Transcripts For CSPAN3 Book Discussion On Flight 93 20160910

Pennsylvania. It is about 55 minutes. Tom thank you. It is interesting being here because this is my hometown bookstore. This is different giving a presentation. I want to thank susie and those from barnes noble for making this possible and for book tv covering this. Afterwards. Q and a i will start with a question for myself, which is ok. I am a sports guy and i read a book about flight 93. You may know, i work for the pittsburgh penguins. Dids because nobody else and apparently nobody was going to pray while and i thought was going to for a while and i thought it needed to be written. From only about 90 miles pittsburgh were the flight crashed and i wanted to read more and write more and i was frustrated. There was a little amount written about 9 11, there was only one book about flight 93 bring about a less than a year after the crash. It was a good job, but there was not much known back then. Smith more now is known. So much more now is no. And i think that the story was merited from beginning to end. The documentaries talk about just the flight, but my book wasts in 1996 when the plot first proposed and it goes through the 10th anniversary in 2011 when the National Memorial was dedicated. Chapters ofthe two the flight are in the middle of the book and the after story also really fascinates me. I also thought that the story is being forgotten. If you look at the anniversary of 9 11, you see the airplanes hitting the tower and you see the pentagon and you might see a few seconds of an empty field. It is known as the attacks on new york city and washington and over time this story has faded. And i also volunteer at the site tours with the middle School Children, they do not remember. Thel will tournament bewilderment and terror we felt that it they do not know. So that is a reason for doing this. You can do the story obviously on all the details, but it gets down to people. To me, its people. If you had been at the Newark International airport the morning of september 11, 2001, and about 7 30, and walked past gate 17 you would have seen 33 regular passengers and 7 crew getting ready for what they thought was a routine flight to San Francisco. 8 00 a. M. Takeoff. United flight 93. There were businessmen and grandparents and College Students flying for all the usual reasons to go to a conference, go on vacation, go home. One lady had been east to attend her grandmothers funeral. One attended his grandmothers 100th birthday party. The reasons we all travel. Regular people. Some names have been known. Todd beamer is the singular name about flight 93 most people recognize. He made a call and said, let s roll. There are others who id like to introduce you to whose names are not remembered. It gives us a you and me element to this. Was 20 years old, san from san diego go diego. She was about to enter her junior year at santa clara university. She had been east visiting friends in connecticut and her mother told me she was ticketed on a flight later that day, she thought, ill catch a flight early. Maybe i can go standby. Flight 93. Dy was on she was excited it happened. And the oldest person on flight 93 was 79 years old. Born in germany, came to the country when she was sixyearsold with her parents. Went through ellis island, did not speak a word of english, became as american as can be. She married a policeman, raised two daughters. She was feisty. Family legend has it that a buser approached her at a stop and she hit him over the head with an umbrella. She was not going on vacation. She was moving. This is a new part of life for her. Moving to San Francisco to live with her adult daughter and her daughters husband. She packed four suitcases. Her daughter told me she would be so excited thinking about going to the airport that morning to pick up her mother for this new phase of her life. John was also in his 70s. A world war ii veteran. He was a retired bartender at the palm restaurant in new york so he could spin a yarn. But he was traveling with a heavy heart. His stepson was recently married and went to california on a honeymoon and he had died in a car accident on the honeymoon. So john was going to the funeral and collect the remains. The last one is wanda green. Wanda is one of five Flight Attendants on board. One of three africanamericans on the flight crew. She was a 29 year veteran of the united airlines, but she wanted to work in real estate, had the dream of opening her own real estate office. She was scheduled to fly on september 13. But she thought she might have a house closing that day so see she asked her boss for a change in schedule and flew on september 11. They all boarded the plane in a timely fashion. Obviously the crew was first. Then the passengers got on. The plane pulled back from the gate at 8 01. And then it sat there. Flight 93 did not take off until 8 42, and that delay is crucial in the story. The first line of the book is, flight 93 was late. If it had taken off 15 or 20 minutes earlier, our view of this day might have been a lot different. Because there were 4 other men, sorry about that. There were four other men on the flight who knew they werent coming home. This is the story that is well known. They were part of a 19man terrorist team sent by al qaeda to hijack four planes that morning, fly them into buildings that symbolized american dominance. But their plan was based on absolute precision. Naturally, they were going to be the west coast flights