“They’re attacking. They’re attacking.”

That’s what a woman shouted when I asked what was happening. I was walking past the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill, and Senate staffers were pouring onto the street on a gorgeous September morning. Who? I asked her. Where? “The Pentagon, the Mall, the White House, everywhere!” she exclaimed and hurried past. I rushed to the modest Nation magazine bureau—my one-room office in a building between the Supreme Court and the Senate buildings, half a block east of the Capitol—and flipped on an old black-and-white television set. The towers were burning. People were leaping from unimaginable heights. The Pentagon had been hit. I called home to make sure my wife knew what was happening. I tried phoning family in New York City but couldn’t get through. I glanced at email. There was a message my editor in New York had sent a few minutes before 9 a.m. A plane had crashed into the World Trade Center, but she noted that this was unlikely to affect the issue going to press the next day. That was before the second airliner struck at 9:03 a.m. Everything had already changed.

I grabbed a notebook and raced outside into chaos. The Capitol and the office buildings had been evacuated. Legislators and staffers milled about on the streets. No one knew what to do or where to go. No one was in charge. Capitol Hill officers circulated without any apparent direction. Rumors were rampant: George W. Bush was dead. Explosions were going off throughout Washington. A dirty bomb had been detonated.

At the corner of Constitution Avenue NE and First Street, on the edge of the Capitol grounds, I spotted West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd. He was the president pro tempore of the Senate, which meant he was third in line for presidential succession, behind the vice president and the House speaker. At the moment, this seemed significant. Accompanied by a single aide, he seemed lost, unsure of how to proceed. As I reached them, they were asking a Capitol Hill officer for guidance. “I don’t know,” the officer said. “But we’ve been told there’s another plane in the air and it’s heading here. So, get in a car and drive as far as you can from here right now.”

Byrd seemed shaken by the news that there was no plan. This was absurd. The aide grabbed Byrd by the arm and said, “C’mon, Senator.” He led him away through the crowd. I looked at the officer. “A plane is coming this way?” I asked. “That’s what they’re telling us,” he said, adding, “That’s all I know.” He then said, “Good luck,” and trotted off.

I dashed back to my building, which housed offices for nonprofit groups and residential apartments, several of which had been occupied by past and present legislators, including former Democratic Sens. Howell Heflin, Al Gore, and John Stennis, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. (Yes, Gingrich and I were neighbors, so to speak, for many years. But that’s another story.) I ran down the halls on each of the five floors of the back half of the building, banging on doors and informing occupants that a Capitol Hill officer had said a plane was flying toward us. “I don’t want to spread rumors,” I said, “But...”

When I knocked on one door and it opened, I saw dozens of people crowded into a living room. This was the apartment for then-Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), who had moved his evacuated staff into it. I passed along the intel from the officer and quickly moved on, as the senator and his staffers scrammed out of the apartment. After warning all I could, I sprinted to my car and drove away from Capitol Hill as fast as possible.

By this point, I believe, Flight 93, the fourth plane, had crashed into an empty field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It was brought down a few minutes after 10 a.m., when passengers on the flight, having heard of the attacks on the World Trade Center during cellphone conversations with friends and relatives, rushed the cockpit to thwart the al-Qaeda hijackers. As the 9/11 Commission’s final report noted, “Several passengers had terminated phone calls with loved ones to join the revolt. One of the callers ended her message as follows: ‘Everyone’s running up to first class. I’ve got to go.’” The report concluded that the intended target for Flight 93 was the Capitol or the White House. The Boeing 757 was 20 minutes flying time from Washington when those brave passengers confronted the enemy.

I often think of these men and women. Their actions prevented even more death and destruction on September 11. Did they save the lives of people on Capitol Hill or the White House? Did they foil an attack that could have decapitated an entire branch of the US government or destroyed the symbol of the American republic? Imagine the consequences of a successful strike on the Capitol when Congress was in session.

One lesson of the many from that harrowing day was that the United States was blind to a profound threat and thus totally unprepared. As the 9/11 report famously observed, “The most important failure was one of imagination. We do not believe leaders understood the gravity of the threat.” Yet the report illustrated that there had been plenty of indicators of such an attack—many dots that could have been connected. And while we now live in a world of reinforced cockpit doors and long airport lines and TSA inspections, 9/11 is—or should be—a reminder of how oblivious we can be and of the necessity of thinking creatively about dangers that may lie ahead. That’s true regarding threats beyond those from terrorists, such as pandemics, climate change, and domestic extremism.

