On September 11th, 2001, terrorists hijacked two planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing thousands of people. On this episode of the Glenn Beck Show, host Glenn Beck is joined by author Garrett Graff and Brad Meltzer to discuss the events of that day.
00:07:50.420Won't be really free if we don't stay united, cause divided, we will fall for anything, it's true, so I have decided, I will stand for you, and I will.
00:08:17.260I will make us stand, I will raise my voice, I will hold your hand, cause we are one, I will beat my trump, I have made my choice, we will overcome, cause we are one.
00:13:36.040I, uh, I just wanted to touch base with you, um, your experiences with 9-11.
00:13:42.500Because I, I painted a painting of, of you a couple of weeks ago for an auction.
00:13:48.600And as I was painting you, I thought, uh, you know, I know this man's story, but not really.
00:13:55.660And now that you've had, you know, almost 20 years to digest it, I'd love to hear, first of all, where were you on 9-11 when it happened?
00:14:06.180When it happened, my daughter had called me that my grandson, going to school on his bicycle, was hit by a car about two blocks away from me.
00:14:18.260And I ran over there to see what was happening, and, and I saw him on the ground, but he was moving, so I, uh, that was a plus.
00:14:27.960And I found out from the, uh, ambulance driver where, what hospital they were taking him to.
00:18:58.560I, I worked down there all that day, and I was on the Bucket Brigade, and I found a shovel, and I started digging with the guys, and we were, and we found a, a, a, a, a pumper.
00:19:10.200A pumper is a fire engine in the rubble.
00:19:12.500And we told the crane operator to put the, the rig out on the, in the street, which he did.
00:19:20.500Some guy comes over, and he says, the president is here.
00:19:25.920And I saw the guys put their shovel down, and I put mine down, and I walked out to the street.
00:19:31.660And there's that pumper we just dug out of the rubble.
00:19:34.440So, I jumped up on it, and right across the street was a command post, a tent with all microphones in front of it.
00:19:43.300I figured, oh, that's where the president's going to talk.
00:19:46.560This secret service man came over to me, and he said, is this safe?
00:22:26.660And I stuck it in my pocket, and I'm going back to work.
00:22:29.300Anyway, Grant, the Secret Service guy that told me when the politician comes over there and takes my spot to get down, when I went on television, I would tell them my story.
00:22:42.420And I got a letter from the White House.
00:22:59.720So let me ask you this, because the day before, your family was saying, you're just going to get in the way.
00:23:06.740When you got home, after sneaking across the bridge, sneaking past the National Guard, working, then the president is giving one of the most memorable speeches probably since the day of infamy.
00:27:11.600But I also wanted to talk to him about 9-11.
00:27:13.240Where were you, Brad, when the towers came down?
00:27:17.560I was in Washington, D.C., of all places, and this is, you know, we lost our friend Michelle Heidenberger, who was a flight attendant on the Pentagon flight.
00:27:26.040And my wife, this is why it hits me today, not because of the finding of the flag, which obviously was an honor, but it was the personal side.
00:27:34.920As we all know, we all have our one story that makes up this quilt of history.
00:27:39.340And my wife worked in the U.S. Capitol, and she was driving to work.
00:27:43.240She was eight months pregnant, giant belly, my son about to be born in October.
00:27:47.100And my wife thought, you know, the towers were hit.
00:27:53.360I wonder if they'll increase security at the Capitol.
00:27:56.100And she said, wait a minute, our security is terrible.
00:27:58.980And she pulls over to the side of the road and calls me and says, I have a bad feeling I'm just going to stay home.
00:28:03.220And I know to this day that but for the heroes on United Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, that if that flight did not go down in Pennsylvania, it was headed to the Capitol.
00:28:12.920I know people say the White House, but if you look, the plaque that honors them is actually in the U.S. Capitol.
00:28:17.860And but for them, my life could have been profoundly different.
00:28:20.980And I think of them, of course, every 9-11.
00:28:24.220But they deserve to be remembered every single day for what they did.
00:28:27.280That was one of the most moving things of 9-11 was not only the way everyone kind of pulled together, but what those people on that flight did.
00:28:44.140And it wasn't, you know, it was weird.
00:30:56.740And we didn't—you know, it was—we were putting together the funeral for my friend Michelle, who was the flight attendant on the Pentagon flight,
00:31:03.620and driving down to make photocopies for the memorial program and the big poster of her, I should say.
00:31:09.720And there was armed guards, like it was under martial law, that we thought there was another plane coming at any moment.
00:31:19.160And I really was struck, Glenn, by what you just said in that clip, which is, you know, holding on to people you don't know.