have lots of fuel and big explosions takeoff in aas a 25minute time frame. The idea being that these things would happen so fast that no one, not the faa, not the military, not the passengers on the planes, could do anything about it. The issue with flight 93, though, youll notice that, we talk about 19 highjackers, not 20. Al qaeda wanted 20. They cannot get the 20th hijacker in. They wanted four 5man team. One pilot an al qaeda member who , had been here a year, training on planes. Then the trained on simulators. They did 757s and 767s, because they were not going to have to take off and land, they were just going to have to steer the planes into buildings. So they thought they could get by with that and they did. One pilot and 4 muscle hijackers. Two of them to attack the cockpit and take care of the pie pilot and copilot. And two of them to heard the passengers and crew to the back of the plane. Fiveman team. Flight 93 had 4. They only had 3 muscle highjackers. Did that play a role in what happened late center very well could have. Also probably played a role in the other delay, which is this crew took the longest to hijack the plan. Al qaedas plan was to take over the plane in 15 minutes. We know that because two of the plotters are in Guantanamo Bay and their stories have been consistent. That ended up being probably unrealistic but the other three planes did it in 30 minutes. The guys, the hijackers on fight 93 took 46 minutes. Why . We dont know. Well never know. Those are mysteries we can never know. The hijacker pilot had a girlfriend. He was the only one with a girlfriend. He was waiverring. They were afraid he would drop out of the plot. Did he lose his nerve for a while . There is speculation. But it took them longer. The combination of the deflay of the delay in taking off and the delay in the hijacking of the plane created an opportunity that didnt exist on the other flights. These people can make telephone calls, a lot of phone calls. We hear a lot of todd beamers call. There were 37 calls made from flight 93. The early reporting was they were cell phone calls. The media was wrong. No criticism. You do what you can in a crisis. The early reporting as often wrong. They were saying cell phone , calls from 35,000 feet . Out of 37 call two were on cell phones. Most of the calls were from seat back phones. Remember those . Older folks might. There was a white phone in the back of the seat, pull it out. Slide the credit card through, and for silly calls. Hey there, i will be there in but these people used them one hour. Effectively. 12 people made 35 calls on air phones. The technology was still spotty, 20 of the calls disconnected in matter of seconds. But 15 of them got through. That is how we know a lot of what would happen on the flight because they told their loved ones what was going on, but the unintended consequence and what couldnt happen on the other flights was the loved ones watching television told them what was going on. The first flight hit the trade center at 8 46. We thought it was an accident. The second flight hilt the other hit the other tower at 9 03. That is when we know we are under attack. Flight 93 does not get hijacked does not get hijacked until 9 28. So the loved ones are in the air, watching television. When the calls come in theyre telling them what happened. The two planes hit the world trade center. Imagine hearing that youre on plane, its high jacked, somebody has been stabbed. You do not know who is flying the plane. And we have our memory will always be the visual. They didnt have the visual. Just try to put yourself in their mind, hearing that. What would that mean . So theyre trying to figure out what to do. Then at about a quarter to 10 00, they start hearing from wives that the pentagon has been hit. The pentagon was hit at 9 37. By the time its hit, its probably 9 49, 9 45 these guys get the information. That changed everything. That galvanized them. They knew they had to do something. If they didnt, a horrendous death was going to beck beckon. They would hit a building somewhere. So they decided to get together and take over the airplane. A small group of passengers, an amazing number of large athletic men onboard. Maybe there always is on flights. Maybe now you will look around. But there was. Jeremy flick was a black belt in judo, 61, 220. Mark bingham was 64, 225, a National Collegiate rugby champ. Tom burnett, high school quarterback. Coo of a company and had leadership skills. Todd beamer played College Basketball and baseball. Two of the men were weightlifters, some serious athletic guys. And a great crosssection of americana. Women, emts,t of smart and athletic and many of them had been athletes. It was a group that some people like to say, they were put there, there was a destiny there. I dont know if you can ever say that, but what they did was amazing. The counterattack started at 9 57 a. M. We know that for two reasons. Three ladies were still on the plane, two Flight Attendants and one passenger, and they all said something to the effect of, ive got to go. Everybody is running to the cockpit. Three different people reported that. The transcript of the cockpit voice recorder, the recorder was recovered from flight 93. The only one of the 4 flights. And ae only the families jury have heard the tape and i was able to obtain very detailed transcript and you can hear what is going on, figure out what is going on. They talk about where the sounds are coming from. You have arabic voice, english voice, male voice. At 9 57 the pilot said to the other hijacker, whats that, a fight . They can hear something going on. There are sounds of screams in arabic, so the first thing they did was take down the two mussel hijacks. The pilot realizes that something is going on so he starts waving the wings to throw them offbalance. Imagine that happening. Theyre trying to charge the cockpit, their plane is going this way. The guy who doesnt know how to fly the plane. Theres an animation at the ntsb of the flight path. It is haunting and you can see this starting to happen. 