 Not too long ago I went to give a lecture to the Military Officers Association of America and the man got up to introduce me and he couldn't remember my name. So he said, what's his name? Please stand up. So now I write these long three page intros and nobody wants to read about that. We're not here to hear about my great accomplishments in the world of advertising and they don't even, nothing matters anymore after 9-11. And really nothing matters much in my past at all because after 9-11 I was in shock for about ten years and finally came out of it. And not deep shock, I mean I functioned, I ran a business, personal development, leadership training but I was subdued, I really was subdued. And finally one morning I woke up and they said write a book. Write a book. So I went and took a course on how to write a book. Which you don't really need to do, just start writing the book. But I took a course and I submitted a paper and the woman who was grading the paper said you are a good storyteller. And as soon as she said that I said that's it. I'll write the book, I'll finish the book and I'll publish the book. I published the book. Now what do I do with the book? Well I got to sell some books to pay myself back. So what do I do to do that? Well I developed a PowerPoint presentation and some lecture notes and I go on the road speaking to groups all up and down the west coast where I live in Palm Desert, California. I was in the Army. I tried to get into the Navy. How many here are military? And how many are Navy? Okay well here's what happened. I was at Yale and I decided to get in the ROTC and my father decided because he wanted the 16 bucks a month or whatever they paid us. So I tried to get in the Navy and I failed because of my eyesight. So I tried to get in the Air Force and I failed because of my eyesight. But the Army took me. They gave me a special waiver for poor eyesight. Now I can hardly see without my glasses. Special waiver. I couldn't understand why would they give me a special waiver. Well it was the Korean War and they needed second lieutenants. And what else do you think they needed? They needed forward observers. I said oh my God suppose I'm on the observation post and I get shot in the face and my glasses break. I wouldn't be able to see and call in the fire. I thought it was kind of ridiculous but that's the way they would make exceptions under those kinds of circumstances. Now these are the eight bells. I expected to hear eight bells. Who's got the bell? You got the bell? Nobody's got the bell so we'll go ahead. So I'm here today to present to you my history of 9-11 as described in my new book on a clear day. 9-11 an eyewitness account. I'm the only eyewitness I know. I don't know where they all went. But I'm the first one who's written a book and a book that became the history. What started as a story of our fortuitous and timely escape from what was basically a sneak attack on our homeland by a bunch of terrorist thugs grew into an abbreviated but authentic history of what happened that day. Validated by David McCullough. Have you heard of David McCullough? Well, he's a very well-known historian and author and a friend of mine. And then he said this was a truly remarkable historical document. I didn't know that I'd written a historical document. My research in the subject was extensive. I wanted to know not only how and why 9-11 happened but who was responsible because afterwards I wanted to call them up. I wanted to say who, point the finger, point the blame. Who was responsible? How did it happen and why it happened? Who was responsible in allowing our country to be so vulnerable to an attack of terrorists flying our own planes, residing in the United States? Having resided in the United States for three years. Being trained to fly transcontinental jets becoming licensed by our own flight schools. I couldn't understand it. I still don't. I found out one thing I learned in my life is that for some questions there are no answers. You just have to accept life on life's terms. Since the CIA, FBI and other intelligence services had certain knowledge of an appending attack on high towers in major cities, why didn't they take measures to prevent it? Interestingly enough, on the morning of 9-11 in 1935, Donald Rumsfeld, who was the Secretary of Defense, was giving a talk to his staffmen in the Pentagon. And he said, ladies and gentlemen, I just want to tell you that someday there will be an attack on our cities by terrorists and they'll be going after high towers in our major cities. And 15 minutes later, the first plane hit the North Tower. Pearl Harbor, well, in a historical sense, unlike Pearl Harbor in 9-11, it was certainly unique if you can imagine being attacked by our own domestic terrorist organization