. And so starting at about 957, 959 that morning, the passengers and crew, the 44 passengers and crew that morning storm the cockpit of United Airlines Flight 93 and fight the hijackers in the hijackers end up crashing the plane into an abandoned coal field outside a Stoystown, Pennsylvania near Shanksville, which is where we now sort of shorthand that attack is happening. Well, here is the voice of C.C. Lyles, who was a board Flight 93. She was a United Airlines Flight Attendant serving that day. Now, you're about to hear what she told her husband because she called him right before the passengers, as you said, took control of the flight from the hijackers or tried to take control of the flight from the hijackers.

18:04But here is the message, here's part of the message that C.C. left for her husband. Baby, you have to listen to me carefully. I'm on a plane that's been hijacked. I'm on the plane. I'm calling from the plane. I want to tell you I love you. Please tell my children that I love them very much. And I'm so sorry they, I don't know what to say. There's three guys that have been hijacked from the plane. I'm trying to become, we're turned around. And I heard that there's planes that have been hijacked from the Royal Trade Center. I hope to see your face again, baby. I love you. Bye. That's United Airlines Flight Attendant C.C. Lyles. Garrett, for just a moment, in hearing C.C. talk about her children, and we had listeners at the top who remember the last listener, remember she was holding her one year old. And we had several call in who said, well, they were in elementary or middle school, right? And their teachers dragged TVs into the room.

19:07Can you talk to me a little bit more about your thoughts about that that we're far enough away from this horrific moment in US history that is you said 40% of Americans. This is just, it's not something that they feel viscerally because they remember seeing that blue sky. But yet that moment has also shaped the nation and in fact the entire world that they grew up in. Yeah. And that to me was actually a big part of why I tried to write this book and write it as an oral history because one of the powers of oral history is it helps put you back in. The moment of these huge historic events at a time when people didn't know the outcome. They didn't know what they were living through at the time. They didn't know none of us knew what came next. Was this the start of even more attacks that would come in the afternoon of September 11th?

20:11Was there a second wave of attacks that would come on September 12th or in October or in 2002? And if all you do is you read the facts of 9-11 that story that sort of you see in the history textbooks of the attacks beginning at 8-46 in the morning the whole thing is over 102 minutes later with the collapse of the second tower at 10-28 for hijack planes for high for attacks and 3000 people die. That's all factually true but it's not an accurate representation of what that day was like to live through as an American. And if none of us knew when the attacks began we didn't know when the attacks were over. We didn't know for much of the day how many attacks there actually had been. As late as 1 o'clock that afternoon the US government still believes that there are 12 hijacked planes up in the sky over the United States.

21:11And there was no sense that day and a couple of your collars touched on this that the attacks were confined to only New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Wherever you were across the country you felt fear and anxiety. The skyscrapers were evacuated in every major city in the United States. Disney World closes in Florida. The Toronto subway is closed and evacuated that day in Canada. And if you only learn the textbook version of 9-11 you miss the fear of the chaos, the confusion and the trauma that it was to live through the day. And if you miss the fear of the chaos, the confusion and the trauma you misunderstand and frankly can't understand why America ends up reacting in the way that we do as a culture, as a people. As a government and as a military.

22:11And sort of growing up in the shadow of 9-11 in a world that has been reshaped in almost every way in our domestic politics and our international geopolitics by the events and the fear and anxiety that followed 9-11. And all of the downstream consequences that it unleashed, you know, from the invasion of Iraq to the anti-immigrant anti-Muslim nativism that we see sort of roiling our streets and the immigration enforcement and crackdown of ICE and CBP and DHS in the Trump administration. You know, again, all agencies created in that fear and anxiety after 9-11. You know, I think you really have to ground your understanding of 9-11 not in the facts, but in the emotion of the humans who lived through that day. Yeah, this is so important, Garrett. I want to come back to it in just a minute, but simultaneously I want to continue to, you know, honor and listen to the voices who were central, who experienced 9-11 in a much, much more profound way than, you know, I did, just watching it on TV.

23:25But here's a little bit of tape from Ben Sliny. This is such an interesting story. He was the national operations manager for the FAA. 9-11 was his first day on the job. And here's a clip from a recent interview of him recounting his 9-11. When you're not in 175 struck the tower, that was when we ordered a national ground stop at that point. No aircraft could take off. That left some 4,500 planes still in the air. And it was at the juncture where American 77 crashed into the Pentagon that I ordered everyone to land at the nearest airport. The ground stop technically is in order that prevents anyone from taking off. This was a tool that we did not have, but we adopted, which was to land everybody in the air.

