On September 11, 2001; I was a junior in high school. In the middle of my first or second period class the Middle School Director walked into the room and said that after the period was over we all needed to go to the auditorium. Once I reached the auditorium I found two of my classmates who told me that planes had flown into the World Trade Centers. I honestly didn’t believe that story. Then in the imprompu assembly our teachers confirmed that it was true.

Now 19 years later I have decided to revisit that day by reading The Only Plane In The Sky by Garret M Graff. And I’m honestly glad I did decide to read this book. For a girl that lives about an hour south of NYC and lived in fear for the rest of the day because Philly was directly in the middle of NYC and Washington, DC and the next most credible target; there has always been a lot of mystery around that day for me. Graff removes alot of that with his compilation of first hand accounts of the day from surviors.

I will say that reading the first hand accounts is chilling, but it provides alot more detail into that fateful day for the accounts of military personnel, first responders, and those who made it out of the Twin Towers. I never knew about the mass water evacuations that took place that day or the shear number of bulidings in the viciity of the World Trade Centers that were affected by the building collapses. I appreciate that the book goes a chronologically through the day as possible and focuses on the massive number of individual events that took place that day.

The one thing in the book that struck me, is how everyone in the book rememberd what the weather was like that day. That is one thing that I don’t remember, probably because I was a 16 year old who didn’t realize that was more to life than high school drama at that time. But after reading this book and hearing people’s stories and how the events of that day have continued to effect them all of these years later; I will be sure to make sure that I remember the little things more.