by Aaron Schweitzer, Editor
It does not take long to remember where you were on September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and United Flight 93 (believed to be headed to the U.S. Capitol). Me being 26 and my wife being 25 likely have a very different recollection than you. In fact, my wife and I had very different recollections between the two of us. I was six years old on that day and that 18 month difference between my wife and I was enough to give us very different experiences. My wife does not remember the day, but I do. I remember standing in line for lunch in first grade and stopping everything for a moment of silence that seemed to take forever. But while I remember that day, I had absolutely no idea what was going on.
Until recently, I really had no idea of the impact of 9/11, and ironically, the thing that taught me the most was my master’s project, which was focused on generational studies. The more I studied Generation Z, the more I was pulled back to 9/11 (but that’s an entirely different project I’m happy to direct you to). Given our relative lack of history with this fateful day, my wife and I checked out 9/11: One Day In America to look back at one day and see what exactly it was that made 9/11 so impactful.
There are a few things that make this six-part docuseries stand out, and quite possibly make it the best documentary I have ever seen. While it would have been easy to show the day and have it filled with facts and diagrams, the series takes great pain to be anything except that. The story of this one day in America is not at all the picture if all we give is facts. The story is the thousands of lives that were affected and the nearly three thousand that were taken. So rather than tell a story with diagrams, timelines, and narration, the series lets the survivors tell their stories. It is not afraid to jump around in the timeline, to leave stories incomplete, and to leave us unsure of the fate of key members in the stories we hear. When the survivors tell their stories, they get to tell it their own way in their own time. Not once did I hear an interjection.
Another admirable quality to this series is the meticulous research you can see that went into it. There are segments where you will hear someone sharing their story, and then it cuts to video clips from the actual day tying the narrative together. The more impressive segments are where someone will mention someone who was a hero to them that they lost in the chaos of the day, but the researchers are able to find in archive footage and give some finality and put real faces and real names of heroes who never asked for any credit, but deserve every piece of it coming their way.
That brings me to my final point. I was recently reflecting on the importance of numbers and my conclusions are that numbers are absolutely important, but when quantifying people, they are only important because there is a name, face, and story behind each number. This series excels here because when we place names, faces, and stories to the people involved in that day, it puts this whole day into perspective. I remember as a six-year-old (and please, forgive six-year-old me) hearing that almost 3,000 people were killed and so so many more injured, but in my mind I thought out of the hundreds of millions that live in the United States, 3,000 was pretty insignificant. Again, please forgive six-year-old me, because this series was a great reminder that every number has a name, face, and story behind it: for those that died on a pretty regular Tuesday boarding a plane, for those that saw reality and faced the threat head on during a plane hijacking, for the first responders killed, for the first responders that somehow managed to survive, for the staff of the World Trade Centers that did everything they could to help others get out, and the countless other people who died on that day.
But there are just as many stories of people who helped others get out and were later reconnected: an elderly lady who firefighters risked their lives to help get out of a stairwell and their regrouping at an honoring ceremony, a man who helped save another and got a standing ovation a few months later at the trapped man’s daughter’s wedding ceremony, an intern at the World Trade Center who quickly turned his role into first responder and saved countless lives, and the list goes on and on. For a show that was incredibly hard to watch and immediately demanded your attention and silence (except for exclamations of shock and awe), the thing that makes me think so highly of this series is the tenacity of the producers to make this more of a celebration. Rather than making this a completely remorseful watch, this series went to extraordinary lengths to show the triumph of humanity in our darkest hour. Where New Yorkers were no longer Knicks versus Nets, Giants versus Jets, Rangers versus Islanders, or Yankees versus Mets, but as the world watched were people weren’t fight against each other, but for each other. In a year that has seemed so divisive, and for one reason or 70 other reasons and seeing people ripping each other apart, ironically, remembering 9/11 through this series showed me the goodness that we are capable of having towards one another. I just hope it doesn’t take another tragic event to bring that out again.
Grade: A+
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