30 degrees each way, and then starts going up and down. So it stops them for a while but he cannot do that for forever. They regain their momentum. A little bit after 10 00, the transcript describes a native English Speaking voice say, in the cockpit, if we dont, well die. And thats where i just want to say we americans, im a history buff. We have a thing for taking heroic stories and having the need to add myths on to of that. On top of that. How many of you heard the passengers and crew of flight 93 sacrificed their lives to save other lives. Took down the plane to take the capital. That is what happened to my but that is not what happened, but that is not what they intended. They were trying to take back the plane and save themselves. They thought they could save themselves. That obviously would save lives and save the capitol, but that was their intention. There was a licensed pilot onboard, donald green could fly small planes. Wasnt licensed to fly a 757, but he had knowledge of aviation. Another man onboard worked air Traffic Control for the California Air national guard. So wasnt you and me. These were guys who might have had a chance. Still would have been a huge long shot probably but on a clear day, with instruction every step of the ware from air step of the way from air Traffic Control on the ground, they might have had a fighting chance. It was worth it. In the cockpit, if we dont, well die. They thought there was an option they might not die. The battle continued. Got to the cockpit door. Did they get in . We will never know. The fbi didnt conclude that they did. It was inconclusive. The sounds, according to the transcript where really loud. Think they probably did. The sounds on the crypt get on the transcript are really loud and i think it must have meant the door was opened. There is a point very late in the flight, it crashed at 10 03. Theres a very loud shout from an englishspeaking male that says, turn it up. Right after that theres a shout in arabic, that says, pull it down. Turn it up, pull it down. Is that a battle for control . Might be. I think we can say it might be. We will never know for sure. At the very end, just after 10 03. A few seconds after, you can see on the flight plan animation the wheel turns hard to the right and the plane turns upsidedown. We dont know what caused that. Did the hijacker pilot realize he was going to be taken over and just ditch the plane . They werent told to do that. Atta was their leader, save i and he said, if you cannot hit your target crash the plane. , he told his cam patriots he would crash his planes into the streets of new york city if we couldnt hit the world trade center. But it could have been a struggle. It could have time because they were fighting for control. Again well never know. , but it was because of the efforts of the passengers and crew, whatever the reason, that they caused it. The plane turns upsidedown and goes into a death plunge and it crashes at 563 miles an hour, 40degree angle. Imagine the devastation of a plane hitting that quickly. It was into, another unique quirk of the story, didnt just land in an open field. Landed in a reclaimed strip mine. This was an area where the dirt had been dug out, over the years they stripped the coal, and then put the dirt back in. So, it wasnt soft if you walked on it but wasnt as consolidated as regular dense earth and thats right where the plane hit. So when investigators believe so what investigators believe happened is that with the force of the impact, the front part of the plane snapped off, shattered into a grove of hemlock trees. Thats where a lot of plane debris was found, hijacker information was found, passports. There was an immediate fireball 75 feet in the air, but it didnt burn long because there was not much to burn. The last twothirds of the plane went into the ground. Plowed into the ground. The cockpit voice recorder is located in the back of the plane. They found it 25 feet in the ground. They found items 35 feet in the ground. Three and a half basketball courts how hard did that plane , hit . The fbi dug 40 feet to make sure they couldnt find anything else. One of the Amazing Things that happened here, this point so different from new york city and d. C. Because it landed in small town america, the state police didnt get there first. The fbi did not get their first. The citizens of Somerset County, shankesville, got there first. Some saw the plane, they heard the plane, and then the local Fire Department were there before the authorities. The fbi certainly came in, took over the site. In two weeks they say they found, gathered 95 of the plane. All in small pieces. One of the things that happened Conspiracy Theory started, still , people that say they plane say that the airplane didnt crash in shankesville. Some is because the early witnesses said there was nothing there. We didnt see anything. They didnt mean nothing. They were