Documentary

This movie was extremely difficult to watch. I thought it was interesting how this was Tony’s first job and it captured everything about his first days or weeks (?) leading up till 9/11. I don’t remember how long it was from when they first started filming to when 9/11 actually happened, but it was cool to see how NYC fire departments are organized. When all the first responders and firefighters were in the lobby of the tower, I was nervous the tower was going to collapse then and they would lose all those firefighters. Eventually, when they all went back to the firehouse they explained that they did not know how they survived and were all hugging each other. That part was extremely sad because they could have lost their whole squad in a matter of a few hours. The most disturbing part for me was when they were talking about the crashing noises and how those were people who jumped. I could not imagine what those people saw and how they dealt with it. One of the guys says “every time you hear that crashing sound it’s a life, it’s not something you get used to and the sound was so loud”, and then a couple seconds later you immediately hear that noise. It also made me sad that they only pulled out 1 person alive. Even though that was only 1 person, it was still someone, which makes their efforts worth it. I consider these firefighters and first responders heroes. They went out of their way despite all the danger and the unknown and did anything they could to help people. In the beginning, when the firefighters realized that the elevators were not working, none of them panicked or didn’t want to help. They all did whatever they could even though they were risking their lives. Orio Palmer was a true hero. He went up all those flights of stairs (78 I think) to save as many people as he could. He and the other firefighters that went up there freed a group of people that made it to the ground right before the towers collapsed. One of the best quotes of the whole movie was when Tony said “it’s either this or the army, and I like saving lives, not taking them. But after what I saw, if my country sent me out to go kill, I’d do it now.” I thought it showed the true bravery of these people and how they would do anything in their power to protect America.