24:25And whoever was left, we would deal with. Garrett is Ben saying there that before 9-11, the FAA never even had any reason to consider that they would have to ground every single plane flying on any particular day in the United States. Ben Sliny is on his first day on the job as the national operations manager. And he gives two orders in what is basically his first hour in that first day on the job that no American has ever given. And that first that nationwide ground stop, which was a policy that they had. And then after the third crash, Sliny gives this order land everything, land everything now. And that all 4,500 planes that are in the sky over the United States are inbound to the United States will be forced to land at the closest available airport regardless of the plane's destination. And regardless of whether the airport is in any way prepared to receive those incoming planes.

25:31And so in the first 10 minutes after that order is given air traffic controllers across the country land 700 planes unexpectedly at various airports around the country. And sort of minute by minute hour by hour, they begin to zero in on the planes that for one reason or another are out of communication. And as late as noon that day or one o'clock that day, as I said a few minutes ago, they still had a dozen planes that were up in the sky that they thought were unaccounted for. And this nationwide landing, you know, the closing of the American airspace ripples out in all sorts of ways across the country and across the continent. And there's sort of this one very famous threat of this story where 38 transatlantic flights inbound to the United States are all forced to land at Gander, Newfoundland in Canada.

26:36Dropping 7,000 passengers into a town with just 9,000 residents. And that town is suddenly responsible with less than an hour's notice for 7,000 passengers and crew from 38 planes who will live there through basically the end of the week of 9-11 before the US reopens its national airspace. Unbelievable. It's incredible. And I think the reason that that story breaks my heart now again, America then and America now is I have to say it, look at how our current leadership is treating the nation of Canada. It's almost as if we're somehow in 25 years we have formed a kind of selective amnesia of the things that maybe are, I don't know why, that we wouldn't want to remember from that day here.

27:39I'm grasping here, but it's such so different. American leadership is so different now than it was in that moment where I guess here's what I'm trying to say. It's been a long time, 25 years I'd say since it felt like the United States was so singularly unique and valued in the world that the entire world could rally around American need. Yes, and I think you said early on that this anniversary is hitting you hard this year. And I think one of the reasons that that feels so true to so many people is the extent to which we sort of look around at the state of America today at our domestic politics and our standing in the world. And feel that there was sort of a moment squandered as a country and a people that in the wake of 9-11 we have this immense moment of unity and patriotism here at home.

28:44George Bush, his approval ratings hit 90%. You see flags everywhere, you see United, we stand posters in the window of seemingly every business in America. People in New York remember this sort of incredible moment of kindness that follows in the weeks after the attack as sort of everyone is traumatized and feels raw and in need of comforting. And there was a degree to which that was true on the international stage as well, you know in the wake of 9-11 NATO activates its article five responsibility, the sort of so-called in attack on one is an attack on all for the first time. First and only time in its history and it is to come to the defense and aid of the United States and you have countries like Canada, countries like Britain, countries like Denmark, then come and fight with us alongside us and die alongside Americans in Afghanistan and to as part of this war on terror.

30:02And here we are 25 years later and we have seen the squandering of a lot of that goodwill on the international stage. We are in very tense and fraught moments with Denmark over its territory of Greenland in very tense moments with Canada. And here at home in the United States, if you go out to many communities and populations across the country, they will tell you today they are more afraid of the agencies created to stop the next 9-11 than they are the fear of foreign terrorists. But graph is with us, he is the author of the only plane in the sky an oral history of 9-11. We will be back, this is on point. It's Ben Brock Johnson, director of digital audio at WBUR. You've probably been following our consistent coverage of the Lindsey Clancy case along with people around the country and around the world.

31:16Well, if you want to hear even more from WBUR's own veteran reporter Deborah Becker who has been covering the story for three years, we're putting deep dive podcast episodes and analysis about the Clancy case in a podcast feed. You can listen by searching beyond all repair wherever you get your podcasts. Garrett, let's listen to another voice from that day. This is Michael Luminaco. He was the executive chef at Windows on the world, which was a restaurant on the 106th and 107th floors of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. And Michael was actually on his way to work on the morning of 9-11 when all of a sudden he took an unexpected detour. So when I showed up that morning around 8-10, I walked through the door into the concourse level and I was about to go to the elevator when I thought, let me see if I can get my glasses fixed. It's 8 o'clock in the morning. Maybe they'll be able to help me. I thought they would do it right then and there.

