Back When I Took Scissors on a Plane

20 years ago this month, Gil and I were boarding our first flight to Tanzania.

As we went through security, my carry-on bag got pulled aside. I watched patiently as the agent unzipped my black roller bag, poked around, and pulled out a full-sized pair of Fiskars scissors.

I was mortified. “I’m so sorry,” I fumbled. “I was using those for cutting tape for boxes and I meant to take them out before we left for the airport. You can confiscate them.”

He shrugged, put the scissors back into my bag, and waved me through. 

I was taken aback. I recall telling Gil, “Fiskars scissors are really sharp. I’m surprised they are allowing me to take them on the plane.”

I don’t remember anything else about that journey. But that memory stayed with me because it was just a few weeks later when 19 terrorists with knives about as big as my scissors forever changed air travel, America, and the world. 

I was in Tanzania when it happened. It was before the time when pictures were posted online, let alone video. In the days that followed 9/11, I watched about 15 minutes of news coverage on a friend’s cable station. That was it.

That didn’t mean I wasn’t impacted, of course. Just three years before, Tanzania had its own al-Qaeda terrorist attack, blowing up the United States embassy in Dar es Salaam. When we arrived in 2001, rumors were circulating that an al-Qaeda cell was running the dilapidated hotel just a couple miles from Haven of Peace Academy, where I was teaching.

Because of Dar es Salaam’s proximity to the Middle East, and because HOPAC was an international Christian school, we were constantly wary that we could be a terrorist target. When the war started in Iraq, for weeks the school buses parked parallel to the school’s gates, blocking the entrance and exit once the students were safely inside. My first year at HOPAC was the year that the school developed lock-down drills. Terrorism haunted us, even on the other side of the world.

Yet my experience of 9/11 was entirely different than my friends living on American soil. Without the deluge of media coverage, it was a far off event. I didn’t experience the waves of fear and grief and shock in the same way. I am American, but I missed this major piece of American history. 

So that’s why I picked up The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 by Garrett Graff.

I wasn’t familiar with the genre called oral history. Essentially, the author compiled hundreds of 9/11 eye-witness interviews, and then arranged them chronologically. The result is a book that gave me a front row seat to every part of that fateful day. It’s the story of 9/11 as told by the firefighters, the flight attendants, the people stuck in the towers (and their panicked children on the ground), lawmakers in Washington D.C., and the people on the only plane in the sky–Air Force One. Most of it is told by survivors, but the author managed to scrounge up the last words of many who died too. 

The result is a riveting, compelling book that had me spellbound. I felt like I was right there, watching in disbelief as the second plane hit, caught on the 81st floor, hearing the deafening roar of the collapsing tower.

For example:

[From a first responder] One of the firemen from Rescue 1 looked up and said, “We may not live through today.” We looked at him, and we looked at each other, and we said, “You’re right.” We took the time to shake each other’s hands and wish each other good luck and “Hope I’ll see you later,” which is especially poignant for me because we all had that acknowledgement that this might be our last day on earth and we went to work anyway.

[From a Tower survivor] As I hit Vesey between Church and Broadway, the first thing that struck me was the amount of women’s shoes. I couldn’t understand it. Then I realized women had run out of their shoes—the high heels and what have you. There were women’s shoes all over.

[From an airforce pilot who fully expected to intercept Flight 93 and take it down] We would be ramming the aircraft. We didn’t have weapons on board to shoot the airplane down. Both Sass and I had 105 bullets, lead-nosed. As we were putting on our flight gear in the life support shop, Sass looked at me and said, “I’ll ram the cockpit.” I made the decision I would take the tail off the aircraft.

The book relates the many miracles that day: It was truly a miracle that the plane hit the strongest part of the Pentagon—it had been completely renovated to all the new antiterrorism standards—and it was virtually unoccupied. In any other wedge of the Pentagon, there would have been 5,000 people, and the plane would have flown right through the middle of the building.

And the stories of the unsung heroes: A makeshift, unorganized armada of more than 130 ferries, pleasure yachts, sightseeing vessels, Coast Guard and police vessels, fireboats, and tugboats gathered—many without being asked—at Battery Park and nearby piers. By the end of the day, they had collectively evacuated somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 people from Manhattan—a maritime rescue larger than the World War II evacuation from Dunkirk.

It’s such a remarkable book that if I had the time, I would immediately turn around and read the whole thing over again. It’s that good. If you’re still not convinced, go here for an excerpt. 

As we get ready to remember the 20 year anniversary of that day–and as this week’s world events remind us that we still are grappling with the consequences of it–I highly recommend this book. Young people born after 2001 need to read it too– I just sent it to Grace’s kindle. May we never forget.