looking for big plane parts and expected to see pieces of the fuselage or the wings. The biggest piece they found was the size of the hood of a car. A piece over the fuselage. The heaviest piece found down a hill was a thousand pound part of an engine fan. Everything else was shattered into debris. That is what stunned those people. As for people, they were also looking for first survivors. Werent any of those. The bodies, there werent any of those. Talked to the county coroner, who was a local, wally miller, local funeral home director, the National Tragedy happened on his ground. He and the investigators concluded there were 8 of human remains were found. The rest they believe were just vaporized. Small remains, nothing more than a hand or foot. Thats all they found. Wally and local firemen combed land, he did not want before he allowed any family members down there he didnt want anyone to see a piece of human remains, so they got 650 pounds, but that was it. The fbi was there for two weeks, made their conclusions, it was maybe the most important investigative site because this plane didnt hit a building. There was more evidence here because of that. Because it hit the ground, than there were at the other sites. After two weeks they left. It was turned over to the jurisdiction of the coroner, wally miller, and then the people of the county took over. They started their own basically their own temporary memorial. People just started showing up, people drawn to the site. There was no coordination. They had no tourism. So they had to make it up on their own. They created, paved a small area, created a temporary memorial. People volunteered as ambassadors to tell as much of the story as they could and eventually the National Park service came in and they got funding or started funding and they were going to open a National Memorial, hopefully on the 10th anniversary. Those things are never easy. They had a design competition, 1000 people were involved. They picked a beautiful design and for six months they had to deal with the bloggers saying the design was actually a tribute to the terrorists. It wasnt. They had to deal with that. It was land acquisition. Eight different people owned the land. They wanted 2200 acres for the project. Eight different homeowners two , companies and six individuals. It took a lot of negotiating. The federal government had to get involved. A couple places had to file imminent domain and then in 2009 the secretary of the interior came and they got it done and they broke ground for the National Memorial. It was dedicated on the weekend of the tenth anniversary. Obviously the tenth anniversary, september 11, that was a sunday. The day before saturday, september 10, they dedicated this memorial and unveiled the will of names. I drove out there that day. There will 4,000 people two people, two president s on stage. Bill clintonh and were there. Doesnt matter your politics. You see two president s on stage, its powerful. And they both gave great speeches. They were joined by the sitting Vice President , joe biden. I thought on that day, speeches were great. He gave the most eloquent talk and may have been because it was most personal for him. This plane was almost surely headed toward the capital. A joint session of congress that day. He was in congress. Probably was thinking these , guys, if the passengers and crew didnt do it they did, i might not be here. He went back to the history, the beginning of the history of the country, he used a line from captain john parker at lexington who said, if they mean to start a war, let it begin here. And the passengers and crew of flight 93 had no idea that there was going to be a world war on terror, but they fought the first battle and thats why we have to honor them and tell the story. Thank you, and im open to questions. [indiscernible] down . Was not shot it was not shot down. I am aout history, history buff, and we should always be skeptical. We ask for stories and explanations. I certainly followed the mastermind. There was no evidence it was shot down. You cannot just say it mightve been, or there was enough time. That is one of the things. No evidence that happened. Multiple people saw the flight impact in its final moments. This airplane was very low. Many people saw it going low. There was a man who saw it going into the ground, he was working in a scrap yard. Nobody saw a plane trailing it or seeing somebody firing anything. Nobody saw an explosion. The fbi was aware of the potential possibility in the early moments. They passed they asked the state police to take their helicopter and look along the flight path. If somebody shot it, something would have fallen out of the airplane. Nobody shot it. They found nothing. And wally miller said, you know, this is not a city. Isg season started starting in a couple of weeks. This is farmland. There would be nowhere to hide. Was er thing is there the tapes are available. There is a story in vanity fair and online, this is not a criticism of the military, everybody was confused that morning. This has never happened before. It is easy to look at history there020 hindsight, but was no protocol for shooting down a commercial jetliner. Armed f16s on the east coast and two of them from langley actually first baltimore, because they thought washington would be hit. They went to the wrong way. If you see the movie, the guy from the edge is is coming, why are they over the ocean . They were trained against foreign threats. That is how