32:18But they did take me into the shop and they said, sure, we can do that. They took my glasses. They examined my eyes. So really, I was sitting there finishing up at around 840. When all of a sudden I felt the building shake, the lights flickered. They went out, they went back on. And within 90 seconds, they were evacuating the concourse level. And someone rushed into the examining room and said, we've got to get out of the building and they're evacuating the building. They were evacuating the building. Something's happened. They were evacuating the building. 79 employees and 91 guests died in the North Tower restaurant on 9-11. You know, Garrett, another thing, thinking back to that 17-minute window in which I think you're very right to say there was an America before and an America after. The other thing I keep coming back to is not just on 9-11, but in fact, I think for several days.

33:21The first time in my life that I felt like everyone in America was collectively experiencing the same emotion. Collectively shocked, collectively confused. We were all then devastated and angry together. And the tragedy actually allowed us to empathize with one another more than I have ever felt since. Do you think that the America that came after 9-11 would ever be capable again of that sort of collective emotional bond that was formed on that day? I don't think so. And I'll come back and I'll say a little bit more about that. But let me back up and explain a little bit about why that happened. And it has to do with the specific time period that the attacks unfold during.

34:21You mentioned hearing from a friend in London. Part of what makes those attacks so impactful is that 9 am, 10 am window on the east coast of the United States. It meant almost everyone across the world was awake to watch the attacks unfold. It was sort of middle of the work day in Europe across much of Asia. It was evening but not quite bedtime. And then of course on the west coast it was people waking up to some period of the attacks still unfolding. And what that meant was that everyone across these time zones had the same sort of visceral set of reactions of watching this tragedy unfold trying to process it in real time experiencing that same chaos and confusion.

35:21So that the TV anchors were in many cases. And to me part of the challenge of how we will never have that moment again is just how poisoned and different our information environment now is that if you think about how pervasive conspiracy theories around 9-11 have come to be in the months and years. Afterward, you know those conspiracies would be unfolding on social media within minutes of a crisis or catastrophe in our modern moment. Trust in government is a lot lower trust in authority is a lot lower trust in institutions is a lot lower. And to me you know one of the things that I actually really worry about is how different those first couple of hours of our next collective catastrophe will feel as information consumers and news viewers.

36:35Yeah I mean would we will we be able to come together I mean I think that's a really open question. And I want to remind again this 40% who grew up after 9-11 that it's not as if I'm looking back on a on America of the late 90s as this perfect place of of unending national unity. I mean there were there was quite a bit of political polarization we had just come through the 2000 election right and the Bush v Gore race which culminated in what many people will still look at look at as the Supreme courts if not it's most consequential decisions one of its most consequential decisions I mean that that was a very very hotly contested presidential race that I think showed. So that the divides in America we're getting deeper but even with that 9-11 comes just a little bit later there is this moment where again in my very simple experience of it the other thing I remember is leaving my apartment later that afternoon.

37:43And the streets of Boston are usually filled with drivers in a hurry to get somewhere and people are yelling at each other and honking a lot that's like a normal part as you know of the background noise of living in in a big American city particularly in Boston. I just remember there was a lot of quiet even hours later that days as if we would all recognize that we all had experienced a little bit of trauma or a lot and we were all willing to give each other grace. And that's what I fear will be will be much more difficult to attain yeah and you're right to emphasize that the you know America was in you know no great place. I'm politically at 8 45 Tuesday September 11th and I actually have a very specific. Story to illustrate that which is. On the drive that morning to Emma Booker Elementary School in Sarasota Florida where president Bush is speaking the motorcade goes past a group of protesters in Florida.

38:54Who are still angry about Bush v Gore which of course took place in Florida you know is the court dispute about the Florida electoral count where the president is that day. And you know there was a very strong strain of you know certain corners of the Democratic party and voters that morning who sort of still viewed George W. Bush as an illegitimate president and he faced protesters. You know even on the motorcade to Emma Booker Elementary School that morning the silence though that you mention. That in many ways is one of the defining memories that people have all across the country and it is in part because of the stories that we were talking about with Ben Sliny forcing down all 4500 planes. That what people remember all across the country and this is another part of why the 9 11 of attacks felt like they impacted people all across the country in every corner of the country.

40:01Is people could feel that silence that the sort of backdrop in urban and even rural places of planes flying overhead was gone and I have a quote in my book of a you know guy in North Dakota who you know goes outside his house that afternoon and realizes just how silent it is that there are no planes flying overhead. And again if all you do is sort of you learn the textbook version of 9 11 you miss how a guy in North Dakota feels the silence and the emptiness of the afternoon of September 12th September 11. And that how everyone else in America was feeling like that same thing it's the collective shock was very very powerful I can't come up with a better way of doing it but so you you reminded us and I thank you for this that president George W Bush was in Florida on September 11th visiting a school and we have some tape from Andy card who was White House Chief of Staff at the time and folks might remember.