called al-Qaeda representing not one country, but many Islamic nations, nations. They all had Saudi passports. Why did the 19 terrorists have Saudi passports? Because we were friendly with Saudi Arabia and they knew that and they figured it would be easier for them to get in than if they had a passport from Iran or Iraq or anywhere else over there in the Eastern countries. Perhaps even greater threat. This was the beginning of what Rutgers Law Review quoted in my book, described as a new kind of war. 9-11 was a manifestation of what was to come as we face an enemy who wants to kill us all regardless of age, sex or religion. The devastation to our civilization and psyche was unimaginable. So much so that it took me 10 years to recover from the symptoms of post-traumatic shock. I realized that I was in a unique position to bring 9-11 back into sharp focus. And so I tackled writing the book and the perspective of my experience as an authentic witness. But then I had to get out and tell my story and that's why I'm here today. I'm glad you're here today. I'm glad I'm here today. But for about a minute and a half that morning on 9-11 I would not be here today. Now, I have some facts and figures that I think are kind of interesting and you may remember some of them but I'll just highlight them before I get into my story, okay? 2,819 people died that day in the towers of Pentagon in the fields of Pennsylvania. More deaths from 9-11 than Union soldiers killed at Gettysburg. The attack was over in one hour and 15 minutes thinking of the shortest military conflict, air conflict in military history. One hour and 15 minutes and the show is over. 20% of Americans knew someone who was killed or damaged in the attack. How many of you know somebody who was killed in the attack? The largest exodus of humans in history by water including Dunkook in World War II. Do you know about the amazing boat lift of 500,000 people off the shores of Manhattan that day? I'll talk about it and I'll tell you where you can get more information on it. 500,000 people. Dunkook, there was something like 288,000. The largest elevator catastrophe in history with 200 or more frightened souls burning to death because they couldn't release the new locks that had been installed three weeks ago in the elevators. Firefighters and paramedics lost 30%, 30% of the rescue team. This was an unusual tragedy for the 343 fighters who because of faulty communications didn't get the word. Didn't get the word from their commander to abandon the building now because their radios weren't a wrong frequency. The fires burned on Ground Zero for 99 days. 99 days? That's a long time, isn't it? Only 20 people escaped as the towers began their fall. The South Tower where I was was hit 16 minutes after the North Tower but was the first to fall. Both towers fell to the ground in less than 10 seconds. I heard them fall. I was five blocks away. But, miracle of miracles. There were 4,400 planes in the air that day. It was a beautiful day in New York. 84 degrees. 4,400 planes in the air. They got them down to safety without mishap in less than an hour. Think of that. 4,400 planes. Over 422,000 New Yorkers suffered later from PTSD on one of them. That's a minor case. Illness from toxic and dust exposure numbered 18,000. The largest gold heist in history over 300 billion dollars of gold was stolen from the basement of the South Tower. Nobody knows how or when. How'd they get them out? Who knows? Those questions, it's unanswerable. 20% or more of the scrap steel also disappeared although much was sold to China and India. China got it at bargain prices. It was also used in the bow of the USS New York in the Mars Land Rovers in the US parks to commemorate 9-11. Well, that's kind of a backdrop of what I'm going to be talking about. And now it's time for the main event. So, here we have... Oh, I arrived the night before. I arrived on the night of the 10th. I stayed at a hotel five blocks away. Normally, I would stay at the Marriott, which, of course, was one of the buildings that was destroyed. Five blocks away. And I was there to give a lecture on how to invent your future. I may have mentioned that. So, here are the towers. Where did it go? There it is. It came back. Listen, this thing jumps around a lot. But I want you to know it's not because I've been drinking. And it's not going on. Am I aiming the right way? There we are. Well, anyway, this is the North Tower. And this is the South Tower. And this is where I was on the 78th floor. They're both about 1,300 feet tall. 50,000 population. Now, why doesn't it do that? And we won't play with it anymore. This is where I had dinner the night before and windows on the world. And I got very friendly with the Mater D. And she died the next morning. And I have a