00:31:26.420And I'm just so saddened, as we all relive this moment of 9-11 and those visceral memories kind of come back, that in that chaos, there was that unity again, right?
00:31:38.640We felt somehow that these United States of America were that magical word again, united.
00:31:44.820And it's so horrifying to me that it takes a tragedy to do it.
00:31:48.580But it is amazing what kindness comes out in those low moments.
00:31:52.480You know, the lowest moments always bring out the best of us.
00:31:54.920And when we were searching for the 9-11 flag, and everyone knows the great photograph of the firefighters raising the flag at 9-11,
00:32:02.440and the flag went missing 24 hours later, I became obsessed with it and started searching for it.
00:32:08.660We did a story on it on our TV show and said to America, please bring it back.
00:32:12.580Now, here's a story I don't know if anyone knows, is on the episode of our TV show on History Channel where we asked to come back,
00:32:21.060I said, I added something to the script that we had, and I said, I want you to bring it back from my friend Michelle Heidenberger, this flight attendant on the Pentagon flight.
00:32:28.500Because 3,000 people dead, it was always too hard to imagine.
00:32:32.740But for me, it was always for my friends.
00:32:34.400And when the flag finally was returned, right after the episode aired, I couldn't tell anyone, but four days later, a man walked into a fire station in Washington State, in Everett, Washington, and said he was a former Marine.
00:34:18.180And I highly encourage anyone, as you think of it today, when you're in New York next time, go to the museum.
00:34:22.720It is a museum that is proof that heroes still exist in the world.
00:34:26.140And we knew that that wasn't the right flag, not this one, but, like, I think with Giuliani, didn't he go out to Yankee Stadium and he claimed that that was the flag and somehow or another somebody figured out that's not it?
00:34:42.020Yeah, so Giuliani and everyone signed the flag at Yankee Stadium and had this big kind of homecoming, and they brought the flag out and everyone cheered.
00:34:49.060And they all signed it, and the owners of the flag, it was actually taken from a boat down at Ground Zero, was this Greek couple.
00:34:58.320And the Greek couple said, hey, that's our flag.
00:34:59.980And everyone knew it was off their boat.
00:35:16.720They're like, someone switch the flag.
00:35:18.120They lost it, and then to cover it up, someone just added a new flag.
00:35:21.920So that was how they finally realized it was missing, and that's how, of course, we got on the case and just said, you know, someone out there must have the real one, and please bring it back to us.
00:35:31.840I'm going to ask you a tough question that is kind of unfair in some ways to ask you on the spot.
00:35:38.560But I'm looking at last hour I played something that I haven't heard in 18 years.
00:35:44.200I was on the air, and it was the end of the broadcast, and I think we had been on the air for about eight hours, and I said, I want you to pull your car over because I think it's appropriate that we pray.
00:35:57.460And in that, it was a real anguished kind of help us, Lord, kind of prayer.
00:36:06.680And I think we have gone so far astray because, as I was listening to that, I thought, I don't know the last time we as a nation collectively said, help us, we're in trouble.
00:36:21.900Now, listen, I think that's—I say a prayer.
00:36:27.560Of course, I say my prayers every day, every night, right?
00:36:30.360But on this 9-11, and my prayers will, of course, be with those we lost, but the prayer that I'm saying today is—I just read this article that all the first responders, right, who were lost 18 years ago,
00:36:45.260how many of their kids who were just born are now signing up to be firemen and firefighters and police officers that are in this incoming class.
00:36:56.340Now, you know exactly what is at risk.
00:36:59.560They know exactly the cost of this job.
00:37:02.32018 years ago, they lost their dads, their moms.
00:37:05.720And, my gosh, how do we not include them in our prayers, too, as a thankful like that these people are out there?
00:37:11.400I want to ask you a different question.
00:37:13.440So, Brad, we are now paying for the consequences of our actions, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, all of these different things.
00:37:26.580What is the lesson—and you might even want to come back tomorrow and answer this—what is the thing that we have done in the last 18 years that we should now look back and go,
00:37:38.380that was a mistake, that was a mistake, we probably shouldn't have done that, and we should talk about it and correct this mistake?
00:37:47.420Listen, I think when we look back on history—and I'd obviously be happy to come and talk tomorrow, because I know, you know,
00:37:53.440there's just two big issues to talk about, and we have to—but, you know, I think the thing that haunts me is that misinformation that took us to war,
00:38:04.560as if we were, you know, we were so rightfully, you know, looking for someone to get, right?
00:38:10.220We were attacked personally, and I do think that, you know, and I was at President Bush's funeral.
