9/11 Story from Washington Post along with Welles Crowther & Boatlift videos

There's a few incredibly well done stories and videos I saw yesterday on the anniversary of 9/11 that struck me as inspiring about the events of that day and reminded me of past works of similar uplift. Writing I've written on and linked to previously included that from Scott Raab for Esquire with his now 9-story series "The Rebuilding" about the World Trade Center and great work from both Time Magazine and the Charlotte Observer that I noted in a post just after the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

A story I saw yesterday for the first time and which stood out to me as inspiring was "F-16 pilot was ready to give her life on Sept. 11" by Steve Hendrix for the Washington Post. Published two years ago, it details the story of U.S. combat pilots Col. Marc Sasseville and Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney, who took off from Andrews Air Force Base on 9/11 with no ordinance, but an intention to take down United Flight 93 rather than have it used to attack Washington. It's a remarkable piece from Hendrix about the potential suicide mission that was averted by United 93 crashing in the Pennsylvania countryside.

The other two works about 9/11 to note here were both videos done several years ago, with one I had seen previously, and one I saw yesterday for the first time. The one I was familiar with but hadn't written on before was the ESPN segment "Man in the Red Bandanna" on Welles Crowther, a former Boston College lacrosse player credited with saving lives in the World Trade Center before he lost his own...


The video I hadn't seen was titled "BOATLIFT, An Untold Tale of 9/11 Resilience" and about the evacuation by boat of 500,000 people from Manhattan on 9/11. Narrated by Tom Hanks, it's an incredibly uplifting story of everyday people heading into danger after a Coast Guard call for help...

9/11 10th Anniversary Writing

Really remarkable commemorative issue of Time Magazine this past week.



The special edition was published without advertising and much of the content was a "Portraits of Resilience" gallery with individual people's stories. Leading things off was a short piece by photojournalist James Nachtwey on his experience in New York that day and accompanying the writing was a series of images he took at and around Ground Zero.

From Nachtwey's work, the picture below made me think of the Tommy Tomlinson piece for the Charlotte Observer "Tribute and renewal in a New York moment" with it's reference to St. Paul's Chapel by the Trade Center site.



Another thing that struck me from the Tomlinson story was his closing paragraph about life in the City continuing on... which was very much in line with the sentiment expressed by Scott Raab in "The Memorial" for Esquire (which I posted on here). In this same life moving forward view, one vignette from this Time issue that stood out was the profile on Lyzbeth Glick Best which included significant mention of the 10 years since losing her husband in the Shanksville, PA crash of United 93.

Really powerful stories on Best and by Nachtwey, Tomlinson and Raab... and excellent work overall by Time Magazine.