recording of her last words, begging the police to come and save her. That's the complex in the center. Huge. Each of those buildings, by the way, each floor was about an acre. So this is something like 14,000 acres around this place. And it was huge. It does the collision course of the plane. You can see the north one here. This was the one that hit at 846 a.m. And this is the one where I was, which hit at 90301. I kind of remembered these numbers. Now, this shows you the towers. There are basically five of them. There's seven of them. But five, they went down very fast. The seventh tower didn't go down until 5 p.m., but there's a special reason for that. And the ones in the red are buildings nearby that were so badly damaged they had to be blown up. They had to be destroyed. The ones in kind of the murky yellow all needed major structural repair. And all the ones, the other ones, these around here, all this area, there was damage in the apartments and a lot of it was asbestos damage. 134 countries had people in those towers who died. This is the gang leader. And he's a bad guy. And he was the one who directed the planes that day and trained the pilots and trained what they called the muscle men. And the muscle men are the ones who had box cutters. One of them got his hands on a pistol. One of the terrorists in his apartment, he had a big apartment, built a mock-up of the flight deck of a 757. The doors and everything. So they could practice getting out of their seats and time getting out of their seats and going up to take over the plane. These were smart people. They were well trained. They'd been in training for three years. The plan had been in development for five years. Five years. There was no hurry. He was having breakfast in Boston at the airport at about the time that I was having breakfast in the hotel in New York. These are the bad guys. Really bad guys. I call this the smallest weapon of mass destruction in the world. It's a box cutter. Three weeks ago I was going from Palm Springs to San Francisco to give a lecture at the yacht club up there. I didn't realize it, but I had two box cutters in my carry-on luggage. They didn't catch them. I didn't know it. I didn't know I had them until I got there. I didn't think about it twice. Coming back from San Francisco, they caught them. They confiscated them. They asked me if I wanted to mail them home. I said, no, I don't want to. Isn't that interesting that one of the security systems couldn't pick them up, but another one could. These are the flight paths, the planes. You can see where number one was here, Boston. That's the first plane that hit the north tower at 846 a.m. And here's the second one that came around south, flew over the Sandpoint nuclear facility, by the way, and into my tower. Now I don't talk much about Pennsylvania. I don't talk much about the Pentagon because I'm not an expert on anything, by the way, but I know what was going on in New York in those towers. So you see where the turns are being made? Do you know why they turned to the left and came back around or turned? That's when the terrorists took over control of the planes with box cutters. That's lobby that I went into, got a badge, went upstairs, expressed elevator, 78th floor nonstop, then back down. So I got upstairs about 8.45 that morning, having walked over on a beautiful, clear day, got upstairs, said hello to everybody. I was there to give this lecture on how to invent your future and reinvent your life. It was a growth, growth, mental thing, and it works. So I got upstairs, said hello at 8.45, then about exactly 8.46. I heard this, boom! I thought, oh my goodness, what is that? The boss, the leader said, the guy who employed me said, what the hell was that? I'd never heard him use any swear word. What the hell is that? I said I don't know but I'll find out. Now why I was the one who was going to find out, I don't know because I'm a guest and I'm a lecturer there. That's just my natural instinct. I teach leadership. So that was, I guess, my example of my leadership. So I went down the hall. I'd been in a bombing attack before in 1973 in the Mobile Oil Building. And I went down the hall. I didn't see any damage. And in just that moment, just almost consistent with a bang, the building shook. My building trembled. My hackles went up in the back of my neck. My heart stopped beating, I'm sure of it. And I felt the air pressure change. What had happened was an impact, and we didn't know it, of the first plane hitting the impact. The shock waves went down under the street and back up our building. And that's what it was. I said to myself, uh-oh, this is a big one. This is the big one. This may be the beginning of the nuclear war. If not, it's the beginning of World War III, which in effect