Are aware of my previous to government positions at the pentagon and at Us Central Command and there is a great interest of having more veterans type programs here at the museum and at the library. However tonight its a little different. I normally ask veterans to please stand up and take about. But tonight, i would like anybody who is a first responde responder, police officer, fireman, emt, paramedie stand up. [applause] thank you very much for what you do. And keeping us safe every single day and the mission you do for us. And now with tonights program, it is pleasure to have our author back the last time he was here he spoke about the governments doomsday plans of raven locke. And now we are welcome him back to discuss another somber topic the terror attacks of 9 11 to have a 360degree account told to those who experienced it the only plane in the sky. A distinguished magazine journalist and regular tv commentator spent more than a dozen years covering politics and technology and national security. Also the author of a number of books including the First Campaign and the race for the white house. And that threat matrix inside the fbi tracing counterterrorism efforts. Another recent book examines the rise of cyberthreats across america. And serves at the Aspen Institute cybersecurity and Technology Program and contributed to cnn written for publications from esquire to New York Times and served as the editor to the washingtonian and political magazine which led to the First National magazine award the highest honor. With this book author and historian michael has said derek has said used oral history to take us into one of the most horrific inconsequential moments in American History in a book that is important for those readers too young to remember 9 11. The true challenge of historians to record history so the next generation can understand these events i will also add the only plane in the sky is currently sitting on the number four New York Times combined printed ebook number five hardcover fiction and it is a pleasure to once again welcome him once again back to the museum. [applause] good evening everyone. Thanks for coming out and for those of you who came to my talk last year on nuclear war thank you for coming out for another uplifting night. [laughter] the discussion of American History. So this book is an oral history of 9 11 told through the voices of those who lived it, 480 americans from coasttocoast and to give a little bit of grounding in the work i want to start by reading one of the short chapters. It is 64 finally placed chapters in Chronological Order across the country and this is a chapter that takes place inside air Traffic Control between a 25 Tuesday Morning september 11 so Peter Zelinski air Traffic Controller in new hampshire. When American Airlines flight 11 came to me the pilot said Boston Center this is american 11. Climbing to flight level 230. How do you hear this is Boston Center do you hear me cracks calling and calling thinking they must be up there drinking Dunkin Donuts coffee. Honestly thats it im thinking but then the first transmission is garbled i dont understand it then the second with a voice for god i remember him saying. Nobody move please we are going back to the airport. I will never forget that feeling the back of my neck like it was adrenaline prickle i felt fear. Oh my god the plan the plane has been hijacked. The airplane and military specialist faa Boston Center i came in at 225 in the morning as soon as i walked to the front door someone came to me and said there was a hijack going on we have worked hijack in the past and they were usually uneventful. I yelled at the supervisor get over here the plane has been hijacked. Middle eastern voices. I could tell the second time i was used to working egypt ai air, turkish, all of them definitely middle eastern. Spent the pilot on american 11 the lead terrorist said something about more planes that they have more planes definitely plural. That something started to ramp up than the fa command center heard from virginia as a National Operations manager 9 11 they located the area of overarching authority over the nations airspace that was my charge safe and efficient operation of the nations airspace. Now in new york there is a huddle of people around the radar i saw that and thought there has got to be something wrong. Major general larry arnold First Air Force base georgia , we had a major north american command post exercise that morning was a team of people who introduced how to react to and respond progress we were winding up the exercise my executive officer handed me a slip of paper that said bob called and there is a hijacking at Boston Center. My experiencing with hijacking and protocol is that we cooperate. Mission commander northeast progress this point with the 1970s vintage hijack we didnt have a huge concern it would crash. Major general larry arnold as we scrambled the fighters the f15 pilot in cape cod massachusett massachusetts, the scramble order was issued i ran to the jets and started up and realized we had no weapons they filled the jets with gas even though we had no weapons we took off when we took off i was full active order supersonic going to long island and my wing man called and said ease that i know i just want to get there taking 16 minutes to get to new york 10 miles a minute. From Mission Commander northeast air defense, simultaneously be brought in more surveillance