In this audio reconstruction I used different audio sources to make a chronology of the events. Main core is formed by the NY fire department radio dispatches, other important sources are the recordings by the NEADS (North Eastern Defense System), the call by Betty Ong onboard the hijacked AA flight 11, and the unnerving 911 calls made by Melissa Doi and Kevin Cosgrove trapped in the WTC (transcripts). Miscellaneous other sources complete the picture of the tragedy.25% of the proceeds will be donated to the New York Police & Fire widow's & children's benefit fund.On the 11th of september this year it wil be 10 years since the 9/11 attacks. A day that will forever be part of the world's collective memory. I'm not American but Dutch. On that day I walked into the workplace of a theatre group in Amsterdam that I worked for. Everyone was fixated on a radio broadcast. I stood there as the people around me explained:"There is an attack on New York. The World Trade Centre has been hit by rockets and is on fire". Now I'm of a generations that has been numbed by years of close television coverage of wars, famines, and natural disasters. I can't easily be stirred. But I remember that on that moment a chill went down my spine. New York under attack. The most celebrated city of the modern age. The most powerful state of the world under attack. is this WW3 starting. As we listened and discussed what seemed to be happening the feeling slowly subsided. It must be a terrorist attack. The Palestinians most likely. We had never heard of Al-Qaida at the time. But it was big. I had to get to a television screen. I thought of the nearest friend in that neighborhood, cycled there and watched the WTC collapse, realizing these buildings were like small towns and thousands, maybe tens of thousands people might have died. Returning home I was glued to the TV again and spend the whole day and night watching CNN and other channels. Even as it was becoming clear nothing new was happening, and the images and talk were just being repeated, I couldn't bring myself to go to sleep. I had to undergo this mantra of horror and violence over and over again for it to become real. It otherwise just made no sense. A lot has been written on 9/11 and there are some good films, especially the 9/11 documentary by the Naudet brothers is very powerful. But from all the documents pertaining to this tragedy I found the loosely scattered audio material on youtube and other internet sources the most compelling. I decided to bring this material together and make a reconstruction of the attacks of 9/11 using only sound. I used the 9/11 dispatches from the fire department as a backbone for a timeline and fitted the other material in. Then I condensed the length to make it fit on an audio CD. In doing so I believe the CD gives a faithful account of the events as they unfolded. This reconstruction makes the events disturbinly tangible and up close and personal. I remember listening to Melissa Doi, trapped on the 83rd floor just above the impact zone of the plane, and just being shattered. Angrily and sadly thinking to myself that an idea is never worth more then a human live.Ten years later with the killing of Osama Bin Laden it seems the circle has been closed. There is still the presence of US (and allied) forces in Afghanistan, but I'm sure most people can't wait to see them get home, and bring this painful episode in contemporary history to a closure. But people will always be getting back to those 102 minutes in the early morning of the 11th of september 2001 when the invulnerability of the US as a world dominating power was challenged. I hope that this audio reconstruction will help them to get an idea of what happened on that day. What it meant, not from a political standpoint, but for the people directly involved. How a normal day turned into a nightmare. And how people had to fight for themselves and the ones around them, and cope with the terrible situation they found themselves in.I've listened extensively to this material in making this reconstruction and was awestruck by the demeanor and composure everyone showed given the circumstances. I tried very hard to find the name of, and honor the fireman who, responding to the call for help from Captain Fuentes, said:"Let him know we're on our way". To show this much stamina and character after finding oneself in nothing short of a warzone, and walk right back into the epicentre of this warzone to get a fellow human being out. That's truly heroic. But I never could match a name to the voice. So let this anonymous person represent everyone involved in the tragic events, that are the subject of this CD, when I say that you've got my full respect. I can only hope given the same circumstances I would act the same, but I'm not so sure.N23nZ 15 august 2011