it was the beginning of a World War III, a different kind of war. I didn't know what to do, and I froze. Then I got into action. I went back to the conference room, and what was a clear day? I looked outside. There was not longer a clear day. It was all gray with stuff shooting by. I thought it was confetti. Somebody pointed out, you don't drop confetti from the 78th floor of the side. It doesn't go sideways. It goes down. I said, oh my God. Gotta get out of here. So I said, okay, follow me. It was my seminar. The manager was there, and he said, yeah, come on, let's go. Well, I didn't know where going was, because it was the first time I'd been in that building on the 78th floor. I knew it was an express elevator I'd taken. And this woman named Carol came along and said, come on, I know how to get out of here. So we went. We headed towards the exits. Now, the elevators in these buildings are very near the stairway. Now, in 1973, in the attack on the mobile building, I had to go down 39 flights of stairs, and it took an hour. And this little voice that told me to get out also told me, you don't have time. You don't have that time. Get out now. Take the elevator. Well, right above the elevator, there's a sign that says what? Case of emergency? Do not take the elevator. Take the stairs. And you know what I said? No way, Jose. Those are not my exact words. Just take the elevator. Now, about that time, I came over the loudspeaker. Ladies and gentlemen, it is not our building that was hit. It was the north tower that was hit. Now, we didn't know what being hit was. It could have been a missile plane, whatever was hit. It is all right to go back to your offices as far as we know. Some people took that as a directive to go back to their offices. The three of our people stayed in the conference room and within two or three minutes, they were gone. They were vaporized upon the impact of the plane. So, the elevator doors finally opened. Now, just get on the elevator. Right, very simple. Look, on the elevator. I'm used to doing that. Not that simple. Elevator holds 55 people. There may have been two, three, 400 people trying to get into that elevator, pushing and shoving and elbowing. So, I had to push and shove and elbow. That's not my style. And this woman I was with, Carol, she was very tiny. I had to almost carry her onto the elevator. We got on the elevator. We got halfway into the elevator. And it got so crowded, and I'm saying to myself, my God, I'm going to die in here. I'm going to get crushed to death. The people in back of me pushed us forward. We pushed the people in front of them, of us, and people in front of us pushed people out. And I still have nightmares about that. I feel badly about that, that I was one of the people that helped cause other people to get pushed out of the elevator. Of course, if they'd gotten on, we wouldn't have gone anywhere. The elevator doors closed, and I can still hear them screaming. Help me. Save me. Don't leave without me. You can imagine how you might feel. Elevator didn't go right away. And a few moments later, it did go down. I held my breath. Everybody else in the elevator must have held their breath. 78 seconds, it was down. They go down a floor a second, got down to the first floor, started out towards the door where I had come in, and the security guard down there said, no, you can't go that way. You have to go this way. Well, this way was the North Tower. And I didn't know there was a bridge to safety, but I thought he was heading me back to the North Tower. And I'd just been told that it was the North Tower that was it. So they said, no way, Jose. Those weren't my exact words. And we argued a bit, and I took off with Carol. We went out the front door, and there were people now coming from the North Tower that had been hit at 846. Now it's 903, 902.5, 902. Here we go out the door, the mobs of people, throngs of people, in the air, fire coming from the North Tower, disaster, pandemonium in the streets, screaming and yelling and pushing and shoving, just at that moment. Bang! Another crash. As I look up, I saw where we had been hit, right where we had been standing, less than two or three minutes before. And that's why I said earlier, except for about a minute and a half, I wouldn't be here today. So we started running. We started running for it. And I want to show you a couple of more slides here. That's the plane hit my building. And that's where I was. Now notice it's coming at an angle. That's because it came out of a turn. It was banking when it turned down over the nuclear facility. It came in this way. So in effect it hit more floors when it impacted then the first plane, which hit at a higher level. I looked up and that's what I saw. Now that's my imagination, and that's an artist's