A more uplifting takeaway from 9/11 is that just as the actions of a few evildoers can cause immense damage and alter the course of life across the globe, the actions of a small group of noble-minded people can do so much good. The Flight 93 passengers and crew gave their lives to make a terrible day less terrible. All of us who were on Capitol Hill that awful morning may well owe them a debt that cannot be paid. Yet, paradoxically, because they succeeded—they averted an even greater catastrophe in the nation’s capital that day—the crash of Flight 93 has tended to receive less attention in the 9/11 narrative. The iconic images that continue to define our memories of that horror come from downtown Manhattan or the Pentagon, not a verdant field in rural Pennsylvania.

Still, they are remembered. There is a memorial plaque within the Capitol building honoring the 40 passengers and crew members who perished on the flight. It reads: “In memory of the passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93, whose brave sacrifice on September 11, 2001, not only saved countless lives but may have saved the U.S. Capitol from destruction.” In Shanksville, there is a national memorial for them. It includes a 93-foot-tall tower with wind chimes like none other in the world. As the National Park Service explains, “The chime system is designed using music theory to identify a mathematically developed range of frequencies needed to produce a distinct musical note associated with each chime. The applied music theory allows the sound produced by individual chimes to be musically compatible with the sound produced by the other chimes in the tower. The intent is to create a set of forty tones (voices) that can connote through consonance the serenity and nobility of the site while also through dissonance recalling the event that consecrated the site.” Here’s what they sound like:

A live webcam shows the tower 24/7. Every so often, I drop by the website. For a while, on Monday evening at sunset, no one was there. Clouds slowly rolled across a blue sky in the orange glow of a beautiful late-summer day, two decades after the crash. A single person—a man—walked up to the tower. He stood there by himself for several minutes. Did he know he was being watched? He kissed his hand, placed it against the base of the tower, and then left to return to his life.

If you want to share your own memories of 9/11, send them to me at thisland@motherjones.com.

What to Read, Watch, and Listen To

Reminiscence. I am a fan of quasi-apocalypse films, stories about time and memory (hello, Proust!), and Hugh Jackman. Consequently, I looked forward to Reminiscence, an HBO movie written and directed by Lisa Joy, a co-creator of HBO’s Westworld series. The film is set in the not-so-distant future, and Jackman plays Nick Bannister, a former soldier now running a business in which his customers can slip into something like an isolation tank and relive chosen memories. There are tropes galore in this noirish sci-fi thriller. Bannister is haunted by his own past and becomes bewitched by Mae (Rebecca Ferguson), a femme fatale who (of course) is a lounge singer in a slinky dress and who (of course) ultimately has a heart of gold. Mae cons him in order to steal someone else’s memories so a scandalous secret about a rich and powerful family can be covered up.

The plot is less compelling than the overall context for the story. The film is set in a Miami that is partially sunken due to climate change. The rich live on dry land protected by vast dams, while everyone else muddles through watery slums. Moreover, it’s too damn hot during the day to do much of anything, so the city operates nocturnally. (New Orleans has also been permanently inundated.) By the way, the rising seas have triggered warfare and war crimes at America’s borders. (That’s part of Bannister’s backstory that we don’t see.) Much like Bladerunner, Reminiscence is a marvelous feat of cinematic world-creation. Yes, this may indeed be the fate of our coastal cities (though I didn’t catch any explanations of how the fresh-water system and the electrical grid continued to operate). Within this visual experience, following Bannister’s search for Mae and (of course) answers is especially unsettling. Joy’s Miami is no far-off dystopia; it’s just a short skip down the road. Reminiscence is not a message movie, but it contains one helluva warning.

Got any recommendations? Send them to me at thisland@motherjones.com.

Read Previous Issues of This Land

September 3, 2021: Texas shows how Trumpism has become fascistic vigilantism; Dumbass Comment of the Week; Rock ’n’ Roll Flashback (how I was popped by Iggy Pop); MoxieCam™; and more.

August 31, 2021: How a 1954 analysis perfectly explains today’s Republican Party; on his new album, James McMurtry captures the spirit of Warren Zevon; and more.

