I am questioning my sanity at enduring Inside 9/11 on the National Geographic Channel. Keith told me that he would NOT be watching, as it angers him to “kill” levels. Marines with combat experience get like that, so I don’t question it. But I have to watch.

I watched the first half of the documentary this time yesterday. I’m watching the last half tonight. I’m shaking and quaking with pain, grief, disgust… Thank God they’ve edited this documentary to include tales of righteous heroism between steady doses of tragedy or I wouldn’t be able to take it.

I wanted to be mad at Dubya for all of the warnings he ignored, prior to the attacks. I remember feeling that way before watching this excellent, gripping, fascinating documentary. But, of course, Clinton was also alerted of credible threats, years and years before the 9/11 attacks. And so was George Bush before him… and so on….

When I speak with Keith about things like this (he worked at the White House for two years, during the Reagan era), I am assured of what we all assume, really: that there are ALWAYS dozens of reports of credible threats to US security. Always.

What fascinated me about the profile-of-the-terrorists portion of the documentary (last night) was learning that the cowards, in their last night on the planet, ordered in-room pornography and called to check prices for hookers. Yes. Truly you are carrying out your god’s will with that crap. Ugh.

Of course, I am mortified at the state of FAA security measures pre-9/11. How could four-inch blades be PERMITTED items on airplanes? How could one hijacker with NO PHOTO ID be granted a boarding pass? Sheesh, if I begin asking questions, I’ll never finish the review of this unflinching documentary.

It is a steady dose of sickening replay (nearly in real-time, for hour three of the documentary, which is “zero hour”) and belief-challenging information about the human spirit, the will to endure, and the criminal mind.

I will never forget the phone call. Keith, at work on the east coast, called me and my best friend, who had stayed up late (in my pet-sitting gig locale) drinking, catching up, and planning her wedding on one of her semi-regular layovers into LAX. Sissafest had stretched late into the night, and we were not thrilled with the ringing phone, on this, Sissa’s day off in Hollywood. Keith’s voice, “Bon? I love you. I need to tell you bad news. Sissa is not going to work today. There have been a series of terrorist attacks on American soil. Turn on CNN, but brace yourself. I love you.”

Driving Sissa back to her crew at the hotel near LAX on that day was the weirdest thing. Easily a hundred planes: grounded. Like a graveyard. NOTHING in the air. And I have to pass through security unlike any I’ve experienced, just to drive Sissa back to her crew. Surreal.

Surreal like the Muzak piped in through the World Trade Center Plaza, even after the first tower had fallen, everyone covered in ash and debris.

I simply keep trying to understand the world we live in. Isn’t that all any of us can do? I have to constantly remember the millions upon millions of miracles I witness every day to try and balance the sadness I feel right now. It takes my breath away.

This wasn’t just a documentary, it was an outstanding synopsis of a history we’ve lived… stretching back from the early ’90s and up through this summer’s attacks in London. Somehow, I cannot bring myself to delete this “zero hour” half of the program from my TiVo. It’s too important a reminder.