conception. Because it couldn't possibly have seen buildings both looked like they had just been hit. But okay, I'm trying to make a point here. That's what it looked like when I looked out. Thought it did. And I could hear people screaming. I could hear the jumpers. And the ash and the soot and the debris flying off the buildings and on the street was very dangerous. Very dangerous. And now we go into really fast running. Here's a 78-year-old man out running 40-year-old boys. And I really was moving. And so was she. All of a sudden the big guy comes along. Must have been a center for the nets. And you knocked her over. Knocked her down. Now I have another decision to make. The first one was, do I stay or go from the building? The second was, which way do I go? Third one was, do I take the elevator or do I take the stairs? Fourth one, do I stop and pick her up? And the inclination was, no, I don't stop and pick her up. I'm gonna get killed if I stop and pick her up. I stopped and picked her up. She was bloodied and bruised and thankful for her. We're thankful. And her name was Carol. Carol in the book, but that's not her real name. She didn't want me to use her real name. She wanted nothing to do with me or the book or the whole day at all. So she's been in shock and she's been in post-traumatic stress. Yet she's still a very successful sales lady. Now we're running for the East River because we're gonna jump in the river to save ourselves. Now, at this point I figured it probably wasn't a nuclear attack. We didn't know what it was. We knew it was planes and not missiles. It's not hitting my building. The noise is indescribable. I'm telling you, how many of you have been in service and been in war? You heard a lot of loud noises, right? This was unlike anything I ever heard in the field artillery. That's not me, but it could have been. But it would have been after the building started to fall. But that's an idea of what was going on. Here are these people panicking. We ended up back at the hotel. We were gonna jump in the East River. Now we're exhausted so we go into the hotel. What do I do when I get in the hotel? The first thing I do is go put out the burners underneath the chafing dishes in case of a fire. Here we are in possibly the World War III or a nuclear attack and I'm blowing out the fires under the chafing dishes in the hotel. Didn't seem to make a lot of sense. Then I go into the kitchen and I locate the fire extinguisher. I ask them, where's the fire extinguisher? Nobody knew where the fire extinguisher. What are you gonna do with the fire extinguisher in a nuclear attack? I don't know, but I heard you should do these things. We finally found the fire extinguisher and I put somebody in charge of the fire extinguisher. Then the hotel management saw what I was doing and taken over there, the kitchen and the dining room. The people in the kitchen, they were still in shock. They thought I was the new manager. The manager came over and asked me if I wouldn't mind closing the bar. I said I wouldn't mind at all. I'd be happy to close the bar for you. I went over the bar and there are three Australians nursing their foster's ale. Now have you ever tried to separate an Australian from their foster's ale? It is a challenging job. But finally they left. Then I had to cap the bottles. I couldn't find all the caps to the bottles. I was a little nervous at the time. So here I'm tearing all saran wrap, putting over the bottles in a nuclear attack or whatever it was. Nothing I did was making sense, but it was all had its own purpose. I went upstairs and I soaked the towel in the bathtub. I turned off the air conditioner so nothing would come in. Meanwhile, people were coming through the revolving doors and as they came in the revolving doors, all smoke, ash and soot came in with them and started to gradually rise in the hotel and got up to the 15th floor where I was. So back down I go and I decide I'll be Mr. Mercy or Dr. Mercy and help them. So I set up a little table with dampened towels so people could see themselves. She's wiped her face off and she was a black lady. I said, oh my God, you're black. Now there's nothing about racing here. Oh my God, you're black. And she looked up at me and said, why not? And that broke the ice. We both just left and left and left. So I was helping these people. I was also trying to get in touch with my wife who was still in California where we were house sitting on the beach in Bodega Bay. Anyway, the story goes on. And I said, listen, we've got 50 people in here who are hungry now in New York. You may know that they depend upon the trucks coming in over the bridges in the tunnels to provide the food every morning because the refrigeration capacity is limited. Though we don't have food. So