they were trained, to go against not to go against a commercial airliner with passengers on board. Think about the timing. It was not until the second airplane hit the tower until we realize we were under attack. Imagine synthesizing and processing this. And the 9 11 commission looked at the order. The Vice President and president gave a shot down order, but not until after flight 93 had crashed. They had not been notified that it was hijacked until four minutes after it was crashed. The military did not know. There was nothing in place, no communication in place because they had never contemplated that before. Folks told the 9 11 commission that they were convinced that there were two fighters over washington dc to they weree area, convinced that if the airplane had gone further and threatened washington dc, they would have shot it down. They were skeptical, but they were in position. I think to think of it, there would have been f16s flying over the countryside to shoot down airplanes. Planes in the air. Hours took about two him. That is 4400 planes going to airports. Every step of the way, there has to be and it is interesting to talk about it. And everybody is entitled to their opinion. People come out to the site and the respect peoples opinions, but that is my opinion and i think you have to go on evidence and there was not any evidence of that. Thank you for making that the first question. How many terrorists took over the plains . Tom there were 19. The mastermind originally wanted 26 or 27. They underestimated how difficult it was to get these guys inside the u. S. You had to be able to get in. They got 19. They wanted 20. They want out 4 5man teams. There were at least nine men that investigators identified as the potential 20th hijacker. None of them were able to get in. One almost made it. One flew, this was, one time where the Immigration Service kept one of the hijackers out because these guys had clean passports. They were able to get in. Saudis in particular. 15 of the 19 were saudis. It was easy for them to get into the country. One was in orlando in august, who is now Guantanamo Bay, and a very alert immigration official started questioning him and he was belligerent. He only had a oneway ticket and he didnt have any money and did not know who he was meeting. They sent him back. Investigators found out that atta, the mission leader, his car was in the garage at the Orlando Airport so he was there to pick him up. So he in all likelihood would have been the fifth hijacker on flight 93. We do not know the teams. It would have given them five members. They had 4. We cant speculate how much having only 4 instead of the 5 affected flight 93 but might have had something to do with the delay in taking it over. Som. They underestimated their evilly brilliant, but they underestimated how difficult it was to get some of this people in. People ask, did you learn anything or what most shocked you . The way that they lived in our country under their own names they did not use aliases. They used their own identification. There was a cockiness there they did not think that they were going to get found out. But some of bin laden, was osama bin them laden, we know, was pressuring them to get it going, get it going, get it going. Whetherbackandforth the capital really was the target. Certainly, flight 90 32 washington, d. C. Two washington, d. C. There are some documents from al qaeda that say that they thought it would be harder to identify in the sky. That is very true. But september 11th, that was the first week of the first joint session of congress. If you are trying to disrupt the government, to hit the capital on the first joint session of Congress Seems to be what they were going for. Again, many of these mysteries allan never solve because of these guys are gone and they didnt write anything about it. But all of the reasonable evidence or speculation points to that is what it was. On the relationship between wally miller and the families it was amazing. It is one of the most fascinating stories i found and that is the difference with smalltown america. Especially in new york there were more people on the plane, but almost 3000 people died in new york and the pentagon had more than 100. But here in little Somerset County, a guy he was just a funeral home director and said to his dad that morning is dad started the Family Business and they are watching the reaction in new york and wally says to his dad, imagine being on the corner in new york city today. Later, then hour plane crashed in his jurisdiction. One thing, especially for kids whyeople dont understand there arent more photos. Its not that long ago. People did not have cameras in their cell phones. There wasnt social media. Imagine how 9 11 would have been different today. How it would have been ported, how information would have gotten out. It was different. It was until noon, a little bit afterwards. Any connectionke with what was going on in new york city. They were dealing with a crash. They just didnt make the connection. It was not until the fbi came in. They were not watching tv. The people that were out there were away from television, away from radios, you could not check your smart phone. Is one of the challenges, explaining that the kids now. All they know is constant communication, constant photo taking. There is only one still photo of the aftermath of flight 93. A lady a mile and a half away in the tremors and her camera was on her kitchen table. She reached out