August 20, 2021: Yes, there are laws Trump may have broken while trying to overturn the election; Dumbass Comment of the Week (special Afghanistan edition); the Mailbag (should we report on Trump’s inane remarks?); MoxieCam™; and more.

August 16, 2021: The Afghanistan debacle: How Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden bamboozled the American public; the “Banana King” of Wellfleet, Massachusetts; and more.

August 13, 2021: Hey lefties, stop telling me not to report on Trump’s dangerous comments; Dumbass Comment of the Week; rock ’n’ roll flashback: Sting abuse at a Police show; MoxieCam™; and more.

August 10, 2021: Look who’s organizing a pro-January 6 rally at the Capitol; an inspiring tale from the Myanmar jungle; the best album of the year so far; and more.

August 7, 2021: Are non-vaxxers and anti-maskers just too damn selfish?; Dumbass Comment of the Week; Mailbag (can you still watch your favorite old movies if they now make you cringe?); MoxieCam™; and more.

August 3, 2021: When “worse than Watergate” is really worse than Watergate; Apple TV+’s “comedy” Physical is no comedy, but it’s worth watching; This Land in Photos (West Virginia); and more.

July 31, 2021: Can you still watch your favorite movies?; Dumbass Comment of the Week; Mailbag (more on Lennon versus McCartney); MoxieCam™; and more.

July 29, 2021: Is a country music star encouraging more January 6-like violence?; a civil rights hero more people should know; and more.

July 27, 2021: Are Republicans going to sabotage police reform that doesn’t even go far enough?; how to put a senseless murder to good use; how sober is Liz Phair?; and more.

July 24, 2021: Has Paul McCartney finally won me over?; Dumbass Comment of the Week; Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

July 22, 2021: My bizarre encounter with Rep. Jim Jordan—and why Speaker Pelosi was right to bounce him from the 1/6 committee; celebrating and grieving with musician Steve Earle; and more.

July 20, 2021: The time a Republican president did the right thing to stop an epidemic; Trump’s big narcissism fail; Nelson Algren and Norman Podhoretz; a new psychedelic Beatles-esque tune; and more.

July 17, 2021: Why the Guardian’s Trump-Russia bombshell—dud or not—doesn’t fully matter; Dumbass Comment of the Week; why Bosch works in spite of Bosch; MoxieCam™; and more.

July 15, 2021: Does President Joe Biden really stand with the Cuban people?; the time I really pissed off the Cuban regime; J. Edgar Hoover vs. MLK; one of the best movie reviews of all time; and more.

July 13, 2021: A coming referendum on Donald Trump; a suggestion for Hunter Biden; a new book on how the super-rich screw us all; and more.

July 10, 2021: Why the Republicans are right to be terrified of the new House committee investigating the 1/6 attack; Dumbass Comment of the Week; Joni Mitchell’s Blue 50; and more.

July 7, 2021: How The Summer of Soul counters the GOP’s season of hate; a debate on the recent UFO report; Garry Trudeau, American Dostoyevsky; MoxieCam™; and more.

July 3, 2021: Donald Rumsfeld, Christopher Hitchens, the Iraq War, and me; the perils of taking a home DNA test; Dumbass Comment of the Week; a Springsteen story; and more.

July 1, 2021: Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and perjury; Adam Serwer’s new book; Cézanne’s crime scene; and more.

June 29, 2021: How the new UFO report is bad news for UFO believers; my own UFO tale; HBO Max’s Hacks; an anti-racist anthem; and more.

June 26, 2021: Is Josh Hawley dumb or evil? (The answer is not both); Dumbassery that encourages mass “executions” in the United States; renowned guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson’s new tour and new book (and his claim regarding the best strings arrangement ever on a popular song); MoxieCam™ (before and after photos!); and more.

June 24, 2021: How an alleged 1/6 conspirator who called for executing Trump’s foes hooked up with a prominent Republican Party official; new Los Lobos; and more.

June 22, 2021: Why the GOP is pushing “political apartheid”; Ted Cruz wins Dumbass Comment of the Week; recommendations for an Apple TV+ series and a book on the curious origins of the universe; the first Clash tour of the United States (and being trapped in a van driven by a punk on acid); MoxieCam™; and more.

Got suggestions, comments, complaints, tips related to any of the above, or anything else? Email me at thisland@motherjones.com.