I said to the chef, how are we going to feed these people? He said, that's easy. I said, what do you mean that's easy? How are you going to get food in here? Chinese. Would you believe? About an hour later. Chinese show up with trays of food. Now, the streets are blocked. The barricades are up. The police are out. The ambulance are in the street. The cop cars, emergency vehicles. How did they get there? And I finally realized that what I had always believed was truth. You've noticed that most of the Chinese restaurant menus are very similar. The names of General Cao or General whoever it is is on there. And if you've noticed carefully, you look into the kitchens in the Chinese restaurant, they all look alike. Oh, I said that's a fantasy I had. There is a master of Chinese chicken, a kitchen under the streets of New York. And they service all the Chinese restaurants in New York. And furthermore, they have their own secret subway system. Now, I think I was beginning to lose it a little bit. So we ate and there was more, more going on. It's in the book. It's all in the book. I mean, details are all in the book. But three o'clock comes, turn the water off in the hotel. The water is off everywhere to feed water into what is no longer the World Trade Center. It is now ground zero. What is now the pile? Because it was changed its name. Now it's the pile of all smoldering beams and burning concrete and burning everything else. They needed the water and they needed, now at 4.30, they needed the electricity. They needed the electricity because they needed to turn the lights on because it was dark now. It's still in the ash and everything. So they told us in the hotel they were going to have to shut down the electricity. They couldn't guarantee our safety. Though I took off. I grabbed anything I could from my room to carry. I don't even remember what I took. I took off and I was headed for the subway if you know New York at all. Even if you don't, it's across town to the east side of town. I wanted to get on the Lexington Avenue coming north to a hotel where I'd stayed at many, many times. Now it's so dark. I don't know where I am. I got lost. It took me three hours to get about 15 minutes. It would normally take 15 minutes. And on the way I was stopped by a member of the SWAT team who told me I couldn't go east. I had to go south. Told them I didn't want to go south. I had to go east. I'm an old man. I'm crippled and I have a heart problem, which was all a lie. I was old. And he said, listen, buddy, I don't have time for all this. Just go the way I tell you to go. I said, yes, sir. He was fully armed. So I said, yes, sir. I went south about five minutes later, three very tall men, boys, 17, 18, 19, 20, showed up, blocked my way, told them my story. They said, oh, you're a hero. We'd like to get your autograph. I said, well, I'd be delighted to give you my autograph. But I left my pen back in the hotel room. I had to leave in a hurry. There was silence. And then a couple of seconds later, they said, oh, by the way, do you have any money on you? I said, oh, I didn't know what to say. I said, well, I'm sorry, I left my wallet back in the hotel room. I was in such a hurry to get out. Then they started closing in on me. And just then the SWAT team shows up. Scared them off. Said they weren't boys from Brooklyn. They're notorious thieves and thugs from a gang on the south side of New York. And they were out to rob you, rape you, murder you, or whatever. Get your money. So I was saved again. I'm saved again. Somebody's looking after me. I'll tell you that. I finally got on the subway. And I said, oh, boy, I'm safe. Well, I really didn't feel safe. I was the only one on the subway. And it was the last subway. The doors closed just as I got on it. I'm the last person except the conductor. And every time that subway stopped, it was not an express. Every time it stopped, I was terrified that these thugs were following. Now here comes the paranoia. And they were going to get on. And they were going to torture me and take my money. So it was not a comfortable subway ride. Then I got up to the hotel. I had called the hotel from the room to make a reservation. And they said they'd have a room for me. But they said, call us back. Now, I'm going to call them back. If I'm running through the streets of New York terrified, I didn't have a cell phone. I mean, this was in 2000. This was 2000 in one. I didn't have anybody to call them back. So I got to the hotel. And I was covered with soot and ashes. They didn't recognize me. I'd stayed there almost three or four times a month. They didn't recognize me. Oh, Mr. Upson. So we couldn't hold your room for you because you didn't call back. Oh, gosh. So I started to leave the hotel. And they said, however we