If you haven’t seen “United 93”, rent it and watch. Use a big screen and turn off the telephones so you won’t be disturbed.
Truly an amazing experience. If I owned a theater, it would be on the screen all day and night today, no ticket charge. Like the French theater that ran "Mr. Smith Goes To ashington" the last week before the Germans showed to occupy in 1940.
United 93 ought to be our focus in these memorials. It’s odd and not very old-time American that we concentrate on the people in the buildings- who were just at work- and the professional rescuers. What happened to them was awful, the rescuers were heroes, and I can’t think of them without tearing up.
But the people on 93 were different. They, random ordinary Americans, in the space of half an hour discarded false hope, organised, decided what to do, stood up to our enemies, and sacrificed their own lives to protect others and themselves. They weren’t trained or paid to do it. It wasn’t expected of them- in fact, passive obedience was what they were trained to exhibit. They were supposed to be victims, like the people in the other planes and in the buildings.
They didn’t default to that training.
They defaulted to Lexington and Concord.
We ought to take "In God We Trust" off the currency, and put on it "United 93, motherf*cker!"
And if you haven't teared up today:
Thursday, September 11, 2008
September 11, again...
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3 comments:
great post...i actually have not seen that film yet. i guess i'm being a bit of a pussy and am afraid to watch it, but i likely should.
Um, you've done your share and more, 'rat. I couldn't take twelve days in a military hospital, never mind a whole tour.
And if you ever have to do a deposition a hundred miles or so north, dinner's on me.
It should be a companion film to the Naudet brothers' live footage documentary of 9/11.
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