and took the photo. What it is is a big lacked smoke a big black smoke cloud over the barnes a mile and a half away. The cloud dissipated very quickly. One photo that we have. That is the first photo that we see. It is quite striking. She still lives out there. There are two barnes that you can see. Day atd, i look every those barnes and think i might not have been here. This is theuess trade of a small town talk to some of the people from Somerset County. They dont think they did anything great. Their response was just phenomenal. People from any small town would have done it. Maybe. Maybe not. You dont know. The point of the story that is in the book, too, i think we all ask, what would we do in a situation like that . We are under pressure. How would we react. Tom burnett is certainly one of the people. He talked to his wife about gettysburg and he said, i wonder if i would have the courage to do that. Obviously, he did. I think all of us ask that question and you dont know. I wrote about the other three but i dont think in any way be people on the other three flights were less brave. They didnt have the information. They did not have the time. The people on flight 93 did have the time. They did have the knowledge. It is aweinspiring and incredible and bewildering but they came to that conclusion to do what they did. And you know, have they started a little bit earlier, when it was a little bit higher, they might have had a chance. But it was too low. When they start of struggle it was a struggle at the end. , it is chilling to read the line in the cockpit if we dont, well die. They were not trying to take the plane down, which was the original speculation. They were trying to save it. Stories you read about these tragedies are just factual stories. Opportunity and access to the families. How was that . Tom my goal in this book was not to speak to every family, 2002,e the first book in that was the core of jerrys book. He did such a great job. One thing i learned from studying the history of the civil war, the contemporary accounts are the most accurate. As time goes on, gettysburg, there is an 1863 battle report that is more accurate than what they wrote in 1888 when they realize how history was judging them. The tweet to be story a little bit. That is just human nature. Story atweaked the little bit. That is just human nature. I was more interested in talking to the family members, the ones who were involved in the memorial, the aftermath. I really did think when i the book wasple about the flight, they were surprised. There are eight chapters after that. First of all, their reaction. Imagine finding that information. In different ways, how they all found out, how they got there within a matter of days. And some remain very involved. Some come every few years. Some move on. Everybody handles death differently. It was a battle. One of their challenges is it was not new york and d. C. At the pentagon, people were either from d. C. Or living in. C. There was no local core. These were 40 family scattered across the country and the world. To thes a tribute corner, wally miller, because he is the one who called them together. He was the one who called them together and really gave them the tutorial on what happened. They had not been told by anybody. He was really concerned if they did not get involved, there would not be a proper memorial. It was world america and he wanted somebody to oversee the sites. So, they give him a lot of credit. He wants no credit at all. Anniversaryt the this september 11. It was the first when he had showed up for a while. You could he how the families reacted to him. It was very personal. The families here know the whole Somerset County rural pennsylvania part i think is a very important part of the story. The story about tom ridge, crowd . Ech he made to the was writing about my own experience without saying it. On the 10th anniversary, tom ridge was the featured speaker. The president at that point went to new york. He was the governor of pennsylvania at the time. A few was on the site hours after the crash happened and a few weeks later he was asked to be the first secretary of homeland security. He was very much involved in the story. Speech that day. He looked out and the families had gotten there early. They were just standing around in the mud. It has rained all week. It was really muddy. Said, and i think your presence here is almost as important to the families as the memorial. The families stood up and you could tell they were shocked. They gave a standing ovation. I dont cry much, but i at tears in my eyes, because they were just the wilderness. They were so focused on the stage. I talked to him and he said he thought that would be the reaction. He wanted to do that. It obviously told a lot of heartstrings. A lot ofiously tugged heartstrings. It was seating only for the family. Did i mention the mud . They hustled to get it they really hustled. I mentioned the two days saturday was the dedication. Monday was the memorial. Funeral. Ed to have a each of the families had different services. But wally miller thought it was threeant, and they had caskets of intermingled and unidentified remains. And he spoke to the families. It was not public. Not a lot of people know that is the case. And he had an actual ecumenical honor guard. Litary that meant a lot to the families. It was kind of their final formal act together and that was wallys final formal act. Its the only cemetery in the world where there will