September 11, 2008
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1 Ah, the annual tribute to 9/11.
2 In March of 2002, 39,000,000 viewers watched an extraordinary CBS documentary called 9/11.
3 In short, it’s a documentary that had been well underway as of July of that year.
4 The filmmakers, Jules and Gedeon Naudret were making a documentary of FDNY and had wanted to film it from the perspective of a “probie”, a rookie who had just joined up that summer.
5 The gist of the documentary was that the probie they had chosen to follow, a guy named Tony, had brought with him a white cloud, an inability to find a fire. Black clouds were guys who joined and had fires to fight from the moment they donned a helmet.
6 You get the idea.
7 The documentary looks pretty typical: they show all the things that a new firefighter has to battle other than fires.
8 The other guys rib them and put them through classic initiation rites. They make the probies clean the firehouse, cook, scrub the floors, and have practical jokes played on them incessantly.
9 It’s a means of toughening them up for when the real deal hits.
10 We watch the hopes and dreams of a young recruit as he lives through the trials and tribulations of being a new guy. And the story goes that somehow, this young guy has never been to a real fire. When he finally gets a call, it’s to a small car engine fire, where he actually gets to use the fire hose for the first time.
11 They even show his feeble attempt at feeding the guys with a leg of lamb, and coming up short with the portions.
12 The next day was September 11, 2001.
13 That morning, there was a call concerning a gas leak a few blocks from the World Trade Center.
14 The cameras hopped on board, along with Tony, and they flew downtown only to find a pretty minor concern.
15 The sun shone and people moved about, as they would on any other day, when a terrific noise flew over their heads.
16 Within seconds, the Naured brothers turned thier camera to the bone-rattling noise and caught an airplane flying directly into Tower Number One.
17 From there, the film becomes larger than life as the events of that day unfold completely from the perspective of the firefighters. 9/11 was the only documentary to show the setting up of a staging area in the lobby of that tower.
18 Absolutely riveting stuff.
19 Each year since then I have shown that documentary to my students.
20 I don’t care about standards, curriculum, or anything else.
21 To me, it’s important that students see and understand all that went on that fateful day.
22 And each year that I show that documentary, I also remind myself of the importance of that historical date.
23 The film captures the times perfectly, perhaps the defining moment of the 21 Century.
24 The other day I had a student ask me why I thought 9/11 was the defining moment of his generation.
25 It gave me pause, that’s for sure.
26 Anyway, a year after those events I woke up a few days before the anniversary and wrote a piece about not only 9/11, but of my own feelings about all of it, of having been born in the USA, and of what it was like from the perspective of a person who had lived and loved in this vast and amazing country.
27 I’ll give you the link to that piece this morning.
28 At one time it took up an entire webpage, but geocities has diminished its effect.
29 Last night I tried to copy and paste it, but it once again was an almost impossible prospect.
30 So I think I’ll provide the link and slip away.
31 I could never do that day the justice it deserves, so I’ll let you have a look once more as we move into this strange anniversary.
32 It never fails to move me. Anyway, here’s the link to my thoughts on 9/8/02, a few days prior to the first anniversary of that day:
http://www.ybdrama.com/911tribute3.html
33 It’s just a day that I thought about well, everything.
34 Reflect today.
35 Peace.
~H~
