The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11

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Bush confers with, from left, Karl Rove, Andy Card, Dan Bartlett and Ari Fleischer, prior to delivering remarks at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. | U.S. National Archives How did each member of the group initially respond to reading about this particular event through oral history? What are the strengths or benefits of experiencing this story through this particular format? The difficulties? Matthew Waxman: One of the things we were all very conscious of down in the PEOC was that the White House Situation Room was staffed with our close colleagues and friends who were staying in those spots despite a clear danger. The Situation Room, which is only half-a-floor below ground, was abuzz with activity, from people who wouldn’t normally be posted there, but who felt duty bound to stay there to help manage the crisis. Especially early in the day, there was a palpable sense that close friends and colleagues might be in some significant danger. Journalist Garrett M. Graff ( @vermontgmg) is the author of The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11, and a former editor of POLITICO Magazine. How did you select the stories to feature in The Only Plane in the Sky? Where are they all from? Were there narratives, memories, moments, or aspects of the day that you wanted to include in the book that you could not? Was there anything you were hesitant to focus on but felt you should anyway?

Brian Montgomery: I found the president at the front of the staff cabin at one point. I just said, “We’re going to hit ’em hard, right, when this is all over?” He just said, “Yes, yes, we are.” I knew that look in his eyes. He was mad. Col. Mark Tillman: Everything started coming alive. We were hooked into the PEOC [the White House bunker] and the JOC [Joint Operations Center], for the Secret Service. They’re all in the link now. The story of those remarkable hours—and the thoughts and emotions of those aboard—isolated eight miles above America, escorted by three F-16 fighters, flying just below the speed of sound, has never been comprehensively told. Gordon Johndroe, assistant press secretary, White House: The day starts off very normally—the president went for a run, and I took the [press] pool out with the president. I remember I got stung by a bee, and I asked Dr. Tubb if he had something he could give me for the swelling. He said, “Yeah, we’ll get you something when we get to the airplane.” Needless to say, I promptly forgot about it that day. In the years since 9/11, certain names—Welles Crowther, Father Mychal Judge, Lisa Jefferson, John O’Neill, Todd Beamer—have become near-iconic representations of the day’s bravery and heroism. While these people appear in The Only Plane in the Sky, the majority of main narrators are names that may not be as familiar as theirs. Was it a deliberate choice to feature potentially lesser-known people and stories in this book?The president is consoled by presidential nurse Cindy Wright, of the White House Medical Unit, aboard Air Force One. | Eric Draper/George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum One of the more striking story arcs within the book — and one of the few stories here with a happy ending — is that of Louise and Pasquale Buzzelli. Pasquale worked in the north World Trade Center tower and had spoken to his pregnant wife on the phone shortly before it collapsed. Knowing her husband hadn't made it out, she assumed she had watched him die on live television when the building went down. He somehow was pulled from the rubble alive and called her later in the day to tell her the news. The only time I laughed reading this book: when Louise recounts how her Italian mother-in-law greeted Pasquale when he finally got home that night. "You must be hungry! Sit down, I want to make you a nice sandwich!" Major General Larry Arnold , commander, 1st Air Force, Continental United States North American Aerospace Defense Command, Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida: We can’t see the aircraft. We don’t know where it is because we don’t have any radars pointing into the U.S. Anything in the United States was considered friendly by definition. That is to say, what major news story had happened 17 years before I was born, and how immediate or distant did it feel to me?

