Movie looks at 9/11 through a child's eyes
NEW YORK - Think about what you remember from when you were 4. It's typically snippets. At best, it is fuzzy and brief.
But for Brook Peters, now 14, there's a good half-hour from when he was 4 that still plays in his mind in high definition. CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman reports that his mom was running.
"She was holding me like this - so my head is facing that way while she's running," Brook said. "It was confusion. I was looking at pure chaos at the time. The flood of smoke and fire and the chaos of the noise. "
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Sept. 11 was Brook's second day of kindergarten at grade school four blocks from ground zero. Few kids were closer and even fewer were as hard hit.
"It was something I had to deal with for even years later," Brook said. "And it still follows me."
Brook didn't lose a father that day - he lost dozens of them.
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His mom was a volunteer fundraiser for the New York City Fire Department and since her son had no dad, the guys pretty much adopted Brook. He took his first steps in a firehouse and helped wash the truck every Saturday.
"I've always grown up with the guys," Brook said. "They were my guys."
His story was just in a Tribeca Film Festival documentary called "The Second Day," which he produced. In it, he also talks to other kids in his class about their recollections.
"I was terrified," one boy said.
Turns out, he wasn't the only one who has been playing that video on a loop all these years.
"The towers seemed so close when we were running," a girl said.
Peter Napolitano was Brook's kindergarten teacher.
"I just sort of assumed that they were unaffected and that's why Brook's film is so important -because I was wrong," Napolitano said.
At 4 and 5, they knew and felt more than most anyone imagined. According to Brook, recent events won't help much.
"It never will get better," he said
"No matter who we catch and kill?" Hartman asked.
"No. That's just vengeance and justice - but the true hit will forever remain the same," Brook said.
Although most everyone welcomed the news this week, for people like Brook, getting even for what that man did remains a poor substitute for getting back to the way it was.
