9/11

Laurie Cohn Rosenthal
Mirror contributing writer

   This is the week New York, the country, the world commemorates 9/11. In the six ensuing months, the war in Afghanistan has yet to produce Osama bin Laden, dead or alive. An American “Wall Street Journal” reporter, Daniel Pearl, was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan. Terrorist attacks in Israel, a problem long before 9/11, have become almost a daily affair, and continue to take the lives of innocent people. Meanwhile, two little girls I recently met celebrated their six-month birthdays on 3/11, a reminder that time, in fact, does move forward.
   This past Sunday, after watching Megan Mullally and Sean Hayes win their much-deserved Screen Actors Guild Awards for their performances on “Will & Grace,” I began watching “9/11.” The two-hour program, sponsored by Nextel and shown without commercials, featured never-before-seen footage of that infamous day. Two filmmakers, French brothers Jules and Gedeon Naudet, had been filming a documentary for months about a rookie firefighter, affectionately referred to as a “probie” (from probationary). The film followed young Tony Benetatos as he began his training at a downtown fire station, Engine 7, Ladder 1. The Twin Towers were visible from the firehouse.
   Jules was with Chief Joseph Pfeifer on a routine gas leak when the first plane hit Tower 1. Jules heard the plane and captured what is the only known footage of the plane ramming into the building. It was gripping watching people watch it happen, knowing nothing about the terrorist plot they would learn about soon enough. The film continued as Chief Pfeifer, who would lose his firefighter brother that day, set up a command post inside of Tower 1 and took charge of the situation. The elevators were thought to be out of commission, so many firefighters began the arduous journey of climbing about 80 flights of stairs, which was estimated to take about an hour. To a man, their concern was getting the people out of the building, and nothing else.
   Occasionally an extremely loud thump would crash to the roof of the lobby. The documentary explained the sounds were bodies. Bodies! Knowing that every time an awful crash was heard meant someone had jumped was very painful to watch and listen to. When the second plane hit Tower 2, many firefighters were still in the lobby of Tower 1. When Tower 2 collapsed and the lobby in Tower 1 went dark, it was time to get out of the building. Interestingly, it was the light from Jules’ camera that helped find the way. And though it wasn’t known to the firefighters until many hours later, miraculously all of the men from Engine 7, Ladder 1 survived.
   Though Jules was safe, his brother Gedeon, back at the firehouse, didn’t know this. Later in the day they would have an emotional reunion, captured on film by one of the firefighters. With the hope of finding his brother, he had headed towards the World Trade Center, and footage that he shot along the way seems like pictures out of a second rate horror movie. People were running in the streets, bewildered, covered in soot, not fully grasping what was happening. A plane engine was on a sidewalk, blocks from the point of impact.
   Other highlights stand out from the documentary. After they left Tower 1 and were walking away, the tower collapsed, causing wreckage to fly everywhere. Chief Pfeifer jumped on top of Jules to protect him, though Jules didn’t know who it was until after the debris storm passed. Jules kept his camera on the whole time he was on the ground, even when he couldn’t see what was happening. Earlier, in the lobby, one elevator suddenly opened, and people walked out. They had no idea what had happened. It was remarkable, really, since by that time the whole world knew a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers. And lastly, I remember clearly the firefighter who talked about rescue efforts immediately following the disaster. He said they didn’t find a desk, a computer, a phone, nothing. How then, he asked, were they going to find any bodies?
   Many of the firefighters from Engine 7, Ladder 1 were interviewed, but what was most compelling for me was how Jules and Gedeon, the interviewers themselves, became interviewees. Theirs was a telling, informative, first-hand account of the day, emotional yet factual. Now, nearby where the Twin Towers once stood, two beams of light brighten up the night sky for the next month or so. Yet, until beams of light brighten up the hearts of everyone in this world and anger and hatred are eradicated from the minds of all, I fear an evil act like this could happen again, some time, some place. I just hope it’s far, far away from New York.