41:18There's very very famous footage of card going up to president George W Bush who was reading a book to young students and whispering into the president's ear about the the attacks. Now here is card on the today show recounting exactly what he told the president in that moment. The president arrived at the school we were told that it appears a small twin engine prop plane crashed into one of the towers of the world trade center but the thinking was it was an accident correct and then you got the word of the second one I want to use the words you told the president whisper in his ear a second plane is at the second tower America is under attack. Why those words I tried to be very efficient with my words I wanted to convey exactly what it happened and I use two facts and made one obvious editorial comment. But I didn't want to invite a question from the president I want to just say those words and then back away from him so he couldn't ask me a question or started dialogue in front of an audience of second graders of the press pool.

42:19So that's former White House chief of staff Andy card now in the years since many people have criticized president George W Bush by not for not immediately standing up and walking away and attending to the needs of the nation in fact he continued reading to the children in that floor. To classroom for seven minutes. Now here is president Bush responding to that criticism in an interview with NBC. I made the decision not to jump up and create a chaotic scene and then all of a sudden the cell phone is ringing now that the noise was pressing the back of the room. But it clarified to me that people are going to be watching my reaction the reaction of the leader is essential to in the first stage of any crisis. So I'm going to talk about this. What do you think? Yeah. President Bush gets an enormous amount of criticism for his behavior in those first eight hours or so of 9-11. You know, both that moment in that classroom and then he's evacuated into Air Force one Air Force one spends the day hopscotching across the country to two different military bases in Louisiana and Nebraska before eventually returning to Washington.

43:34That evening where he gives an oval office address at around 830 that night. I think we actually though we get George W Bush totally wrong that day. And what I mean by that is exactly as he says if he understood he was on camera in a classroom and him sort of jumping up and fleeing the room. And then that being broadcast to an already fearful and anxious country doesn't help anything. And I think actually would have made a lot of things worse in the national mood to that day. And then all day long news anchors are criticizing him for where is the president? Where is the why is he back in Washington? And the reality and this the book that I ended up writing the only plane in the sky grew out of a political article that I wrote about being a board with about being a board Air Force one with President Bush that was called where the only plane in the sky.

44:48And that actually President Bush spends that whole day really fighting his staff and fighting the military to come back to Washington at the first possible moment. And the military, the secret service Andy card his other advisors are all saying to him, you know, look Mr. President. Under US continuity of government plans and operations, you know, your most important thing to do today is to stay alive. And we don't know about these other hijacked planes in the sky. We don't know what follow on attacks might be headed towards Washington. And you know, we need to keep you safe until we can assure that you're actually safe. And in fact, it's about three o'clock that afternoon that the last plane that people are concerned about is turned back was a US Airways flight from a dread.

45:52And then at that exact moment, basically President Bush stands up from his desk at off at Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska and hops back aboard Air Force one and they are flying back to Washington that afternoon. The only plane in the sky. Yeah. So Garrett, we only have a couple of minutes left. And I keep coming back to this the America before these 17 minutes in the America after these 17 minutes. I love this country. I am at heart an American optimist, but I really struggle with. I don't know if I can say with total honesty that I think the America after is actually better than the America that came before because you talked about lost opportunities. And I think that's exactly right. It's the America after that brought us brought us into a phase of forever wars. You know, the war on terror introducing a world of wars without clear goals. And therefore, no clear end. We're doing it again now.

46:52You know, this massive security state that you talked about people being very fearful fearful of DHS, which didn't exist before before 9 11 polarized politics are concerns that we can't actually give each other grace anymore. I mean, but but if we're frank, we only have a minute left. Was any other outcome even possible? I think so. I think that there are other alternate histories that America could have written. You know, the war in Iraq, you know, I can understand how that grew out of the war on terror, but that was very much a war of choice that has a lot of negative downstream consequences for us in the region and Europe and the Middle East beyond. And I think again, that's why this anniversary feels so heavy for so many people is looking around and realizing the true cost of these last 25 years since 9 11.

48:01Well, Garrett Graf's book is the only plane in the sky, an oral history of 9 11. Garrett, thank you so much for joining us on this day in particular. I really appreciate it. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. I'm Magna Chacobardi. This is on point. Thus far, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired or blocked promotions of an astonishing 10% of the military's top ranked officers. We'll talk with former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall. Secretary Hegseth is attempting to impose a number of alcohol and culture war initiatives on the Pentagon to structure the leadership, and it's created a climate of fear throughout the entire institution. That's on the next on point.