44 Comments

When commercial planes were allowed to fly again on Thursday, a wonderful manager at American managed to get me on a flight home when only airline staff were supposed to be flying. Flying from Charlotte to Pittsburgh I did not notice the fighter escorts. I was in my normal flight mode; fall asleep before the door closes. I vaguely remember the pilot next to me saying we were the 3rd flight in the country to be allowed to take off. In Pittsburgh we changed planes and picked up medical evacuees from NY. I looked for colleagues and my intern but didn't see them. An older gentleman across from us was severely injured and was headed to Minnesota for surgery. He was rather out of it. I had my usual emergency row window seat on the wing. I watched as we took off and so was the gentleman's wife. "Harold, you won't believe it, we have the Air Force protecting the plane", she proclaimed. She said he was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. I looked at the pilot sitting next to me who then said "pray the people in the cockpit do not sneeze or cause this plane to even so much as wobble or we will be..."; I completed his sentence - shot down. One of the few flights in my 1+ million miles that I did not sleep on.

As I sat on my deck safely back home I watched the planes with their fighter escorts on final approach. My son was watching with me. He said he saw the fighters with my plane and asked if I knew they were there to shoot us down if the pilots did anything wrong. I said yes. Several of his friends' parents flew for Northwest. His paper route was directly under the glide path. Everyone knew what those fighters were for except the media. He asked when I had to go back to work. I said I didn't know since where I was supposed to be working wasn't there any more.

I found my intern in an NY hospital on 18 Sept. He would be physically okay. He said he led two groups of people out of the building. On the 3rd trip the group was told by NYFD to turn around and go back to their offices. Most went back. Him and 5 others pushed past and went down the remaining 20 flights of stairs. The tower collapsed about 10 min after they were out. I asked this 20 year old man why he did that. His reply, "Because that is what you would have done". He was right. I was a volunteer HAZMAT and fire responder. I would have kept going back in until everyone was out. My 14 year old son knew that too. For the rest of the weekend we just sat on the deck and watched the fighters escorting the planes and didn't say a word.

The official story regarding the United flight never made sense. The debris field was too spread out. I lost friends in the Trade Center and on 2 American flights. Little did my son and I know how many more of our friends would die because of Bush#2, pun intended, and all the lies.

Expand full comment

Thank you for sharing your story

Expand full comment

Thank you for continuing to share and including us in the process.

Expand full comment

Michael Moore: I respect your work as a filmmaker, especially with Where To Invade Next. It really woke me up to possibilities here in the US. Your belief that Flight 93 was shot down does not surprise me. Especially if VP Cheney was behind it. We don't know the real truth, and being the daughter of a chemical engineer, hold AE911Truth.org in high regard, since they are professional architects and engineers. Much is coming out soon. Lawsuits and more documentaries. The GOP are on the wrong side of history. My belief on who is setting us on a positive course. Thank God for President Biden, and the Schumer/Sanders/Markey/Pelosi/AOC/Squad team. Sanity will prevail with all this effort!

Expand full comment

Spike Lee bowed to pressure to excise the 30 minute segment from his recent doc on the anniversary of 9/11, that was devoted to the Truthers. The cover up alone by corporate media tells it all.

Expand full comment

Hi Mike, I love reading your letters from the days following 911. Like a true writer, you wrote about truth. I'm glad your daughter and your friend Barbara were ok. Peace2u always.

Expand full comment

What about later on when no forensic investigations were made and rubble from collapsed building was loaded on a boat and shipped away. Same process in aftermath of "plane" flying into Pentagon. And then building 7 was blown up for no reason. Investigations are always made at disaster scenes. Why not these?

Expand full comment

Micheal I just wanted to say from the UK my heartfelt thanks for entering my life. It would be an understatement to say how much I look forward to the weekly Rumble episode.

Since subscribing to your new venture I have shed many tears over your emails and letters and feel I have to thank you personally for all your courageous work.

You truly are an inspirational soul in what can sometimes feel like a Dark world, shining a light on hope that there are more of us than them.

I look forward to the months ahead as a paid member and the days I open my email and your name pops up.