talked to Mrs. Hemsley, she owned the hotel. And the reason I stayed there was she gave us all a discount, senior citizens. That's why I stayed there. She said she wants to give you a room for you of charge for the night. We're going to give you the suite. So that was very nice. I went up, freshened up in the room now. This time it's almost nine o'clock at night. Though I go next door to my favorite restaurant, the Chiam, Chinese American to have dinner. And that was another nice thing because the Mater D said, we usually close at nine o'clock. But for you, Mr. Upson, we'll stay open as long as you need us. So ha, I really felt good about that. I really felt good about that. And the story goes on. And the next morning I woke up, my brother came over. I hadn't seen him for 10 years. He couldn't believe it. And he was grateful. And he offered to give me some money. And he always does. The older brothers do. So I didn't take it. My pride got in the way. And then I realized, I can use it. So I said, I'll take it. So he gave me $500, which I did pay back. And we embraced. And he left. And then I went to the library. And I did a lot of research. I went on. I got the mission statements for the CIA, the FBI, the Defense Department, the Office of Management, the budget I got for the president thing. And I got all the information because I wanted to find out who was responsible for not making the decision or having the information that could have stopped this from happening. I finally took several years for it to filter in and for me to finally figure out what I think really went wrong. I don't have time to talk about that right now. But if it comes up in the Q&A, that would be fine. So then I was picked up the next morning by limousine sent by the manager, the owner of the company that I was working for. I was consulting to. And they were having a service, a memorial service for the three men that had died two days before. And then stayed with Jersey, they waived the law, the law which says you have to have a death certificate to have a burial or to have a final service. They waived that law. So anyway, I stayed. And that night I was taken to a hotel in New Jersey where I was doing another series of seminars the next day. And people said, how could you possibly have done that? I said, I don't know. I said, just spirit move me. I wasn't going to not live up to my obligation and responsibility for my clients because of somebody 10,000 miles away who was trying to kill me. Not going to do that. So I stayed and I went back to California. I met with my wife. And well, we had a lovely home. We were house sitting on the beach. And every morning I got up around 7 or 8 o'clock. I have breakfast and I go downstairs in the fire, sit in the chair and fall asleep. That was not my pattern. I'm a morning person. And so that was sort of symptomatic. There was something wrong with me. I did have a cough. And I did go to the emergency room in the hospital in a place called Petaluma. The doctor there treated me and said, you really don't have anything that bad. It'll go away. Here are some pills. That was okay. And so as I was leaving the doctor's office, he said, by the way, you wouldn't know this about me, but I was the physician in residence in the South Tower when it was being built. I mean, now it's an amazing coincidence to go back to our house where I was house sitting and I had a nightmare, a lot of nightmares. My wife said I had them for a year, lots of nightmares. And one of them, I remember, very, very brightly, brilliantly, I remember, that Ben Lawden had attacked our beach with the al-Qaeda. So I grabbed two AK-47s. Do you remember the John Wayne movies? You know where he comes out with two pistols? I had two AK-47s and I was going down to the beach and I was going to kill them all. And I did. I did. I killed all the al-Qaeda and I saved Ben Lawden for last. Shot him in the face. And of course, 10 years later, 12 years later, somebody shoots him in the face. Let's see what we have left here. There's some more pictures. You've seen a lot of these street scenes. That was in the federal building. That was the only surviving structure. Oh, there was a tree, a pear tree that survived. It's now on display down there. That's what I could have looked like. More firemen grieving. Nighttime. That's the bucket brigade. Do you know what the bucket brigade did? Yeah, you know. What was it? They wanted to bring down the wallets and purses and it remains what they could find. Some of the remains were in New Jersey. The rescue dog, there were 110 rescue dogs. They didn't find any bodies. They became disenchanted and lackluster lost interest. So what the trainers did was make effigies of human beings, bodies and throw them into the building so the dogs would