It’s not just 9/11 again, but it’s a milestone one at that. The silver anniversary of one of the most horrific days in American history, and arguably my generation’s Pearl Harbor Day. If you’re old enough to have lived through it, you no doubt have your own personal memories etched in stone of where you where, what you were doing and how the aftermath may have personally affected you. Some of you actually knew folks who perished that day–whether it was in the Twin Towers themselves, doing battle in vain to save them or even on the planes that crashed into them, the Pentagon or in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. To all of you, my deepest condolescences and sympathies.
I’ve already shared in detail my own personal story when we observed the 20th anniversary back when these musings were in their infancy. In hindsight, it was harrowing but myself and my traveling companion were merely severly inconvenieced. We were staying three blocks from the Ohio state capital so we in a lockdown zone and at first confined to an outdated hotel with neglible WiFi but once the initial panic and conspiracies were mitigated we were merely vicariously identifying with the sights and the reactions of New Yorkers and Washingtonians who were far more traumatized. When we were given a bit more limited freedom in an attempt to merely break away from the onslaught of news coverage that had taken over pretty much the entire cable landscape including ESPN, we went for a long walk along the Olentangy River that flowed through the center of the city. It was an otherwise picture-perfect fall day and considering I was at nearly my peak all-time weight at the time I certainly needed the steps.
It’s the aftermath of that story that I’ve not yet shared that arguably left more of an emotional scar on me than did 9/11 itself. I was working for a division of FOX at the time and was considered an important enough traveling executive to attract the attention of Rupert Murdoch’s office. Several of my corporate breathren were in New York City for a big deal dinner honoring cable executives that took place on the evening of 9/10 and were that much more impacted and in obvious danger. Once that news reached his team Mr. Murdoch generously offered to deploy the corporate jet to bring us home safely and as expeditiously as possible. My office let me know that if myself and my companion could somehow get from Columbus, Ohio to New York City in roughly 24 hours we could hitch a ride with all of them. Alas, not only was it by this point impossible to get a rental car in a city as relatively modestly sized as was Columbus but even if we could the most expeditious route would have taken close periously close to Shanksville, which was in a lockdown mode of its own. So that was a missed networking opportunity as well as an escape hatch. As I previously mused, we finally got home Friday afternoon, and I spent the weekend alone, obese and without any sports to distract me overwatching the still continous slew of sad news updates and recaps.
The following Monday I was part of a meeting for a few dozen more senior FOX executives that had been arranged by Murdoch’s office–a by-product, I guess, for being identified for that corporate flight. We had a guest speaker who identified themselves as an FBI agent that apparently had worked closely with a lot of personnel at FOX’s Washington news bureaus both with its potent local station and with the then-fledgling cable news channel that actually still did quite a bit of actual news reporting. We learned even more about what led to the events of the previous Tuesday than the news outlets were reporting at that time. What we learned what what now is part of the recommended scholastic curriculum for today’s middle and high school students to learn about 9/11 in the same manner that I learned about WWII and that some of you Gen Xers learned about Vietnam. Today’s students are tasked with the following:
- Project or distribute copies of The New Yorker cover titled “Center of the Universe.” Click on the image to use the pinch-and-zoom feature for closer viewing.
- Ask students to look at the cover for one minute and write down what they notice on a sheet of paper individually or in small groups. If viewing on laptops or tablets, encourage them to use the pinch-and-zoom function.
- After one minute, conduct a guided inquiry using the following questions:
- Why were the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and U.S. Capitol building targets?
- What did the terrorists hope to accomplish by attacking these sites?
The answer, of course, is that they represented iconic American institutions that were visible from the sky and even some parts of space. As the lesson plan of today asserts, 9/11 had the following underlying intentions:
(A)l-Qaeda hoped that by attacking symbols of American power, they would promote widespread fear throughout the country and severely weaken the United States’ standing in the world community, ultimately supporting their political and religious goals in the Middle East and Muslim world.
We then also were treated to a series of images especially reserved for us that we all eventually signed NDAs about before we left the room. What the FBI agent confirmed was that among the additional list of confirmed potential targets for some later date were every movie studio lot in Los Angeles. Even though we didn’t have an iconic a water tower as did Paramount or Warner Brothers or even the rainbow from the MGM-now-Sony lot we were lumped in with them by the architects of the attacks.
Those that were on the lot that day were white-faced. And the steeliness of the FBI agent’s attitude as he showed these surveillience photos that had our lot-adjacent building known to the public as the Die Hard tower in its crosshairs made many of my colleagues atypically silent and somber. It very well could have been us, too was the prevailing sentiment.
Thus beginning that afternoon and for several weeks afterwards we were subject to thorough searches of our trunks and cargo areas upon entering and exiting the lot. Our screenings now included metal detectors. When we eventually did start traveling again to make up for the research sessions we had booked that had us on the road in the first place we were subject to way more detailed searches and security checks than we were used to.
When we finally got back to work my FX compadres were dealing with a regrouping of our recent launch on the Manhattan Time Warner cable system that was a landmark achievement in our goal for distribution in an area where potential advertisers could actually see the network at last. Our promotional strategy included replacing the typical Sabrett’s logo on dozens of Manhattan hot dog push carts with our distinct color palette and bold new logo. One of our New York-based colleagues found one that had been within a few blocks of the Twin Towers that they salvaged from the chaotic wreckage, torn and covered in the dust and rubble that spewed into the air as they came tumbling down. We used that as our own version of the American flag that was similarly salvaged and inspired the Yankees to within one victory of another World’s Championship.
All we did was launch THE SHIELD–fortunately with more success than Mariano Rivera ultimately had in the very same Arizona ballpark we ultimately made it to see a game in after our planned trip for the evening 9/12 had been aborted.
And when I finally did make it to the New York area for Thanksgiving–two and half months later–when my car was traveling down the New Jersey Turnpike at dusk I could still see visible wisps of smoke rising from the area where I used to see the World Trade Center as a landmark. I was reminded by family and friends how they had had that grim reminder for all of that time, every single day. No wonder they couldn’t forget.
Ultimately, neither could I. And neither should you. And for those of you who weren’t around, you should take a moment today to try and at least put yourselves in our shoes when we were going through this in real time. My story might not be as grandiose as those as someone who constantly changes the narrative to make it seem like they actually were a freaking hero. But at least mine’s the truth.
Until next time…