Sending much love Micheal yours Hillary

Expand full comment

I agree with you totally, I am sickened by your letter just as I was 20 years ago. I know nothing happens in a vacuum, and I know our "leaders" have been complicit in crimes against humanity since forever. I just don't want to live here anymore. I am so ashamed .

Expand full comment

Being ashamed is so sad. I hear you. But I feel my "shame" for the many atrocities my government has committed has really catapulted my anger and pushed me to be active. So there is that upside.

Expand full comment

It is a very interesting detail that the footage about the F-16 was withdrawn. I wonder why that is, and think it would be better if that was shown because otherwise it makes for fertile grounds for many conspiracy ideas ...

Expand full comment

TY Michael Moore for your letters, films, etc. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who remembers the culpability of "W" and his partners in crime, ALL of them! Bless journalist Jamelle Bouie of the NY Times today for the first mention of "W"'s guilty role in 9/11 that led to 1/6/21!! Bush dishonored the memories of the innocent victims of 9/11 by appearing ANYWHERE on the 20th anniversary. Let's hope the declassified documents reveal his guilty administration's role.

Expand full comment

"W" was probably the worst criminal we have ever had as our "leader." Why he is not in jail for life is beyond me. Boule was excellent!

Expand full comment

Here is a question for anyone! I remember watching 60 minutes in August of 2001. It was either the head of the FBI or head of the CIA, (I think he was head of FBI) came on TV explaining that he had information about an attack on our soil. And the CIA wasn't responding to their plea. It was like the CIA was too arrogant to listen to the FBI. Anyways, he said the attack was eminent, but didn't know exactly where. After I turned off the TV I was freaked out. Since then, I have tried to find that interview but it has disappeared. I can't find any footage of it. Does anyone remember this? Also, that spring or summer the FBI and the CIA had issues about sharing information over the computer and this was in the news for awhile.

Expand full comment

I remember hearing about the fighter jets that flew on 9/11. I remember that one of the jets, or maybe it was all of them was told to go the opposite direction of the hijacked planes.

Expand full comment

Regarding the post:

Sierra Morgan16 hr ago

"Why not train the 8 million Americans who are unemployed?" YES! And as a high school teacher I remember when we had vocational education classes in high schools: wood shop, metal shop, auto shop...? What happened to vocational education? Why were so many of those classes discontinued, and why did schools end up with a meritocracy system based on "standardized testing?"

Expand full comment

Agreed. The panic is now on because there is a lack of trades people. I had an interesting chat with a Mountie a few years back who mused that a lot of problems with truancy would be solved if kids were offered something they were interested in. Not all people are academic and want a college degree. I’m a retired teacher and know that there is nothing standard about standardized testing or IQ tests. Teachers deal with people, not manufactured goods with a guarantee. 🇨🇦 Canadian

Expand full comment

Yes, Anne. One of my journalism students took an exam in 11th grade just to be able to get his high school diploma early so he could go to junior college where there were more options.

Expand full comment

Why did Bush #2 recently speak on 9/11? Who asked him? I can't understand why anyone would want to hear him speak after all that we went through., He is as evil as they get.

Expand full comment

Segue: with the shortage of skilled manual workers in US (electricians, welders, carpenters, etc. why not train up the newly arriving Afghan refugees so that Biden’s infrastructure program can be staffed?! Otherwise it will never get done!!!

Expand full comment

Why not train the 8 million Americans who are unemployed?

Expand full comment

Sounds good. Provide the opportunity for education and solve a big problem.

Expand full comment

You were certainly more optimistic about our nation’s ability to resist entering into a war than I was. Other than my immediate family and a few friends, the snippets of conversation I heard at the grocery store, etc., were of the “bomb ‘em all and let God sort it out” variety. Aside from my grief, my primary thought in the aftermath of 9/11 was to remember one of my favorite posters from the sixties: “What if they gave a war and nobody came?”

Expand full comment

Wow, so flight over Pennsylvania may not have gone down after passengers were going to try and take over cock pit? Shot down instead? How will we ever know

Expand full comment

Perhaps we'll never know. All I can say is that the first news in Germany about the plane included that the plane was taken down by the military. After that one time on the news - this was never repeated.

Expand full comment

We won't. We do not need to know. And so on forever.

Expand full comment