be one burial. Eventually, i think you cant go out there now. Theget to 75 yards within impact site, but only families can go out there. Which i think is very appropriate. I dontk anytime know how long time would be 50, 75 years, it would end up being a civil war battle. That is their sacred ground. They will be able i was fortunate enough twice to get taken out there and to go into this part of the investigation. And to go into the woods and have wally tell me where they were. Its pretty. It opens appear eyes. There is a large sandstone sandstone boulder. Again, semifive yards away the first question, that is the first question people have. The sandstone boulder marks where it hit. Its right info that. You see from a distance people are different when they leave. You see people walking in, chattering and they are different when they leave. Memorial. Kind of they wanted it to be a landscape memorial. Like theed it to look rural fields of Somerset County where the plane crashed. There is a wall of names. That marks the flight path. And the next anniversary, finally, they had gotten enough money and they completed the memorial with the Visitors Center and the learning center. That will really enhance the experience, especially for young people because they will be able to tell the story. They are told to be reactive, not proactive. [indiscernible] is what they, that are building. You come in and walked down the flight path. That was the original. They just didnt have enough money at the beginning. They wanted to get something open for the anniversary. They thought that was important. But it is not complete. Very similar to the vietnam memorial. There are a lot of people that come to d. C. [indiscernible] tom yes, yes. Placed, things being they have the guardrails there wasnt much at the original temporary memorial. People just wanted to leave things. Every day, they would leave things. They had somebody from the Somerset County School Society go and collect them and they have over 60,000 items. They can display all 60 all 60,000. Volunteer,you, as a people who went earlier remember that fence. Some were bad some were mad that the fence was not there. It wasnt just one set of items. 60,000 items. There are still little nooks in the pathway now. With the names. Ou will see flowers a lot of people come up from d. C. And they draw the comparison. Its very similar to the vietnam memorial. There were 24 stewardesses there is a pilgrimage there. I find it interesting when a pilot or a flight intendant Flight Attendant goes out there. You can do the research, but you dont have their perspective. They really they understand it more. Your decision to donate the proceeds to the memorial, how will that advance third how will that advance their ability to do things . Tom i didnt want to make money on this project. There is one little piece that they still have to build. They are going to build a tower of voices way out at the entrance to honor the passengers. But i think a lot of the money they will collect will go to education. Once they have a business center, learning center, they can do the kinds of programs they have not been able to do. I think as time goes on, it is striking when you see the middle School Children who go out there that just have no recollection. Such an important day, memorable day in our lives, but not everyone will have that memory. We have to do a better job of teaching and not allow that to happen. A lot of this will go into education, youth programs, getting people involved. The people that go there are interested. City. Ot in the its 20 miles off the turnpike. I most impressed with people go there because you have to want to go there. You dont just stumble across the memorial. This, evenwas doing people who were interested to go out there, i found that they did not know the story. I think after a few days, after these big events, people go on with their lives. Individually it might not be new, but nobody works together. You would have to go to 100 different places. It would be all of the resources in the back. And one thing that got me going theres the step out has done hundreds of oral histories. Family members, first responders, local citizens. , its greato them you get all of this work, but somebody has to write this. You can do it and they are public, but people just dont know. Obviously it takes a lot to read through all of those. Hopefully if this book serves a purpose. Maybe it will inspire somebody else to write a book. That can do better. 150 years later, were still writing about gettysburg. I think there can be more written about this whole thing. The information is out there. When you interviewed the first responders, people from Somerset County, where did most of your interviewing take place. Take place . Tom out there, on the phone, oral historyish. When you are doing a book, youre doing a fulltime job, so you do it whenever you can. Is for those people. They have been involved every day. They have become my friends. I have felt more comfortable to i could talk to them on the phone because i knew them. Maybe someone i didnt know, i would want to meet them in person. I have been involved in a couple of sports books. Thats like doing a High School Book report compared to doing this. You are researching as you are going to you are learning things as you are going. I went back and relearned learned some things because i found more information. And the book takes i looked at my original book proposal. The chapters arent