The Good News on 9/11

World Trade Center is a very good movie well worth the price of admission. I had read all the pundits and critics words concerning the movie before I paid for my ticket. I thought I was prepared. I was wrong. The first view of lower Manhattan before the planes hit the towers punched me in the gut. I rode along with the Port Authority cops as they struggled to wrap their brains around the events of the day. I remembered, through them, how I felt that sunny, Tuesday morning five years ago. I was captivated by the acting, but what really stood out was the direction, and the sets. Oliver Stone made me feel that day all over again, and the sets seemed as real as if I were walking around the WTC campus. In fact, the only thing with which I took any umbrage was a scene where a Wisconsin cop is feeding workers inside "the pit." As he hands an EMT a knockwurst he says, "These bastards." That's it. No mention of who the bastards were.

I was not expecting the ever conspiracy minded Stone to take the Islamists to task for their actions, but one line in a more than two hour movie does not seem too much to ask. By the time the supposed conversation took place we knew who the bastards were, and one can only presume that a member of law enforcement standing in the smoking pit would have been a little more....colorful, shall we say with his ire. Other than that gripe though, I must say Stone stayed mostly away from politics; preferring instead to paint his picture through the eyes of both the survivors and their families. It was if we were all waiting for the rescuers with them.

Multiple times I caught myself breathing heavily to stave off tears. I ached for the officers buried beneath 3 stories of rubble, and held my breath when the men tasked with digging them out wormed their way beneath the unstable mountain of twisted steel and concrete. My heart hurt for the wife of one officer who, while awaiting word of her husband's fate, smells the sheets on which they slept. As the two officers struggled to stay awake amidst their broken bones, internal injuries and constricted lungs, that accompany being buried beneath tons of debris, I consciously urged them to hold on just a little longer.

This is no United 93. In that movie I found fuel for anger, and tears for courage. In this one I found.........something else. I found reason to believe, once again, that at base the United States, whatever our disagreements, is a family. A family that squabbles amongst itself, but one that pulls together when the chips are down. A family that reminds those who would intrude on our internal strife that this is a "family affair." I remembered the pain of that sunny Tuesday in September, but I also remembered strangers hugging each other on street corners. I remembered how we came together, black and white, Republican and Democrat, and stood a little taller. I remember the resolve of all of us to avenge the ones we lost that day. I remembered the seemingly endless walls of flyers advertising for missing loved ones, and I remembered Rangers jumping into Afghanistan with those same flyers affixed to their rucksacks. I do not know where all that togetherness went. Maybe it was simply too much to sustain, but I miss it. In many ways, for good or ill, it was us against the world that day, and in many ways it still is. So, go see World Trade Center and when it is done maybe we can all find our way home again.