00:38:17.960I saw W. I was at dinner with him months ago.
00:38:20.900But that is haunting, that we had the wrong information and went to a war on the wrong information in Iraq.
00:38:27.600That is forever haunting, because, you know, I've done books on Dover Air Force Base and the men and women who take care of our fallen soldiers.
00:38:35.340And how many fallen troops have gone through Dover for truly what I can only say is the wrong reason,
00:38:45.360and not just because it's wrong that anyone should die, right?
00:38:48.700We don't want any one of our troops to pay the ultimate price, but, you know, sent to battle for what?
00:38:56.060You know, and that's what—you know, you have to—at the end of the day, we see war, and that's a big word.
00:39:00.720But we forget that, you know, when you enlist in the military, they will tell you, as the spouse of someone who is sending their spouse into battle,
00:39:13.720that if two people show up at your front door, it means your loved one's dead.
00:39:17.940And if one shows up at your door, they're just injured.
00:39:20.900And those are real things that happen.
00:39:23.840Those were real funerals that happened.
00:39:26.760Thousands of, you know, men and women buried because of this.
00:39:29.980They told me, you know, at Dover that at the height of Iraq and Afghanistan, there were so many bodies coming through there
00:39:37.540that they literally had to, you know, find another cooler to stack them up on.
00:39:42.460They were coming so big, so many so fast.
00:39:45.540And that's the thing that I look back on and say that's, you know, one of the places where we went so, so wrong.
00:40:04.940So, listen, again, you know, we're talking about heroes.
00:40:09.120So let's actually talk about the positive side of this, right?
00:40:11.500I mean, the reason why we're so moved today, I still believe, is our culture is, you know, I started this book series.
00:40:18.240And in many ways, you know, almost in a similar vein, I was tired of my kids looking at people who were famous for being famous, famous for the wrong reasons.
00:40:26.580I wanted to give my kids heroes like these 9-11 heroes, but heroes of character, heroes of kindness and compassion and hard work and perseverance.
00:40:35.860And we did I Am Amelia Earhart and I Am Abraham Lincoln and I Am George Washington.
00:40:39.500But our number one requested hero is the one that comes out today.
00:40:59.780Brad, I got to I got to take a quick break back with Brad Meltzer, who is gracious enough to be with us today and talk about 9-11, but also heroes.
00:41:09.360And I want to talk about heroes when we come back.
00:41:14.660This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:42:29.580This how long did it take you to put this book together?
00:42:32.900It was three years start to finish trying to pull together ultimately what are the 480 voices that I follow across America coast to coast morning to night that day.
00:42:47.540I mean, it is it is incredible the number of people that you have in and your voice is not one of them, which I so appreciate.
00:42:59.440Did you interview everyone about that day and then cut them up minute by minute to place them?
00:43:06.540Yeah, so the book is a mix of my original interviews, several hundred stories that I collected myself and then some incredible work by institutions like the 9-11 Museum in New York, the Flight 93 National Memorial, the Pentagon historian, people who recognized after 9-11 the importance of capturing these stories.
00:43:29.280And we started the book with about 2,000 of those archived primary source oral histories that I ultimately spent months and years boiling down to this story minute by minute.
00:43:44.020And I think that to me, the reason that I wanted to tell this story, and I think that the reason you're you're feeling that it's so powerful is that when we say never forget what we generally mean on 9-11 now are the facts of the day, you know, the four planes, the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, Shanksville.
00:44:05.420And what we are losing as we celebrate, you know, this 18th anniversary now this year is what that day was like to experience, what it was like to live through, because the story that we now tell ourselves of 9-11 is so much neater and cleaner than the day that we lived as Americans that day.
00:44:28.580That, you know, we now know, you know, we now know the attacks were 102 minutes long from the first crash at 846 to the collapse of the second tower at 1029.
00:44:42.640And when you go back and you tell that story through the voices of the people who were living it, what you come away with is the fear and the confusion that we felt that day, you know, well into the afternoon, worrying about follow-on attacks, worried about more hijacked planes in the skies.
00:45:06.000You know, Disney feared an attack on itself that day.
00:45:09.860The Sears Tower in Chicago was evacuated.
00:45:13.200You know, schools closed coast to coast.
00:45:16.600And everyone that day, you know, no matter how far you were from the Twin Towers, from the Pentagon, from Shanksville, you felt that visceral fear that we now, I think, have lost as we sort of forget just what that day was like to live.
00:45:31.840And let me, if I may, just, I just want to read a couple of things from this, and I'm going to kind of jump around a bit.