the same. As you are writing it, as you are researching, you may change, too. And that is another thing. Booksably have read 10 about tickets charge. Same information, but every author is going to be a little different. I probably have read 10 books about picketts charge. I and the book with a story and theirtgraders teacher two weeks after was not sure if the firstgraders really understood what had happened. Was not sure if they got it. At looks out the window recess and the boys were playing flight 93 and they were saving the plane and beating back the bad guys. And the reason i tell that story is i dont know why, that is the first oral history i know. The first grade teacher. I said im going to read this. I read that story. I read that story and i said to thats any other book. Sometimes you read and you think, it doesnt work. It summed it up. The legacy of that day moving on. There are 1000 little stories like that but all stick out. [indiscernible] its not easy for someone who has not written a book to get a book published, is it . Tom no. Its not. I would say try it, because you never know. I had no credentials to write this other than i was a history buff and i wanted to do it and nobody had done it. I hope more people do that. You have to get a little bit lucky and you have to have somebody that believes in you and you have to have that belief and want to do it. Its quite a process. I tell you, it is tough giving up a book at the end. You are making changes, making changes. I said to my editor. To do something to memorialize for history. [indiscernible] tom no, i really like it. They wanted me to like it. And there is no automatic cover for a story like this because theres no single image of the flight 93 story. There is a singular image of the world trade center. There are many things in history better images you can think of. Really, there was the plan and i did not like that, and there was a field and i thought the idea of just having a sky and a little hint of a plane was perfect. They did a little red white and blue. The other thing, book titles. Titles throwncy out there. The editor did not like them and he asked me what is the book about . We are a year in. What is the book about . Light 93 which made a lot of sense. We can get all creative about title should be. Get creative in the subtitle. There are things you just dont think of until you do this. At you kind of think you know about the history, but i learned a lot. Ok, thank you, guys. Thank you for coming out. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] on history bookshelf, hear from me country feel best known history writers of the last decade, and you can watch any of our programs at any time if you visit our website. You are watching American History tv, all weekend, every weekend on cspan3. For campaign 2016, cspan continues on the road to the white house. Going to getwe are things done. Big things. Mr. Trump our potential is unlimited. Coverage of the president ial and Vice President ial debates on cspan, the cspan radio app, and cspan. Org. Monday to a six is the first residential debate, live from hofstra university. And then Vice President of candidates mike pence and senator tim kaine debate. , october night, Washington University in st. Louis host the second president ial debate, leading up to be third and final debate between Hillary Clinton and donald trump, taking place at the university of nevadalas vegas, october 19th. On the free cspan radio app, or watch live anytime ondemand at www. Cspan. Org. Tonight from lectures in history, Jeffrey Copeland beat the class on jazz musicians as state Department Ambassadors in africa during the cold war. Here is a preview. Captain copeland at the same time the state department is saying, yes, we need those guys to go to africa to put a good face on the United States. So, that tipped off this whole two decades of state department sponsored jazz tours. Away dizzyht gillespie does this you can see the integrated nature of the band. Saxophonist, mine is busy himself. Whites and blacks playing together. That is kind of the image the state department wanted to put forward. This is who we are, not that stuff you hear about back at home. This is us. This is the image of america they wanted to portray. A positive image of everybody getting along together. That is the state department for motivation. Very early on, you see a different motivation by Dizzy Gillespie and these other musicians. They knew they were being sent by the state department to honor this goodwill American Foreign policy, but right away, you can tell that the what they wanted first and foremost was a chance to play. They knew very clearly this would have been literally impossible as a commercial tour. The logistical tail on this whole thing is in enormous. This is something they would never, ever get to do otherwise, a chance to play. And second of all, they saw this as a validation of not only there are warm, but also of them as americans. The africanamericans for whom jazz was kind of sidelined as lowbrow culture. And in the state department comes in and says we want you to be our ambassadors in the world and they say, finally, someone get it, someone appreciates jazz being a great music and art form and they appreciate me, and africanamerican for being capable of being that face of the United States and the world. Whats the entire lecture tonight at 8 p. M. And midnight eastern on cspan threes American History tv. Watch the entire lecture tonight