Gary Walters , chief usher, White House: It was a little bit before 9 a.m. when Mrs. Bush came downstairs—I met her at the elevator. As we were walking out, I remember we were talking about Christmas decorations. Ari Fleischer: Normally, there’s a whole infrastructure that flies ahead of the president. It’s an armed city, full of Secret Service agents and armored vehicles. But on that day, even the Secret Service is down to just the essential crew aboard the plane. All that was waiting for him in Barksdale was this uparmored Humvee, with room for a standing gunner. The regular Air Force driver, he was nervous and just driving as fast as could be. The president told him to slow down. The president said later he most felt in danger [on 9/11] right there on the runway. Richard Clarke , counterterrorism advisor, White House: Many of us thought that we might not leave the White House alive.Staff Sgt. Paul Germain, airborne communications system operator, Air Force One: We thought it was weird even just when the first plane hit. People who know airplanes, that’s some real stuff right there. Big airplanes just don’t hit little buildings. Then, as soon as that second plane hit, that switchboard lit up like a Christmas tree. Dave Wilkinson: The president once told me that the biggest piece of advice he’d gotten from his mother when he became president was always do what the Secret Service says. I reminded him of that several times that day. The president and I knew each other very well—we’d spent a lot of hours at his ranch—and kind of tongue-in-cheek several times that day, I said, “Remember what your mother said.” Voice in Arabic : They want to get in there. Hold, hold from the inside. Hold from the inside. Hold. I looked at the laptop that has our world map on it, and I saw that we were coming across southern Canada. In a minute we were going to be over New England. I raced around, found a video camera and a window facing in the right direction.

For 18 years, our mantra on 9/11 has been “never forget” but while I think we don’t forget, I’m not sure we remember either. We know the facts of the day without remembering what it was like to experience the day with all its confusion, fear, and tragedy. We don’t remember—and many of us never knew in the first place—what it was like to go down the stairs in the Trade Center. We don’t know what it was like to stand on the plaza outside and realize people were jumping. We don’t know what it was like to feel the rumble of the Towers’ collapse, to pry the loose concrete from our mouths, to search for people we didn’t know whether we would find. We don’t remember how scary it was to see smoke rising from the Pentagon, the center of our military, nor the fear in the faces fleeing the White House or Capitol Hill. We don’t remember the profound silence that had settled over America by that afternoon, as all of the nation’s aircraft were grounded, as schools and businesses let out early, and the country convened around television sets from coast to coast. As you read The Only Plane in the Sky, did you feel compelled to consume any other media about the day (articles, YouTube clips, etc.)? Mike Morell: On the way from Barksdale to Offutt, the president asked to see me alone—it was just me, him, and Andy Card. He asked me, “Michael, who did this?” I explained that I didn’t have any actual intelligence, so what you’re going to get is my best guess. He was really focused and said, “I understand, get on with it.” On August 12, 2001, NASA astronaut Frank Culbertson arrived at the International Space Station aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. He would live and work aboard the Space Station for 125 days. On September 11, 2001, he was the only American off the planet. Sonya Ross, reporter, Associated Press: This was a garden variety trip. It was low-ranking staff and a lot of the top journalists didn’t come. It was a scrub trip.

At 9:59 a.m., those inside the bunker—as well as millions more glued to TV screens around the country—watched in horror as the South Tower fell. This reading group guide for The Only Plane in the Sky includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Garrett Graff. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book . The first comprehensive oral history of September 11, 2001—a panoramic narrative woven from voices on the front lines of an unprecedented national trauma. Maj. Scott Crogg: I was thinking—I’ve done these Combat Air Patrols over southern Iraq for hundreds of hours, enforcing the no-fly zone, and now I’m doing it over the United States. It was really strange. No one else was airborne. It just felt so serious. We had all this resolve that day.

Before we get into specifics about The Only Plane in the Sky, it seems the most appropriate place to start is with the question that works its way into every conversation about September 11, 2001: Where were you? What do you remember? This is history at its most immediate and moving. In The Only Plane in the Sky, Garrett Graff has crafted an enduring portrait of a deadly and consequential day, a day that has shaped all other subsequent days in America for nearly two decades. A marvelous and memorable book.” —Jon Meacham, author of The Soul of America Eric Draper: I remember following the president and Andy Card into the nose of the plane, the president’s cabin. They’re in a very heated discussion over returning to Washington. They’re arguing, but also having the president take telephone calls at the same time. They’re watching the live news coverage. It was controlled chaos.

Lisa Jefferson : Todd turned to someone else and he said, “Are you ready?” I could hear them; they responded. He said, “OK. Let’s roll.” That was the last thing I heard.