technicians to look at the scopes. Staff sergeant northeast air defense the area was so congested it wasnt incredibly difficult to find we were looking for little marks in the pile of clutter on a twodimensional scope. Master sergeant joe mccain, we pitched picked up a search track straight from the north toward new york it was fast and headed in the unusual direction with no transponder we watched that track through new york city. Lieutenant general Commander Air force base from Shreveport Louisiana in the midst of a big annual exercise with a load all the bomb bombers in the icbms at 100 percent it was routine we did it every year. The captain came in and said sir we have an aircraft hit the World Trade Center progress started to correct him to say you have to start by saying i have an exercise and put thats way it doesnt get confused with the real world for go then he pointed me to the tv screen you could see smoke pouring out of the building. Like everybody else in aviation that day how in a clear and a million day could a plane that the World Trade Center cracks so with the anniversary of 9 11 there was an oral history to be aborted air force one with president bush. I interviewed interviewed the president that day and those that accompanied him and the chief of staff karl rove ari fleischer, andy card, the stenographer, and published and i was astounded we published dozens and then scores and hundreds of leaders of people sharing their own stories of 9 11 in their own reactions. Until a few of those stood out in with two of them i could not get out of my mind the first was from a mother or a veteran who had two children seven and nine and said she printed out the article and set it aside so one day when her children are left to read it she could sit them down and explain to them why mommy let them go off to war. The second one is another letter from a younger army veteran. In middle school on 9 11 and now has done three tours, to afghanistan one iraq. He said he never really understood the nations trauma on 9 11 until he had seen that article and the day through president bushs eyes. I cannot get past the idea that we were passing a world shaped by 9 11 now to a generation who has no emotional connection or memory to it. Its always hard to know when an event shifts from memory to history but you can make an argument that this probably for 9 11s this year. This is the first year with College Students arriving on campuses across the country born after 9 11. This year for the first time american servicemen and women being deployed to fight in a war older than they are. And this year in march marks the beginning of the time when the first recruits to the new York City FireDepartment Born after the attacks applied to join the fire service. So my goal turning that article into this book which shares the same title, the only plane in the sky referring to the end of 9 11 when president bush left air force one and flew back to washington that afternoon after all commercial planes had been grounded and that final leg of the flight he was effectively the only plane left in the sky in north america. The goal is not to capture the history of 9 11 but to capture what america experienced on 9 11. Because going back to that day and look at the memories that america has of that day and for those of us that are old enough, the stories are pretty different than what we tell in our history books. So we try to explain we tell them this very neat and clean history of that day with a deep 46 of the crash of american 11 into the north tower and at 1029 with the collapse of the second tower 102 minutes later. Thats not the day that you remember or the story that any of us live that day you know when the attacks began or when they were over or what comes next and the fear and the trauma and the chaos and confusion of that day is the true story of 9 11 so when we hand this to a new generation to the corner of the American Population that no longer has any memory of 9 11 to a quarter of the country now does not have a memory of 9 11. So if you look at the world we created the way 9 11 shaped geopolitics here at home you cant explain the world they are handing off by explaining the facts because the decisions the country and leaders made were driven by the history of 9 11 and were driven by that fear and confusion. So this is the attempt to capture that sweep of the day not as we understood later but as it unfolded. So to compile the book of original interviews that i did and then archive oral histories done by institutions like the 9 11 museum and the Tribute Center and the pentagon historian, capitol hill historian, Arlington County public library, flight 93 National Memorial park service compiled in shanksville. And i found with the researcher who worked with me on this book 5000 original histories were archived around the country. And it boiled down to 2000 and i spent one year to end up telling the story that i tell in this book. There are some themes and big observations that grow out of 9 11 on a National Level that i want to spend some time talking about. So just a difference our country was we say it changed everything that we forget how much just how much it changed. So to look at the most fascinating moment of 9 11 which is the 17 minutes between the first crash in the second. 8 46 a. M. So what unfolds during those 17 minutes is the country at large in new york specifically watches the first crash and shrugs