have something to find. Two weeks later, they sent in another 100 dogs, either comfort dogs. There's one of the rescue dogs. This I love. It's one of my favorite shots. I put that in there because I love it. It says so much. The flag of the United States of America. They're flying. They put them all over the pile. That's the guy. Now imagine walking down the street at night in the gloom in the dark with the putrid air and stuff like that, running into a guy like this. Let me tell you, it's kind of scary. Then he showed up. It's not the guy. This is just a picture I found and interdicted the muggers. Now this is taken from the water. Very few shots were taken from the water in the Hudson River. Coast Guard put out the call in the afternoon, early afternoon, calling all boats. By maritime law, any boat, here's that, has to show up. 140 boats showed up. All sorts of boats. Power boats, speed boats, yachts. Tug boats. I have all the tug boats listed in my book. And guess what? I met one of the tug boat captains who's staying where I'm staying. And he couldn't talk about it. He couldn't talk about it. They ferried off 500,000 people. Each boat had a name of where they were going to go so you would know what boat to get on. There were no fatalities, no accidents, and no harm done to any of those half million people. And there were more than a half million, I'm sure of it. Now this became the first line of defense. The F-15s, it's all covered in my book, but they were impotent. They couldn't fulfill their mission. So this is the Coast Guard repaying our first line of defense in this country. And that's the U.S. NS Comfort Thousand Bed Hospital ship that came up from Norfolk. And it happened to meet the admiral who commissioned her. This is another coincidence in my life. I just wanted to show examples. They treated 800 and something cases of toxic inhalation, broken fractured limbs and things like that. That's the F-15. That's a whole other story. I went up to Northern California and I bought a copy. I bought a model of the F-15. And these are the two pilots. They both have a very interesting play in this role of trying to save our country. And that's the U.S.S. New York that was commissioned in 2008. And that hull is made of recycled steel. Land Rover has recycled material on it, an American flag, fly around the world. The next million years you'll see it up there. That's a classic photograph of Mr. Bush. I sent Mr. Bush a copy of my letter, of my book. And he wrote me the nicest letter back. I kept it at home. There's his famous bullhorn address. And this is the guy. And this is the bad guy. This is the guy who wanted to do 10 cities, 10 towers and three nuclear facilities. He is resting uncomfortably, I hope, in Guantanamo. How many of you recognize the one on the left? How many people remember that flag at Iwo Jima? I put that in there just to show the two juxtaposed. Those are lights which are no longer there. And they were replaced by this. And that's the cover of my book. I commissioned an artist to do that. And unusual, like most artists, he did exactly what I asked him to do. I have one other thing for you. The world shared America's grief. 9-11 is not likely to be dismissed by history, nor should it be forgotten. The memory needs to be kept alive, which is why I'm here and why my book is here. We must unite as a family and say to that bunch of fanatical cowards, stop, go away. You are not welcome here. You will not and cannot destroy our values, our democratic way of life nor our freedoms. We will resist you and hunt you down until we destroy your will to harm us. And you are eliminated from the face of the earth for this is America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. And I have one other thing that I want to read to you, something I found on the internet just about a week ago. And it stirred my imagination, my emotions. The flag does not fly because the wind that blows it. The flag flies because each soldier's breath blows by it. It's the military, not the politicians, that ensure a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is the military who salute the flag, who serve beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag. So with that I say thank you for being here. Thank you very much. God bless you and God bless America. By the policy of the Naval War College, I'm not allowed to sell books up here. So there are some down in the gift shop, and if you want to go down and get a book, they're usually $100, but for the Navy, I'm making them $19.95. So if you've got a $20 bill, be my guest. And remember that when you're buying a book, you're not just buying a book, you're buying a piece of 9-11 and a memory of 9-11 to be kept alive. So again, thank you for coming. If I can answer any questions.