I called my own mother around dinnertime. She’d been working at Logan International Airport for a few years. Months before, her boss had hired a private firm to investigate Logan’s security issues. The government didn’t like the firm’s report, and demanded that it be re-written. There were too many suggestions, such as checking the baggage of layover passengers, that would have been expensive and an inconvenience. (ft 2)

In the days to follow, I would become enraged at the public’s reaction. The daughter of a deceased firefighter, I hated that people were acting as if heroism was invented in New York that morning, by the men and women who rushed into burning, self-destructive buildings, when all common sense must have screamed against it.

That was the job they signed up for, I shouted at the screen. My father was every bit the hero they were.